There’s space camp and then there’s Space Force boot camp.
Leaders of the U.S. military’s newest branch have said they want Space Force guardians to go through their own Basic Military Training, or BMT — one that is separate from the rest of the Air Force, according to Air & Space Forces Magazine.
“We’re trying to figure out what’s the right scope, what’s the right scale, what’s the right evolution away from [having] the Air Force training our inductees and getting to a more guardian-focused environment,” Chief of Space Operations Gen. Chance Saltzman said during the 2025 during the Spacepower Conference in Orlando.
No further information about the proposal for Space Force’s boot camp was immediately available, an Air Force spokesperson said. As of December, the Space Force has 9,523 Guardians in the force. For comparison, the Air Force has an authorized end strength of 320,000 active-duty airmen, 108,300 Air National Guardsmen, and 67,000 reservists under the Fiscal Year 2025 National Defense Authorization Act, which has been passed by the House of Representatives and awaits Senate approval.
Issues that need to be resolved include the location, curriculum, and physical requirements for Space Force’s boot camp as well as the timeline for establishing it.
As of now, guardians attend seven-and-a-half weeks of BMT at Joint Base San Antonio-Lackland in Texas, where Space Force recruits have had their own space-oriented curriculum since May 2022. After they graduate from BMT, guardians attend technical school to receive job-specific training before being assigned to an operational unit.
“There are approximately two flights of guardians going through training at any one time,” said Christa L. D’Andrea, a spokeswoman for Air Education and Training Command. “Most of the training for Guardians is the same as what airmen experience. The only difference is some of the curriculum is specific to USSF [U.S. Space Force].”
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It makes sense for the Space Force to have its own boot camp, because it would introduce new recruits to the culture of the service and help the service more firmly establish and cultivate its own identity, said Todd Harrison, a senior fellow with the American Enterprise Institute think tank in Washington, D.C.
“The expectations and culture of enlistees in the Space Force are different than the Air Force,” Harrison said. “The Space Force has a much smaller enlisted force relative to its officer corps (52% of the Space Force is enlisted compared to 81% in the Air Force), and the Space Force has a higher share of senior [noncommissioned officers] within its enlisted ranks. Twice as many enlisted guardians have a 4-year college degree than in the other services.”
The Space Force also needs to further develop its own culture as a way to distinguish itself from the Air Force to foster a sense of morale and unit cohesion, so it is logical for the service to create its own boot camp to condition recruits for their careers as guardians, Harrison said.
“The expectation is that guardians will stay longer, build deeper subject matter expertise, and attain a higher level of education,” Harrison said, “The culture is also different in the Space Force because its forces are almost exclusively employed-in-place and focused around a single domain that is remote and dominated by orbital mechanics.”
Still, Harrison said he does not think that Space Force needs its own service academy. Rather, the service can recruit students majoring in science and engineering from top universities through a Reserve Officers’ Training Corps program.
In other words, no Starfleet Academy — for now.
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