For some reason, my long-suffering editor here at Colorado Politics has always preferred that I write about, well, Colorado politics (Ed: go figure…). And much of the time I do. Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m easily distracted, and …squirrel! 

Where was I? Oh, right. As a person with a passion for history, I very much like to find ties that link our modern times with the eras that have preceded ours. For example, I’d like to mention that 111 years ago today, the world’s first synthetic plastic was created by a Belgian chemist. I can’t think of too many inventions with a more profound impact on our contemporary world than plastic. But the only Colorado connection I could come up with was to talk about the fine products made in Fort Collins by the New Belgium Brewing company, and that seemed a stretch (Ed: yes, it does).

And as an amateur astronomer, I thought I might talk about the remarkable dimming of one of the night sky’s brightest stars, Betelgeuse, the right shoulder in the winter constellation of Orion. Betelgeuse is so huge that if we swapped it our for our Sun, its surface would be out past the orbit of Jupiter. And it recently and mysteriously dimmed a great deal, only to brighten up some recently. 

I’d really like to command my editor to let me talk about space, but since I can’t, I guess I’ll talk about space command (see what I did there?). 

You likely have seen the stories reporting on the announcement, made in the waning days of the Trump administration, that the headquarters of the United States Space Command (not to be confused with the US Space Force) was to be moved from its current location at Peterson Air Force Base, near Colorado Springs, to Huntsville, Alabama. Now, as a space nerd, I know that Huntsville has a robust and important history in the space business, but that does not seem to have been the reason for the announcement about moving.

Peterson AFB also has an important history in space and national defense. I’ve been there many times, both as an active-duty Air Force officer and then after my retirement as a staffer for Colorado U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet. They have really cool buildings full of really cool stuff, most of which we won’t be talking about. But it’s cool, really.

A recent Colorado Politics story noted that Gov. Polis has now joined the chorus of Colorado officials objecting to the ordered move. If you are looking for an issue that united Democrats and Republicans, you found it: military bases. Communities generally love having military bases around, as they generate massive economic impacts on the locales. Colorado Springs has no less than five major military facilities nearby, with roughly $18 billion pumped into the local economy annually. So, it is no surprise that states and communities fight to keep their bases open.

That said, sometimes it does make sense to move and/or close military facilities judged unneeded by the Pentagon. So, is the Space Command move one of those logical and well-thought-out relocations? It does not appear so.

Those aforementioned really cool buildings on Peterson (or “Pete” as we locals call it) are not just regular old office buildings. They are billion-dollar cutting edge facilities that house, well, the also aforementioned really cool stuff. So, if you move Space Command to Alabama, you have to abandon billions of dollars’ worth of investment in facilities and must then build new multi-billion-dollar facilities in Huntsville. You then must move thousands of military personnel and their families, as well as firing thousands of local civilians working on Pete for Space Command. So, given that, why was this move ordered?

Auburn Football.

Well, not exactly, but kind of. You see, the good people of Alabama recently elected a new U.S. senator, former Auburn football coach Tommy Tuberville. It appears the folks down there are not particularly concerned that their new elected official didn’t know what the three branches of government actually are, nor that he didn’t understand that a sitting president, defeated for reelection, can’t just delay the inauguration of his successor (there is this thing called the Constitution that Tuberville might want to, well, read). But Tuberville really understands the intricacies of the cover 3 defense, and maybe that counts for something.

Tuberville may not have read the Constitution, but there was something far more important to Trump – he was unflinchingly loyal. Tuberville attacked those whom Trump wanted attacked and supported even the craziest electoral fraud delusions of the MAGA crowd. And so, many believe (including your humble writer) that Trump altered the Air Force’s common-sense recommendation that Space Command remain at Peterson and instead ordered that vast organization to abandon its existing facilities in Colorado (which is at least a purple state with some bright blue streaks) and was ordered to move the whole operation down to deeply red Alabama. Kind of an “up yours” to a state that dared to vote against Trump, and which elected a Democratic governor and a couple of Democratic senators. 

The decision to move Space Command makes very little sense, and I hope the Biden administration will review it and hopefully, reverse it. It is silly to say, build a nice house, and then to throw it away so you can build a new one in a different state. Let’s hope common sense wins out, and, of course, that Tuberville can get his hands on one of those pocket Constitutions.