Space: Aerospace Force?

The U.S. Air Force has been trying the name "U.S. Aerospace Force" on its tongue ever since the Eisenhower Administration assigned it prime responsibility for "space transportation." Last week the name sounded better than ever when Defense Secretary Robert McNamara, over the strangled cries of other services, flatly assigned "space development programs and projects to the Department of the Air Force except under unusual circumstances."

No existing programs were changed. The Army will continue with its Advent communications satellite; the Navy will stick with its Transit navigation satellite. And each service, in Pentagon parlance, will have "the right to think," to do research on the problems of putting its weapons .into space. But from now on, the Air Force is boss of the big boosters that make military space ventures possible.

Despite this truce, there are still new galaxies to conquer before the Aerospace Force becomes the big cheese. There is still an ill-defined line between military projects and work done by the civilian National Aeronautics and Space Administration. Some day soon, the President will have to set up a single, economical space agency. Airmen are betting that it will belong to them.