Why does everybody mock the idea of a US Space Force? The budget for the military and other governmental space programs is about 20X that of NASA, which is a very small player in space. There are plenty of individual military and space *programs* that exceeded the budge of NASA all on their own.
The Chinese are aggressively developing the means to conduct space warfare operations against extremely critical assets, and the Russians have successfully tested orbit anti-satellite weapons as long as 40 years ago. If a real war breaks out between the major players, the front lines will be space, not lines on a map or over airspace.
Space has been a separate command in the Air Force for about 15 years or so, and has little commonality with aircraft acquisition and operation. It makes perfect sense to me to consolidate space activities under a separate force, it's a different deal from airplanes or boats or rifles. just like airplanes are different from tanks - which led to the separation of the Air Force as an independent entity.
Brett