09 04 25 Space Policy and Security expert Todd Harrison on Trump Space Command move

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Now on Colorado's Morning News, President Trump announcing that Space
Command will be moving from Colorado Springs to Huntsville, Alabama.
Al the mover versus former President Biden's twenty twenty three
decision not to relocate the command, which oversees military space
operations and the defense of satellites.

Speaker 2 (00:16):
Joining US now in the KA Comma Spirit Health Hotline,
Senior Fellow and the Foreign and Defense Policy Program at
the American Enterprise Institute. It's Todd Harrison. Todd, Welcome to
Colorado's Morning News. I'm going to take a little different tact.
I want to ask you what are the things that
we should be asking and what is the number one
thing you look at with a decision or an initiative
like this.

Speaker 3 (00:37):
Hi, good morning. Well, I think for the local community
there in Colorado Springs, I think there's several things to
be asking about. One is the extent of what missions
and functions and associated jobs are actually going to be
moving to Huntsville. It doesn't mean that everything space related,

(00:58):
of course, is going to be leaving Colorado Springs, but
there's still a lot of questions about which specific jobs
and functions are going to move. And then the second
question to be asking is what's the timeline? How long
is this going to take. This is not something that's
going to happen overnight. It's not going to happen in
the next year. It's probably going to be over the

(01:20):
next five six, seven years that this is going to happen.
And I think that's all important for the local community
to understand and prepare for Todd.

Speaker 1 (01:29):
When we talk five six seven years about just the
logistics of what it could look like, do we have
any idea of like a step by step process of
moving Space Command? And I'll be completely transparent here This
may be a dumb question, but at some point would
SPACECM be inoperable, almost like down during the moving process.

Speaker 3 (01:49):
Well, that's a great question, and that's one of the
risks that has to be mitigated in this because US
military space operations can't cease, they can't have downtime, right,
you know, we can't go without GPS during the transition,
and there's a lot of other space functions that the
military depends on that are going to have to transition.

(02:11):
And so you know, what we're likely to see is
a long period of construction of new facilities in Huntsville.
Once those facilities are ready, we'll see people starting to
move into them, and then there's going to have to
be some transition period where you've got operation centers running
both in Huntsville and in Colorado Springs in parallel, where

(02:34):
they can start to hand over capability. The reason you
need both running in parallel is because when you hand
something over, you may discover that the new facilities and
the systems that you built in Huntsville may not work
as intended, and you need a fallback, you know, if
and when that happens. And so yeah, I think there's

(02:55):
going to be a period it could be months, it
could be a year or more where we've got some
parallel operations going on, and in that period, the total
manpower requirement is actually going to be higher than the
normal steady state level.

Speaker 2 (03:11):
Todd, from your perch as an expert in defense policy,
does this move improve readiness?

Speaker 4 (03:16):
Since we hear this all the time, you know, I
don't think it improves readiness. I think that there are
definitely risks to readiness. Those risks can and will be mitigated.
It's going to cost money to build all these new facilities,
and you know, I know they did their their trade
studies in everything. But what they were really comparing is

(03:38):
what is the cost of building all new facilities in
Colorado springs and then staffing them, you know, over the
long haul, versus building all new facilities in Huntsville and
staffing those facilities. And you know that's where it.

Speaker 3 (03:52):
Came out in favor of Huntsville. Uh, this wasn't a
question of readiness. Uh. You know this really at the
end of the day, As President Trump made clear in
his Oval Office press briefing about this the other day,
this came down to politics. You know, the President cited

(04:13):
mail in ballots in Colorado, he said his words, where
it was a major factor. I don't think that's actually true.
I've seen the analysis that's been done. It did not
take into account these extraneous factors. But it's also fair
that readiness was not a main driving factor in this.
It was driven more by cost. And then you know

(04:36):
the politics of where do you put these jobs?

Speaker 1 (04:39):
Putting costs and politics aside. In your personal opinion, looking
at the logistics and operation of space, man, is there
a peak location? Is there a best place where it
should be headquartered?

Speaker 3 (04:51):
Well, you know my personal opinion, I tend to be cheap.
You asked my kids, and I would have kept it
in Colorado Springs, and I would not I have built
all new facilities. I would have done some gradual upgrades,
you know, and expansions as necessary over time. But I
would have kept it in Colorado Springs. I don't see

(05:12):
any reason to move it. The job's been done there
for decades, and we don't have any problems, and you've
already got all the families and all the infrastructure in place.
You know nothing against Hunsville, but you know, I didn't
see any reason to move it, or to even entertain
the basing question in the first place.

Speaker 2 (05:34):
Final question from US Todd. Then you say this could
take five, six seventy eight years. Could another president come
in in reverse course on this again?

Speaker 3 (05:42):
Yeah, no, that's a great question. I would say it
depends on how quickly the d od actually gets moving
on this. They did not request money for this in
their FY twenty six budget requests, so if that means
that they're going to wait until FI twenty seven to
request the money, they have to wait for Congress to

(06:04):
get around to appropriating that, that could push this until
after the midterm elections. And if the control of Congress
changes in the midterm elections, it could still be blocked.
Congress could still block this by holding up the funding
for it. On the other hand, if the administration wants

(06:25):
to get started quickly and lock this in, they could
move around other money and get work started and start
breaking ground. Once you do that, you've got Once you've
got a significant amount of construction already underway, I think
it becomes a move question. It won't be reversed at

(06:46):
that point, but if they drag their feet getting started
on this, I think after the midterms it's entirely possible
it could be blocked.

Speaker 1 (06:54):
Senior fellow in the Foreign and Defense Policy Program at
the American Enterprise Institute, it's Todd Harrison