Air Force padded its $13 billion Space Force estimate, analyst says

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The Air Force’s estimate that President Trump’s Space Force will cost $13 billion is likely inflated, said Todd Harrison, the director of defense budget analysis at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

The estimate appears to include more airmen than the service would need and a $1 billion command facility that might not be necessary, Harrison told reporters during a budget briefing at the think tank.

“Building a billion-dollar building for U.S. Space Command? We already have buildings where these people, where the joint functional component command is housed, I don’t know why we a need a billion-dollar new building,” he said. “This is not a conservative estimate, this is the highest estimate you could possibly come up with.”

[More: Lawmakers unfazed by $13 billion Space Force estimate]

Harrison called it an example of “malicious compliance” by the Air Force after Trump ordered the Pentagon to begin creation of the Space Force despite early opposition from the military.

Air Force Secretary Heather Wilson described the $13 billion estimate as conservative this week. She sent the number to Deputy Defense Secretary Pat Shanahan in a memo that was leaked on Monday, just as the Air Force unveiled a new plan to build up its squadrons to Cold War levels.

That memo estimated the new military space service will cost $13 billion over five years and could require the Pentagon to request $3 billion as part of its annual budget request in February.

Wilson and Gen. David Goldfein, the Air Force chief of staff, came out strongly against a space service last year but have been publicly supportive since Trump started touting the issue this year.

The Pentagon plans to submit a legislative proposal and a cost estimate to Congress early next year in hopes lawmakers will authorize the first creation of a new military service branch since the Air Force was founded in 1947.

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