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One city that could see big benefits from the Trump administration is Huntsville, Alabama. The state has long supported President Trump, and Alabama politicians expect him to move U.S. Space Command to Huntsville, which is known as Rocket City. But as Stephan Bisaha of the Gulf States Newsroom reports, those gains could be outweighed by Trump's budget cuts in a city built by federal workers.
STEPHAN BISAHA, BYLINE: Redstone Arsenal is not like your typical Army post.
MIKE WARD: This is the place where America launched its space program.
BISAHA: Mike Ward is with the Huntsville and Madison County Chamber of Commerce, and the driving tour he's leading through the Arsenal's 38,000 acres is pretty much a who's who of federal space and defense agencies, from the big names like NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center...
WARD: The place where the Redstone rockets that first put satellites in space, a man in space were manufactured over here.
BISAHA: ...To the less well known, like the Army Materiel Command Headquarters.
WARD: So everything the Army buys - bullets, blankets, helicopters - that command is responsible for managing all of those activities.
BISAHA: Now, north Alabama hopes Trump will add a new tenant to the Arsenal.
WARD: And this is it.
BISAHA: So this whole stretch here, this empty stretch here?
WARD: This whole - all of this area here.
BISAHA: That would be Space Command.
Space Command's job is to coordinate across military branches for their space operations. At the end of his first term, Trump tried to move it from its temporary location in Colorado to Huntsville, but there was a backlash in Colorado. An inspector general's report later found that the decision to move Space Command to Huntsville was sound and not influenced by politics. That didn't stop then-President Joe Biden from canceling the move in 2023, saying that would jeopardize Space Command's readiness.
WARD: So I think President Trump has every right to review that process now and determine where that command should be located.
BISAHA: Alabama politicians have been predicting since Election Day that Trump would restart Space Command's move to Alabama.
TOMMY BATTLE: This is the best place for long term for Space Command.
BISAHA: That's Huntsville Mayor Tommy Battle. He says Space Command needs Huntsville's talent and infrastructure more than Huntsville needs Space Command's 1,600 jobs.
BATTLE: Many days I have two ribbon cuttings on a day, or two, a ribbon cutting and a groundbreaking. You know, we're going to grow, and we're going to continue to grow with or without Space Command. But obviously, we have an interest in it.
BISAHA: I spoke with the mayor the week of Trump's inauguration, and he had this whiteboard that listed challenges for his city and in that challenge column - changes in federal spending. Trump still hasn't delivered Space Command to Huntsville. Instead, he's spent the last month slashing away at agency budgets and jobs. So I called Battle back up...
Hello, this is Stephan.
BATTLE: Hey, Stephan. Tommy Battle. How are you?
BISAHA: Hey, Tommy. I'm doing all right...
...Because Redstone Arsenal already has about 45,000 federal workers, and there's a ton of anxiety right now about which jobs will be cut.
BATTLE: I'd say there - you know, you've got to say there's concern. It's just not knowing right now, and it's going to take time to know the full effect of what the DOGE is going to do and how it affects us specifically.
BISAHA: This week, the Department of Defense plans to cut thousands of probationary civilian workers. It's still unclear what this would mean for Huntsville. For now, Battle is talking less about Space Command as a boost to the region than as a way of making up for those potential losses.
BATTLE: Space Command could be - you know, could also be part of a plan B if there are cuts somewhere else.
BISAHA: Battle says the city's weathered federal cuts before, but the speed of these cuts makes them unique. For NPR News, I'm Stephan Bisaha in Huntsville, Alabama. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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