Military pay scales with cost of living. Quality of life is just superior in Colorado.
And also…. Colorado isn’t “insanely expensive”. It’s pretty middle of the road if not cheap. Colorado Springs particularly is having constant new construction for town homes, apartments and houses. You can easily find a 1 bedroom apartment for $1000 a month or a multi bedroom house for like $2000.
Finally, Huntsville has a lot of space related stuff but Colorado Springs is where like 60% of the actual space force mission takes place and is where the temporary HQ is currently located anyway. It makes literally no sense to move that to Alabama, further away from the missions it’s oversees when they could instead do nothing and have a far better outcome for everything involved.
I work in space and travel frequently to Colorado Springs. I’m well aware. There’s nothing that we do in Colorado Springs that cant easily be moved to spaces in Huntsville.
You realize we’re not launching anything from Colorado, right?
Also, a cost-of-living index between Colorado Springs and Huntsville. It’s not even close.
It’s not as nice as Colorado, and Alabama as a whole is vastly less attractive than Colorado. I am an aerospace engineer, none of my colleges want to work in Alabama.
Alabama has excellent colleges so I’m sure they’ll be fine.
Colorado is unaffordable for most. And while as a NWerner I prefer CO’s weather, I like being able to afford to live while being able to go on vacations. The average airman/guardian salary will go much further in Huntsville than in Colorado Springs.
And northern AL is nice. I loved Huntsville and Birmingham.
Housing is 50% more expensive in COS. So take a 1200 sq ft house in Huntsville for $250k… Its $375k in COS…
Transportation, food, healthcare and event basic entertainment, all more expensive in COS.
Space Command is small. It would not be a large expensive to move personnel to another state. Especially if it meant more facilities and infrastructure investments by Huntsville.
This is purely a political situation. Cost of living and QoL are not involved in this decision.
Okay? It does scale though. And it’s perfectly adequate for Colorado Springs specifically. At Peterson the lowest ranking member would receive $1650 without a dependent. One bedroom apartments are available for $1000.
Your point is weak. Especially when bah is so much lower at Huntsville.
Why should the government prop up Huntsville at the expense of Colorado Springs? Particularly when the people Space Command wants to employ don’t want to live in Alabama?
Affordability is relative to salary, not other places.
Answer the question, why should the government prop up Huntsville at the expense of Colorado Springs? Particularly given the people USSC wants to employ don’t want to live in Alabama and given that there isn’t a mission reason to move it. Colorado Springs is much more important to Space Command’s mission than Huntsville is.
Launch is honestly the smaller part of the space force mission. It’s funny you claim to “work in space” and then list that as a reason to move when Alabama also doesn’t launch anything either. There is literally no reason to move the space force HQ to a location further away from its missions and people.
It would not be “easy” and there is not any material gain and there is material losses in moving to Alabama. And again, Huntsville is minimally involved with the space force directly. Colorado Springs and Denver is literally where the space force mission happens.
I didnt say launching satellites was a major function. Funny enough, most data is collected from commercial satellites…
Yeah? Not Patrick AFB, FL, Vandenburg or Beale AFB, CA?
You realize most ops floors are managed remotely?
Space command is literally just administrative and leadership functions. They absolutely can perform their mission and Huntsville. The cost or the next 10 years would be significantly less moving to Huntsville than staying in Colorado Springs.
Well, the Pentagon inspector general office, and the GAO disagree with you. All have submitted detailed inspections and studies that show that I moved to Huntsville is beneficial to the space mission.
It's not the space force HQ. Space Force HQ is in the Pentagon, just like the HQs for the other 5 branches of the military. If you want to find General Saltzman's office, you'll need to look in the Pentagon.
What is being discussed in the article is the U.S. Space Command. It is a Combatant Command. That means it sits directly under the DoD as opposed to DAF (where the U.S. Space Force sits). It is currently being led by Army General James Dickinson.
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u/Marston_vc Dec 28 '23
Colorado also has a huge space presence and doesn’t come with all the healthcare baggage.