Because the Air Force doesn't want to give up its space assets to create an independent Space Force, much as the Army didn't want to give up its air assets to create an independent Air Force.
Because the United States couldn't scare up enough Space Cadets.
Number One-Space-Force-Team-USA-- ACTIVATE!!!!
I'd prefer to call it the U.S. Starfleet.
Lots of "space happy sauce" making the rounds today. ;^)
No, no. It should just be the US Navy moving into space. It fits better. Big ships, watches, a bridge, CIC.
Inter-force feuding prevents the creation of the United States Space Force.
It has been discussed time and time again, but nobody wants to give anyone else any leeway.
Its quite silly, actually.
Russia's economy is only slightly larger than Los Angeles County according to this article:
http://claremont.org/writings/crb/spring2005/tartakovsky.html
We will not need a "space force" until we have a permanent, self-sustaining civilian presence in space whose security is somehow threatened.
Weaponizing orbital platforms, however, well, that's just a given.
"but," he added, "the State won't even pay for our wodka, so it looks like attitude and words will have to tide us over."
From the website (GlobalSecurity.org):
U.S. Space Command was created in 1985, but America’s military actually began operating in space much earlier. With the Soviet Union’s unexpected 1957 launch of the world’s first man-made satellite, Sputnik I, President Eisenhower accelerated the nation’s slowly emerging civil and military space efforts. The vital advantage that space could give either country during those dark days of the Cold War was evident in his somber words. "Space objectives relating to defense are those to which the highest priority attaches because they bear on our immediate safety," he said.
During the 1960s and 1970s, the Army, Navy and Air Force advanced and expanded space technologies in the areas of communication, meteorology, geodesy, navigation and reconnaissance. Space continued to support strategic deterrence by providing arms control and treaty verification, and by offering unambiguous, early warning of any missile attack on North America.
On September 23, 1985, the Joint Chiefs of Staff confirmed the ever-increasing value of military space systems by creating a new unified command — U.S. Space Command — to help institutionalize the use of space in U.S. deterrence efforts.
Here's their patch:
Here's Space Command's website: United States Air Force Space Command HQ
Cool stuff.
If anything, we need fewer services.