Space Command moving to “Rocket City”
Space Command, the joint military operation which is responsible for all U.S. military operations in space, is moving to Huntsville, Ala., according to President Donald Trump.
The decision to shift the combatant command’s base from Colorado Springs, Colo. to what Trump dubbed “Rocket City” comes after a political tug of war that spans the last three presidential administrations.
In his announcement of the relocation earlier this month, Trump said he was moving the base due to Colorado’s mail-in voting that caused “automatically crooked elections.” In a previous decision, he chose Huntsville based on a report compiled by the U.S. Air Force. According to Caitlyn Kim, public affairs reporter at Colorado Public Radio, many states and agencies had issues with how the evaluation was conducted.
“Instead of having the Air Force decide on the short list of bases based on needs and capabilities, they had communities nominate themselves to be home of Space Command,” Kim said. “So you had a lot of reports, an inspector general report, as well as a [U.S. Government Accountability Office] report that basically said, I think both in like 2022 and the one that came out earlier this year, that the process was not great in general, and it led to a lot of confusion.”
When the Space Force was established during Trump’s first term, Colorado was meant to serve as a temporary base. Right before Biden took office, Trump chose Huntsville as the permanent home for Space Command based on evaluations done by the Air Force. Biden later reversed that decision in 2023.
A major factor in the fight for Space Command is money, reports Kim. Colorado hosts over 2,000 defense and aerospace companies, making it one of the biggest in the nation. The projected economic drain from Colorado Springs is less than previously expected, according to a statement by the Colorado Republican delegation. Instead of losing 1,700 positions it will likely only lose 1,000.
“It's an economic boost. You're bringing new workers, you're bringing new industries, and then there's the secondary and third effects, right? Like, you'll help local businesses, like lunch shops, you know, hotels for when people come to visit, et cetera. There is a big economic factor in this.”
The White House gave no timeline for the move, but Alabama State Rep. Dale Strong said construction of a new headquarters would take around 14 to 18 months. This decision comes amid fierce competition between the U.S. and other countries in its race to the moon and Mars.
AI could assist in space-based medicine
NASA and Google have joined forces to develop an AI medical assistant to aid deep space-bound astronauts.
The Crew Medical Officer Digital Assistant (CMO-DA) is meant to support, not replace, the physician abord the spacecraft during Artemis mission to the moon and beyond.
Dr. Emmanuel Urquieta, the Vice Chair of Aerospace Medicine at the University of Central Florida College of Medicine, explained the AI would help diagnose and treat crew members in a way that would be difficult otherwise.
“What are the odds that the physician is the first person that will get sick, right?” Urquieta asked. “Even say that if the physician doesn't get sick during the mission, that person is not going to be able to be an expert in all specialties of medicine, right? You would need to have cardiologist, you need to have an endocrinologist, all of the specialties. So even in that case, the physician is not a fail proof method.”
If a series medical issue occurred, the astronaut could be evaluated in a matter of hours, according to Urquieta. For less serious incidents, the crew could contact mission control with almost no delay. The farther away from Earth, the more delay is added to communication. From the moon, only a few seconds. From Mars, the delay is around 20 minutes one way, which could leave the crew waiting 40 minutes for an answer during a medical emergency.
“There's going to be parts of the mission where Mars and the earth are going to be on opposite sides of the sun, and there's going to be absolutely no communications for weeks at a time. So that is where AI comes into play, really, to develop a fully autonomous medical capability for Mars missions,” Urquieta said.
NASA and Google trained the Gemini-based model on open-source data of the 250 most common medical issues experienced in space. Initial testing has shown promise.
While testing some of the most common medical conditions that arise in space, the model’s accuracy ranged from 74% to 88%. They’re currently working with medical professionals to further refine the digital assistant.
“Once we develop these capabilities, we will also increase access to healthcare to populations that otherwise would have to again travel a significant amount of time to see a physician,” Urquieta said. “The paradigm that you can bring the health care to the person is, I think, going to be very, very applicable to a myriad of scenarios terrestrially that will improve health care for all of us.”
