SAN ANTONIO – Our military is known to take on battles by land, sea and air, but there’s a force of men and women who have been called to protect a frontier that exists far beyond Earth.
The Space Force Guardians’ mission is in space, but what they do up there is paramount to our lives on Earth.
“Space has been a thing for, you know, 60, 70 years. It’s not new. It’s just the Space Force is new. We’ve always done space operations. It’s just now there is a higher need to operate out of space as its own domain,” said Michelle Holt, TSgt. U.S. Space Force.
The Space Force was created in 2019, the latest and first branch to be added to the armed forces in over seven decades. It was done in an effort of pursuing a superior advantage in space, protecting the U.S. from any foreign threats that would disrupt or interfere with wartime operations and our modern way of living.
“There is a reason that we were created. There’s a reason that we have been needed all these years. It just took a long time for them to realize that we needed to be our own branch,” Holt said.
The Space Force is organized under the department of the United States Air Force, and though they are in a joint training environment, Guardians have a clearer and more direct course of action.
“We not only have the three different careers, we have the space, we have intel and we have cyber. So, we’re able to tailor their training, like their curriculum to them, so much more. You go to an Air Force flight, you’ve got 15, 16 different types of career fields. You can’t tailor their training like that the way we’re able to,” Holt said.
Unlike NASA who is geared more towards research and education, the Space Force helps increase the effectiveness of our modern military and its capabilities, making our military not only faster but more informed and more connected. From satellite operations to intelligence, Space Force Guardians play a vital role, even in our daily lives.
“So even as a civilian, like the Space Force is constantly present in your life. Like even something as simple as GPS, like the Space Force operates GPS. Right? And we all need that. How else are we going to get anywhere? So, we are present in your everyday life from networks and like I said, GPSs, like we’re always around,” Holt said.
And as the Space Force Guardians would say, “there’s no such thing as a day without space operations.”
“We didn’t need to be just part of the Air Force, but we needed to be more than that to accomplish what we need to. And so now I don’t think that we would ever be able to not have a Space Force. And so, I see the Space Force growing and developing in ways that will be 100% the future of the way that we fight and operate,” said Holt.
Holt is the Space Force’s first female NCO, a non-commissioned officer and the Space Force’s first female military training instructor, graduating Guardians that are trained in San Antonio.