Colorado, New Mexico, and Four Other States Competing for Space Command Headquarters

Colorado Governor Jared Polis has sent a public letter to President Trump asking for the Centennial State to be selected as the permanent home of the U.S. Space Command.

“Colorado provides the existing command structure, base infrastructure, and communications platforms necessary to successfully host additional national security initiatives,” Polis said in his letter, adding that the state could also “ensure coordination of efforts without committing restrictive additional funds.”

The Governor’s pitch comes as the time nears for an announcement out of Washington regarding where the US Command headquarters will be finally located.

A high-level campaign is now underway on the part of public officials representing states whose military bases have made the finalists’ list for the Command’s headquarters.

Those bases are: Albuquerque’s Kirtland Air Force Base; the Patrick Air Force Base in Brevard County, Florida; the Offutt Air Force Base in Bellevue, Nebraska; the Redstone Arsenal in Huntsville, Alabama; and the Joint Base San Antonio in San Antonio, Texas.

In an opinion piece published in the Albuquerque Journal, New Mexico Senator Martin Heinrich, noting the existence of Spaceport America and NASA’s White Sands Test Facility, among other high-tech facilities, said, “The Command could not find a more supportive and conducive environment for building up its new service than our state.”

An alliance between four midwestern universities - the University of Nebraska, the University of North Dakota, Kansas State University, and Purdue University - has been organized to officially lobby for the Space Command setting up at the Offut Air Force Base.

Meanwhile, the presidents of the University of Texas at San Antonio and the Southwest Research Institute, have published an essay in the San Antonio Report contending that no city would integrate better with the Command’s needs than San Antonio.

“Here, we have the resources that will offer the Space Command a blank canvas on which to build a transformative operation that will define national defense in the century ahead,” writes Taylor Eighmy and Adam Hamilton, noting the presence of San Antonio’s giant bioscience industry.

The Space Command’s headquarters is currently located at the Paterson Air Force Base in Colorado Springs, also on the finalists’ list.

Evaluators are currently in the process of determining which location would best serve the Space Command’s needs, looking at such matters as whether the location in question has reliable utilities, adequate roads, and a workforce that can support the command.
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The location that is ultimately selected is expected to realize billions of dollars in new housing, office, laboratory, and infrastructure construction work.

​By Garry Boulard

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