Jim Cooper

The Honorable Jim Cooper is a recently retired congressman (D-TN) who served in the U.S. House of Representatives for 32 years, working on eight different committees including the Intelligence Committee. Jim helped found the Space Force as the former chairman of the Strategic Forces Subcommittee of the U.S. House Armed Services Committee. In 2017, Jim worked with Representative Mike Rogers (R-AL) on a proposal to establish a space corps under the U.S. Department of the Air Force. The proposal passed the House and two years later a bill with very similar language was signed into law, creating the U.S. Space Force. Cooper received his J.D. from Harvard Law School, his M.A. as a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford University, and his B.A. as a Morehead Scholar at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He is writing a book about the beginnings of the Space Force.