President Donald Trump announced that Space Command is officially coming to Huntsville during a press conference in the Oval Office on Tuesday. Flanked by Alabama's Republican congressional delegation, Trump spoke about the long-delayed move and its implications for both the Rocket City and the state as a whole.
"As you know, this has been going on for a long period of time, and I am thrilled to report that the U.S. Space Command headquarters will move to the beautiful locale of a place called Huntsville, Alabama," Trump said. "We love Alabama. I only won it by about 47 points. I don't think that influenced my decision, though."
According to Trump, the expected job creation and economic impact as a result of the move will be significant for the state.
"We had a lot of competition for this, and Alabama is getting it. Huntsville in particular. This will result in more than 30,000 Alabama jobs and probably much more than that, and hundreds of billions of dollars of investment," he noted. "And that's billions, because it can't be millions. It's billions and billions of dollars. Most importantly, this decision will help America defend and dominate the high frontier, as they call it."
The President referenced the previous administration's controversial decision to keep Space Command in Colorado despite multiple studies citing Redstone Arsenal in Huntsville as the best option.
"We initially selected Huntsville for the Space Comm headquarters, yet those plans were wrongfully obstructed by the Biden administration," Trump lamented. "As you know, they moved them to a different locale. And today we're moving forward with what we want to do and the place that we want to have this, and this will be there for hopefully hundreds of years."
On hand for the event were U.S. Sens. Tommy Tuberville (R-Auburn) and Katie Britt (R-Montgomery), as well as U.S. Reps. Dale Strong (R-Monrovia), Barry Moore (R-Enterprise), Mike Rogers (R-Saks), Robert Aderholt (R-Haleyville) and Gary Palmer (R-Hoover). Trump individually recognized both Britt and Tuberville for their efforts in bringing Space Command to Alabama.
“President Trump is doing the right thing by moving SPACECOM back to its rightful home in Sweet Home Alabama,” said Tuberville. “This was never supposed to be about politics. After a thorough selection process involving 66 possible locations, Huntsville was chosen fair and square. But unfortunately, the Biden Administration chose politics over national security. Thankfully, President Trump, Secretary Hegseth, and Secretary Meink are restoring merit and integrity to the process and saving taxpayers nearly a half a billion dollars. We couldn’t be more excited to immediately welcome SPACECOM to the Rocket City.”
Britt echoed her fellow Alabamian's sentiment of praise.
"I’m deeply grateful to President Trump and Secretary Hegseth for their commitment to keep politics out of this basing decision and allow the Air Force to proceed with doing its job," Britt said. "Alabama’s world-class aerospace and defense workforce, capabilities, and synergies stand ready to fulfill the mission and strengthen our national security long into the future."
“I’m proud that Alabama’s congressional delegation – working tirelessly together on a bipartisan basis – has won this fight on behalf of our great state and America’s national security interests," she added.
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