US Will Have to Wait for Its Army of Space Marines

Well, it looks like America won't be getting its own army of space marines—at least not this year. CNN reports Congress has dropped a proposal to create a new "Space Corps"—similar to the Marine Corps but spacier—from the final version of the $692 billion National Defense Authorization Act. According to the Hill, the proposal described the duties of the Space Corps as "deterring aggression in, from, and through space [and] providing combat-ready space forces," among other things.

While the Space Corps—supported by leaders of the House Armed Services Committee but opposed by the White House and Pentagon—was dropped, the final bill did call for further study of the idea. "We will not allow the United States national security space enterprise to continue to drift toward a space Pearl Harbor," pro-Space Corps lawmakers said in a statement Wednesday. (More space stories.)