 Hello, citizens of Earth, and welcome to Station 204. If you thought that we weren't going to have a final Space News before the end of 2019, well, we proved you wrong. And we'll be talking today about the U.S. Space Force, more milestones for women in space and our space traffic. But first, let's hand it over to Manju, who's going to be talking about the formation of the United States Space Force. Every day things we use, like the GPS, are delicate systems. With access to space becoming easier, it's likely we'll start looking at space as a battleground. So it'll become more and more important to protect those systems as our assets. That's where Space Force comes in. The controversial Space Force is now the sixth branch of the military. Now, it's not like the work the Space Force will be doing is any different than what the Air Force of Space Command does already. In fact, the 16,000 civilians in active duty airmen from Space Command will be transferred into Space Force. What will change are the uniforms, training, and rank structure. Now, there's been a lot of pushback on the concept of a Space Force. Why are taxpayers paying for a Space Force when the country still hasn't addressed climate change or homelessness? Why is Space Force in the first place when NASA exists? Well, to answer those questions, we need to learn what the Space Force actually does. They oversee the technology component of space, like the Global Positioning System, or the GPS. The GPS that billions rely on every day is only manned by 40 people in the Air Force's Space Command. So the work the Space Command now the Space Force does is imperative to our daily lives. But why pay for the Space Force when we haven't solved issues here on Earth? I'll argue this. Our thinking shouldn't be that we can only do one or the other. We can and should be doing both. We can and should be solving problems like homelessness and climate change while we also fund technological efforts in space. It shouldn't be a zero-sum game. Now, you may agree with me that the work Space Force does is critical, but did we need to actually create the Space Force itself? Couldn't we have just kept Air Force Space Command and let them continue their work? After all, Space Force will be housed within the Air Force, sharing the Secretary of the Air Force, similar to how the Marine Corps is housed in the Department of the Navy. Well, yes and no. Yes, we could have kept Air Force Space Command, but presidents often want to leave their own mark on space. And this is a way President Trump can do that, even if Artemis doesn't pan out. But also, no. Because establishing a sixth military branch will allow greater funding for the work Space Command already does. The Space Force will expand opportunities for emerging space leaders and create a path forward for them. And possibly the most important point? Most major geopolitical players already have a Space Force. Russia and China both have Space Forces that lead and oversee their technological advancements. So it's critical that we establish this new branch of the military. The administration is pushing for American superiority in space, and this is truly the first step. Setting up an entire new service won't be easy, especially since the country hasn't had to do this since 1947. But it will be interesting to watch. All we can hope for is that Space Force continues the good work that the Air Force Space Command has already been able to do. It's important to note with the new United States Space Force that a lot of the criticism being lobbed at it cites the 1967 Outer Space Treaty, which basically says specific weapons are not allowed in space. Now you'll notice I said specific weapons and they specify weapons of mass destruction. So that means conventional weapons such as machine guns and even kinetic bombardment systems may actually be allowed in space. And now for something peaceful and involving international cooperation, we're at the International Space Station, where NASA astronaut Christina Koch has set the record for the longest single spaceflight by a woman. Clocking over to her 298th day on station, this previous Saturday, December 28th. Koch is currently planned to be on station till February 6th, which will place her at 328 days total in space. That's just 12 days shy of the US astronaut record set by Mark Kelly in 2016. And of course, we've got a few launches to wrap up this year with. Meet me in Baikonur for our first launch, a Russian classic Proton, lifting off on December 24th at 1203 Universal Time. Its payload heading to geostationary orbit is Electro-L3, a weather satellite for use in helping better weather predictions for the massive area that is Russia. It'll also monitor sea states, ocean temperatures, snow cover, and high altitude weather for air travel forecasts. Heading a bit northwest and into Russia proper, the final flight of the launch vehicle left the pad at the Plistik's Cosmodrome at 2311 Universal Time on December 26th. Flying for the Russian Ministry of Defense, four new Gonyetys satellites were successfully deployed into a polar orbit and will be used for secure data relay. China had one more launch in them for the year, and it was a doozy. A successful return to flight for their heavy lift launch vehicle, the Long March 5th, saw it leave the pad at the Wenxiang Satellite Launch Center at 1245 Universal Time on December 27th. An unsuccessful second flight in July 2017 saw a long stand down to correct the problems. It successfully lofted an experimental commsat called Xi Jian-20 into a super-synchronous orbit. Xi Jian-20 will test higher bandwidth transmissions and more powerful ion thrusters for orbit-raising and maneuvering. China has lofty ambitions with the Long March 5, planning to use it to launch their upcoming Mars Orbiter and Rover in 2020, a lunar sample return just a few months after that, and eventually the core and modules of their own space station. And here are your upcoming departures. Of course, we want to give a huge shout-out to all of our citizens of tomorrow. Without you folks, we wouldn't be here. No Station 204, no equipment to broadcast from orbit, no news, no shows. This is all you, and we are forever grateful that you give back to us to make this happen. So if you've got something out of this and would like to give something back, feel free to head on over to youtube.com slash tmro slash join. And if you'd like to contribute in other ways, it's actually quite easy. Subscribing to us at tomorrow, liking our videos, sharing them in every place that you can, you name it, it helps us. And you become a mission specialist helping move to our core objective, getting everyone, everywhere excited about space. And with this upcoming start to the new year also comes something new for me. I figured this would be the best place to announce it. I'm starting my own YouTube channel and I'll be dropping my first video tomorrow on New Year's Day. Head on over to youtube.com slash Jaredhead. That's J-A-R-E-D-H-E-A-D to subscribe and set up notifications. I'll be doing a weekly video report much like Space News here at tomorrow, but with a primary emphasis on astronomy and other space sciences. So if you've been missing that from our own Space News here at tomorrow, head on over to me. I'm going to start covering it in mass. Now in addition, I'll also have a weekly talk show series with interesting people from just about everywhere called STS and epic standalone videos of the adventures and shenanigans that I regularly find myself in. I'm still going to be here on tomorrow. So never fear. I'm not going anywhere away from here. And that's it for the final Space News of 2019. From all of us here at tomorrow, thank you so, so much for making 2019 the best year for us. And we're looking forward to what we're going to be giving you in 2020. So have a great New Year and remember, keep exploring. I can never get my microphones on correctly. Okay, whatever.