space force

"It's not about putting military service members in space," one expert said. The new branch will basically reorganize what the military does in space and elevate it to a single chain of command.

Vice President Pence said in a speech Thursday that the Space Force, which would be the military's sixth branch, will "prepare for the next battlefield" and "a new generation of threats."

American astronauts haven’t been sent into orbit in almost a decade. NASA halted its space shuttle program in 2011 because it was too expensive. But…