Trump: US need 'space force'

US President Donald Trump said his new national security strategy recognizes that space is a theater of war, and he floated the idea of creating a Space Force, a branch of the military that would operate outside of earth's atmosphere.

"Space is a war-fighting domain, just like the land, air, and sea," Trump told a an audience of service members at the Marine Corps Air Station Miramar. "We may even have a Space Force, develop another one, Space Force. We have the Air Force, we'll have the Space Force."

Trump described how he'd originally coined the term as a joke, while discussing US government spending and private investment in space. "I said, 'maybe we need a new force, we'll call it the Space Force,' and I was not really serious. Then I said, 'what a great idea,' maybe we'll have to do that," he said.

"So think of that, Space Force," CNBC cited the president as saying.