By Mike Cason
Imminent announcements have turned into false alarms on multiple occasions in recent months regarding a final-and-official decision on locating U.S. Space Command at Redstone Arsenal in Huntsville.
And still the limbo and uncertainty remain.
“Somebody’s got to make the call,” U.S. Sen. Tommy Tuberville of Alabama said Wednesday.
In an interview with AL.com prior to his speech to business and community leaders in Huntsville, Tuberville discussed the ongoing pursuit of Space Command – which the Air Force has announced it prefers to move from Colorado Springs to North Alabama. As Alabama’s senior senator – a role he inherited with the retirement of former Sen. Richard Shelby – Tuberville is spearheading efforts in Washington to secure Space Command for Redstone.
Beyond the prestige of having another command based at Redstone Arsenal, Space Command would bring more than 1,400 jobs to the Huntsville area.
Still, after a series of studies and analysis that all identified Redstone as the best location, that ultimate decision has yet to be communicated. The decision comes from the desk of the Secretary of the Air Force, Frank Kendall. But Tuberville said he expects that decision won’t come without a sign-off from President Joe Biden.
“I’ve gotten to know Secretary Kendall well,” Tuberville said. “At least once or twice a month, we visit about it. It’s always positive. But it’s still got to come from the White House. So there’s nothing else we can do. I mean, we’re just we’re waiting for a decision.”
During his speech to about 600 people at the Von Braun Center, Tuberville jokingly said, “I’ve gotten to be good friends with the secretary of the Air Force. He’ll tell me, ‘Don’t call me again. I’ll let you know’” as laughter spread throughout the audience.
“Space Command, I will tell you, Lord help us, we’re fighting every day for Space Command. It should be here already.”
Tuberville speculated that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has detracted the White House from the Space Command decision.
“I don’t know whether it’s the confrontation in Ukraine that’s set it back,” Tuberville told AL.com. “We’re so involved in that from the proxy side. (Space Command) should be a priority because our biggest and No. 1 adversary is China. And they’re consistently putting satellites in space. There ahead of us with the hypersonic (missile).”
Space Command, of course, has been located at Peterson Space Force Base in Colorado Springs since its revival in 2019. Last month, Tuberville attributed continued efforts by Colorado lawmakers to “sore loser syndrome.” A member of the Armed Services Committee, Tuberville has spelled out to the committee that the ongoing delays are unnecessary after reviews by the Government Accountability Office and the Inspector General’s office “confirmed the Air Force basing deci- sion (preferring Huntsville) was thorough, legal and comprehensive.”
Asked Wednesday about Colorado’s continued fight, Tuberville said, “They might see the writing on the wall that (a decision) might be getting close. Again, I don’t think that they know. They might have a little bit more information than us but I can’t imagine it because we’re always knocking on the door. What else have we got to do? What’s the timeframe? I go into all the Space Command hearings, classified hearings. I hear what we’ve got, what we don’t have, what we need to do.
“And so, to me, there’s should be more of a sense of urgency. But I think, again, if you just look at what’s going on, the money that we’re spending in Ukraine, and I think more of the focus right now is on that than anything when it comes to the military.”
