Last month, President Trump made one of his many, many awkward, off-the-cuff remarks, saying that he wanted to add a “Space Force” branch of the military to our existing armed forces. Obviously, everyone laughed at him, turning his ridiculous proposal into a meme.
Today, Vice President Mike Pence made the formal unveiling of the administration’s proposed “Space Force,” but the only details are the price tag and timeline:
Mike Pence, announcing SPACE FORCE, seems to pause for an applause line that never comes pic.twitter.com/s2pTKUXpZ1
— Marcus Gilmer (@marcusgilmer) August 9, 2018
The plan is to add a “Department of the Space Force” as a sixth branch of the military by 2020, despite the fact we already have the U.S. Air Force Space Command. The Trump administration is asking for $8 billion over five years, and the whole thing would require Congressional approval. Those are essentially the only details they have because, again, it was based on something Trump pulled out of his ass.
Pence and Trump got ridiculed for the plan on Twitter, with many people pointing out there are a lot better things we can spend money on here on earth (like, I don’t know, healthcare) and that the vague “plan” actually amounts to shoveling billions to defense contractors.
And the story gets even more ridiculous from there. The Trump campaign has already sent out logos for the nonexistent Space Force and asked their drooling supporters to weigh in on the options:
Trump campaign in Email says it wants to give supporters “a final decision on the design we will use to commemorate President Trump’s new Space Force–and he wants YOU to have a say.” pic.twitter.com/vn370IBYrz
— Jake Tapper (@jaketapper) August 9, 2018
Here they are, in all their cartoony clipart glory:
Twitter set their phasers to “mock” and dunked on Trump all over the place. Several people pointed out that we probably shouldn’t militarize space before solving earth’s problems:
Some people were a little perplexed at why there’s a “Mars Awaits” design:
Other people pointed out who’s REALLY benefitting from this whole “Space Force” thing:
But mostly people just made fun of how ridiculous and cheap they looked:
It’s unclear whether or not Congress will actually fund this ridiculous boondoggle, and it’s more than likely they’ll balk at the price tag. Then again, Republicans in Congress have already launched the deficit into the stratosphere, so who knows.