President Donald Trump unveiled the new U.S. Space Force logo on Friday — which seems to boldly go where one logo has gone before.
Trump posted an image on Twitter of the insignia for the newest branch of the U.S. military, drawing immediate comparisons of the new logo to the "Star Trek" Starfleet Starship duty insignia. The logo is also similar to the insignia of the Air Force Space Command, which was the precursor to the Space Force, hosting 16,000 active duty airmen and civilians.
"After consultation with our Great Military Leaders, designers, and others, I am pleased to present the new logo for the United States Space Force, the Sixth Branch of our Magnificent Military!" the 45th President tweeted.
A Space Force spokesperson said in a statement that the seal unveiled by Trump is, in fact, the new official logo.
"The U.S. Space Force seal honors the Department of the Air Force's proud history and long-standing record of providing the best space capabilities in the world," the spokesperson said. "The delta symbol, the central design element in the seal, was first used as early as 1942 by the U.S. Army Air Forces; and was used in early Air Force space organization emblems dating back to 1961. Since then, the delta symbol has been a prominent feature in military space community emblems."
The similarities between the apparent Space Force logo and the "Star Trek" logo were immediately apparent to many Twitter users — including one who was on the classic science fiction show.
George Takei, an actor who played Hikaru Sulu in the "Star Trek" series and is a vocal opponent of Trump, responded to the tweet by saying, "Ahem. We are expecting some royalties from this..."
Takei also suggested a "more politically aligned logo for the Trump Administration to emulate for their new #SpaceForce?” he tweeted, using the hashtag #ImperialWhiteHouse.
His suggestion: the Imperial insignia from “Star Wars."
The two images use similar central shapes and orbit lines.
One of the chief differences: where the Space Force logo says “Department of the Air Force,” the Starfleet Command logo says “United Federation of Planets."
In December, when Trump signed the National Defense Authorization Act into law, he also created the newest military service and the first new service since the U.S. Air Force came into being in 1947. The president originally wanted a Space Force that was “separate but equal” to the Army, Navy and Air Force, but instead Congress made it part of the Department of the Air Force — as noted in the logo tweeted by Trump — in the same way that the Marines are their own branch of the military but are within the Department of the Navy.
Gen. John Raymond, the previous commander of U.S. Space Command and Air Force Space Command, told reporters at the time of the signing that officials weren't in a "rush" to create the branch's new insignia.
"There are, as you can imagine, thousands and thousands of actions that are going to have to take place, everything from what does the uniform look like, to the logo, all the way up to who's in the Space Force and who's not in the Space Force," Raymond said. "That work is being planned and will continue to be refined."
Raymond added that "it's going to be really important that we get this right. A uniform, a patch, a song, it gets to the culture of a service, and so we're not going to be in a rush to get something and not do that right."
"There's a lot of work going on towards that end — I don't think it's going to take a long time to get that done — but that's not something that we're going to roll out on day one," he added.
Space Force started last week by tweeting a photo of their new green and black camouflage uniforms, which Twitter users mocked for reflecting the colors of Earth and no other known planet — let alone space.
Military officials explained the uniforms are meant to match those of other soldiers worn on Earth with the new ID patches being the difference. Those uniforms did not show the new logo.
nj.com, The Associated Press and New York Daily News contributed.
First Published: January 26, 2020, 8:30 p.m.
