A thrilling tale of American adventure: Happy 5th Birthday, Space Force!

The great American pioneers crossed an ocean. They settled a strange land, conquered a continent, and built an empire. Then, they turned their attention to the stars.

From the very beginning, Americans have always been trailblazers. It’s in our very nature. We simply wouldn’t be ourselves if we didn’t have a frontier — a mysterious unknown just waiting to be explored. Conquering the cosmos fulfilled that fundamental American urge.

The Space Force, founded five years ago this December, embodies the same ethos that drove the Pilgrims to Plymouth and Neil Armstrong to the moon. Like servicemen in every other branch of the military, the “Guardians of the High Frontier” are committed to preserving and protecting liberty, the Constitution, and the American way of life. But more than that, they have resuscitated the all-important spirit of adventure.

Their official march, “Semper Supra” (Latin for “always above”), says it all:

We’re the mighty watchful eye,
Guardians beyond the blue.
The invisible front line,
Warfighters brave and true.
Boldly reaching into space,
There’s no limit to our sky.
Standing guard both night and day,
We're the Space Force from on high!

What a daring declaration!

Defending America in the twenty-first century requires constant innovation. Who better to lead the charge than the pioneering patriots who refuse to accept the closing of the American frontier — those who believe “There’s no limit to our sky”? 

As former Defense Secretary Mark T. Esper proclaimed, “The United States has been a spacefaring nation for decades, but we know that our adversaries in the last several years have weaponized space. They’ve made it a warfighting domain. And so, with the establishment of Space Force… the United States is now doing what it needs to do to protect our assets in space and ensure that space remains the heavens by which we not only protect America, but we sustain our economy, we sustain our commercial capabilities, we sustain Americans’ way of life.”

The U.S. Space Force represents our unshrinking answer to the question of American decline and the premature taunts of our enemies. Through the brave men and women who have made this branch successful, our country boldly replies, “We will never back down. We will always rise to the occasion.”

Happy birthday, Space Force! Thank you for reaching into space — for standing guard both night and day. May you never lose that sense of adventure, and may God bless you.