The Space Force is sorry about this ‘clumsy’ tweet about the Space Force

The U.S. Space Force may have a growing command structure and expansive doctrine, but it's missing something critical to the sixth branch of the U.S. armed forces' success: people

By Jared Keller

Posted on Aug 13, 2020 2:31 PM EDT

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The U.S. Space Force may have a growing command structure and its first-ever doctrine, but it’s missing something critical to the sixth branch of the U.S. armed forces’ success: people. 

Even though more than 8,500 active-duty airmen volunteered to join the Space Force from the Air Force in May alone, the new service branch is in the middle of a major recruiting drive that includes messages like, well, this one:

First of all: this makes no fucking sense.

Second of all, we’re unclear exactly what “medals, achievements and honors” the Space Force is talking about exactly — namely because they don’t exist yet. And the nascent service branch only started launching missions back in May with the launch of a satellite from Cape Canaveral in Florida.

“It was a clumsy attempt to talk about the future and the significance of what a small group of people are doing, standing up our nation’s newest branch of service,” Maj. Nick Mercurio, a Space Force spokesperson, told Task & Purpose. “We’re taking a clean sheet approach to building the Space Force.”

We weren’t the only ones who look at the Space Force’s latest message as a giant bong rip:

https://twitter.com/Enviro_Doggo/status/1293678618069987329https://twitter.com/andraswf/status/1293674003111043073

Anyway, marketing is hard! But here’s a word of advice to the Space Force PAOs (and I know you’re reading this): If your copy could resemble that from the Netflix series Space Force and not the U.S. Space Force, perhaps reconsider your approach.

Related: Who did it better: the real Space Force recruiting spot or the trailer for Netflix’s ‘Space Force’?

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Jared Keller

Former Managing Editor

Jared Keller is the former managing editor of Task & Purpose. His writing has appeared in Aeon, the Los Angeles Review of Books, the New Republic, Pacific Standard, Smithsonian, and The Washington Post, among other publications.