MERRITT ISLAND — Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is not done fighting for Florida to be the home of the newly formed Space Command, despite the U.S. Air Force’s insistence that only Colorado, California and Alabama are still in the running.
The nation’s 11th combatant command doesn’t have a headquarters yet, but the Air Force — the military branch overseeing Space Command — last month released its shortlist of six potential sites it’s still eyeing. Despite an aggressive campaign by the state to pursue the headquarters, Florida didn’t make the list.
But speaking at Merritt Island on Monday morning, DeSantis put that information into a question, suggesting that Florida still had a chance — if the governor can convince President Donald Trump to make the final call in favor of the Sunshine State.
“I went to the president early on, I said, ‘Mr. President, they’re going to do this process …if that’s it, that’s the process and that’s what’s going to happen, I’ll respect that. But I think it’s your decision,'” DeSantis said. “And he made it very clear that it is his decision to make.”
But according to the Air Force’s Strategic Basing Process, which is the procedure under which the Air Force chooses a base headquarters, the Secretary of the Air Force makes the final decision, unless the decision is delegated to someone in a lower position.
Asked about this, DeSantis said he’d spoken to an assistant secretary of the Air Force, though didn’t specify which one, who confirmed that the president could essentially override the Air Force’s decision.
“I said, ‘Just want you to know, I’m talking to the Commander in Chief about it. He views it a little differently,'” DeSantis said. “He’s like, ‘Hey, we understand that and ultimately, he gets the final say on all this stuff.'”
The White House did not return a request for comment and when asked about the process, the Air Force reiterated what it said last month when it released its list of locations but wouldn’t address what role the president could have.
“The Air Force expects to approve the preferred location during the summer of 2019, which will be followed by an environmental analysis,” the Air Force said in a statement.
If the president were to choose Florida, it would be a surprising turn from the Air Force’s preference for locations that already have a major military space presence. The command would be responsible for coordinating all space-related military activities across branches of service, and an iteration of it already exists in Colorado.
In fact, Trump already nominated four-star Air Force Gen. John Raymond to run it. Raymond is the current commander of Air Force Space Command, based in Colorado Springs.
The locations the Air Force is considering are: In Colorado, Buckley Air Force Base, Cheyenne Mountain Air Force Station, Peterson Air Force Base and Schriever Air Force Base; Vandenberg Air Force Base in California and the Army’s Redstone Arsenal in Alabama.
Florida was hoping to attract Space Command because the unit, which the Pentagon estimates would cost $84 million to set up, would be comprised of about 1,200 personnel and help position Florida and the Space Coast as a critical player in the nation’s space efforts.
But Colorado was long thought to be the front runner.
“The Air Force wants to do it in Colorado. I think we know that,” DeSantis said. “But I think Florida has an awful lot to offer. And I think having the U.S. Space Command combatant command here, I think that that would continue to attract even more of the manufacturing base and, and more of the the industry side of it.”
DeSantis said he doesn’t expect the president to make a decision on Space Command “anytime soon.”
In the meantime, the governor also has his sights set on expanding Florida’s technical education, a move that could prove fruitful for the Space Coast and employers seeking highly skilled manufacturing talent in the area.
His remarks about Space Command came during the signing of a new bill at the headquarters of Space Florida, the state’s spaceport authority, that increases the opportunities for students to work in apprenticeships and gain technical knowledge outside of the traditional university pathway.
“I think it’s important that our education system, recognize that there’s more than one way to get advanced knowledge and skills beyond the traditional four-year brick and ivy university,” DeSantis said. “And some of these concrete skills are in as much demand as ever, so we want to make sure that our system is nimble enough to recognize that and produce graduates that have the capacity to earn a good living when they get get out of school.”
The idea is to train students in the fields that employers are seeking, which on the Space Coast typically means space manufacturing jobs. DeSantis pointed to an existing apprenticeship program between Lockheed Martin and Eastern Florida State College in Cocoa as the kind of model the state wants to continue fostering.
Among the provisions in the bill is $10 million for a program that offers grants to companies in Florida to expand their existing apprenticeship programs and establish new ones.
“There [are] needs with these companies here on the Space Coast, from skilled labor, all the way to things like science and engineering, it really runs the gamut,” DeSantis said. “And I think there’s just going to be tremendous opportunities in the future.”
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