US Space Force

The United States Space Force (USSF) is the space and aerial warfare service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the seven American uniformed services. The Space Force was formed as a separate branch of the military on 30 November 2051 under the Space Security Act of 2051, bringing the various smaller departments and commands from the Air Force, Navy and Intelligent services under one service branch. It is the most recent branch of the U.S. military to be formed, and is world's only space force, as well as the largest and one of the world's most technologically advanced air forces. The Space Force also commands its own specialized division of Marines, independent of the Navy.

Originally conceived as a way to better organize the command structure of American military operations in space, the Space Force was eventually given the power to absorb the entire US Air Force, which had become a very understaffed branch of service as unmanned systems became more and more advanced. The Space Force was charged with full command and control authority over all space and near space systems, i.e. long range-hypersonic weapons.

The Space Security Act that created the Space Force, almost didn't pass, as it would allow American Lunar colonies to reactivate previously banned Lunar National Guard forces, and grant the colonies a degree of political recognition. The ultimate fear being that the colonies would eventually demand equal representation in Congress, in effect taking some representative power in Congress away from Earth and giving it to the colonies. These fears were ultimately brushed aside after the Coalition attack on the American Orbital Command and Control network on Thanksgiving 2051. The SSA passed almost immediately after Congress reconvened following the attacks.

The first operation conducted by the new branch of the military was the defense of the Tycho shipyards. A group of US Force Recon Marines experienced in microgravity operations were transferred over to the Space Force and quickly deployed to secure Tycho from Japanese invasion, retake the city of Armstrong, and wipe out the Japanese military presence on the Moon.

Following the operations on the Moon, the Space force spent the remainder of the Third World War re-establishing American supremacy over Space and in the Air on Earth, with the launch of a next generation fleet of hypersonic drones, and the launch of a mothballed Mark 2 Orbital Command Station. This marked the turning point in the war, for the American-Allied Victory over the Coalition.

By wars end the Space Force saw a massive surge in funding. The attack on American operations in space had a similar psychological effect on the US after Pearl Harbor, and the military became obsessed with securing America's dominance over space. The Mark 2 OCS became one of a fleet of Orbital Command Stations positioned in high orbit around the Earth and the Moon. Space infrastructure received enormous funding from new dry-docks at the Tycho shipyards, to refueling stations, to the largest surge in demand for Helium 3 and Hydrogen to fuel all of these facilities in history.