Alabama beats Florida for space headquarters

Florida won’t be the home of the United States Space Command after all. Instead, it’ll be Huntsville, Alabama.

Dale Ketcham, vice president of Space Florida, which had lobbied hard for Brevard County to get the headquarters of America’s new military branch, told the Orlando Sentinel the news was a “genuine disappointment.” But he said he believed the state is well-positioned to lure other projects, pointing to the growing footprints of SpaceX, Blue Origin and Boeing on the Space Coast.

“It is what it is,” Ketcham said. “It’s not a huge blow. We’ve been growing really rapidly and we’ll continue to. This would have been nice, but I don’t think it’s ... crippling or devastating.”

Along with the Redstone Arsenal in Huntsville, Patrick Space Force Base in Brevard was competing against Kirtland Air Force Base in New Mexico, Offutt Air Force Base in Nebraska, Peterson Air Force Base in Colorado and Port San Antonio in Texas. In all, cities in more than 20 states wanted the Command.

Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey said she spoke with Bob Moriarity, a deputy assistant secretary for the Air Force, on Wednesday, who told her the decision had been made.

“Our state has long provided exceptional support for our military and their families as well as a rich and storied history when it comes to space exploration,” Ivey said. “This combination only enhances the outstanding relationships we have with the 65 diverse federal agencies on Redstone Arsenal, not to mention the growing presence of the FBI and other federal installations.”

Florida’s aggressive campaign

The decision, first reported by a local Alabama news outlet, ends a two-year drive by Florida, whose leaders at one point were certain it would come out the winner.

In 2019, Space Florida, the region’s spaceport authority, mounted an aggressive campaign, enlisting the support of Florida’s network of retired three- and four-star military personnel, hiring a consultant for about $200,000 and joining up with Rep. Michael Waltz, R-St. Augustine, to lead the push in Congress.

Lt. Gov. Jeanette Núñez, board chair of Space Florida, said Gov. Ron DeSantis would not be shy in leveraging his relationship with President Trump “to make sure Florida is named the home to Space Command.”

DeSantis in a tweet to Trump said putting the headquarters in Florida was “a logical fit” pointing to the three combatant commands already based in Tampa and near Miami, as well as Brevard’s Kennedy Space Center and Cape Canaveral Space Force Station.

That effort appeared to have failed in May 2019, when the Air Force announced a shortlist of sites in Colorado, Alabama and California. At the time, Florida leaders said they felt misled by the Air Force Legislative Liaison office about the state’s chances of landing the headquarters.

But then, the following year, Florida was back in the running when the Air Force reopened applications after members of Congress complained that the process had not been fair and transparent enough.

And by then, Florida had another qualifier: It had been the launch site for America’s return to human spaceflight, sending up Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley to the International Space Station aboard a SpaceX rocket in May 2020 and ending a nine-year drought since the end of the shuttle program in 2011.

But even that proved insufficient.

Alabama’s place in space history

John Henderson, assistant secretary of the Air Force for installations, environment and energy, told Politico the decision was ultimately between the Redstone Arsenal in Hunstville and Peterson Air Force Base in Colorado Springs, which many believed to be the front-runner and where the headquarters are temporarily located.

But Huntsville, known as “Rocket City,” has a played a significant role in America’s quest to explore the far reaches of space.

In the 1950s, it became home to Wernher von Braun, a former Nazi engineer who led the development of the Saturn V and Jupiter C rocket, which deployed the first satellite launched by the U.S., Explorer 1, in 1958.

In 1961, a Mercury-Redstone rocket put Alan Shepard into suborbital flight, making him the first American in space.

Then in 1969, Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins reached the moon on a Saturn V rocket, one of which is still on display at Huntsville’s U.S. Space & Rocket Center, one of the largest museums of space memorabilia.