Couldn’t it be handled by the Air Force or NASA, or a combination of the two, without creating a whole new thing?
NASA and the Air Force? Well the Air Force can’t see the utility in an A-10 Warthog in coin Warfare. And NASA doesn’t have the capability to put a single man into space... So there’s that.
“Couldn’t it be handled by the Air Force or NASA, or a combination of the two, without creating a whole new thing?”
That’s how it was taken care of in the old days. I’ve worked on projects funded by NASA and DARPA while being a designer for the Air Force (contractor) in 1991-1995. Hypersonics was my forte. There is a reason for that. We actually had colleagues back in the day we respected. I won’t even go into conjecture on my perceived application of plasma as a primary heat shield. Realistically, who could survive Mach 25 conditions.
Currently all branches have various bits and pieces of a space force. As the pieces grow more expensive and complicated, it makes sense to combine them somehow to avoid duplication and to ensure all the pieces can work together.
A Space Force is as good a way as any, just do something about the name and those ugly, crude proposed badges.