“We are going to have the Air Force, and we are going to have the Space Force. Separate but equal. It is going to be something,” President Donald Trump said during a June 18 meeting of the National Space Council. “I’m hereby directing the department of Defense and the Pentagon to immediately begin the process necessary to establish a Space Force as the sixth branch of the armed forces. That’s a big statement.”

Until Trump put it under a massive spotlight, the Space Force (or Space Corps) only existed as an academic and policy debate in Washington blue-ribbon commissions and occasional congressional hearings.

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Sandra Erwin writes about military space programs, policy, technology and the industry that supports this sector. She has covered the military, the Pentagon, Congress and the defense industry for nearly two decades as editor of NDIA’s National Defense...