Next week, Huntsville Mayor Tommy Battle is expected to announce he will seek another term as mayor, which if successful would be his fourth term and a continuation of what most perceive to be an already successful tenure.
One item that would add to the list of accomplishments for Battle would be if military brass chose to locate its U.S. Space Command headquarters in the Rocket City. Huntsville is on the U.S. Air Force’s short-list of finalists under consideration. Also on the list are Colorado’s Buckley Air Force Base, Cheyenne Mountain Air Force Station, Peterson Air Force Base, and Schriever Air Force Base, and California’s Vandenberg Air Force Base.
During an interview on Huntsville radio’s WVNN on Wednesday, Battle made a case for a U.S. Space Command headquarters in his city.
“We’re looking at it very seriously,” Battle said on “The Jeff Poor Show.” “They’ve sent some groups around to do some studies about each of the bases that they’re looking at. I’m pretty sure, but I don’t have verification on this – that we came out as one of the most cost-efficient centers to come to. We do a lot of the work that is already being done in space – everything from NASA to space and missile defense, which is the Army’s, to the Missile Defense Agency, which we do 85% of America’s missile defense work.”
“We’ve got a lot of emphasis on space already here,” he continued. “Probably our main competition is Colorado Springs, and the Air Force is picking this. The Air Force is very heavy into Colorado Springs. I would hope that they would look at Huntsville as a good alternative. One of the things with Colorado Springs is you end up putting a lot of your eggs in one basket because your operational forces for Space Command would already be out there. You know, if you put the headquarters operation, and if something ever happened out there, you’d be pretty much out of the business. I think there’s some wisdom to making sure we spread out these commands and make sure we don’t have one single point of failure if something ever happened.”
@Jeff_Poor is a graduate of Auburn University, the editor of Breitbart TV and host of “The Jeff Poor Show” from 2-5 p.m. on WVNN in Huntsville.
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