Illustration by Phil Weisberger
the
the
Investm
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48 AIR FORCE Magazine February 2000
AIR FORCE Magazine // February 2000
An AFA symposium
explores our stake
in space and the
need to defend it.
By Peter Grier
ment in Space
Gen. Richard B. Myers
The nation’s military space infra-
structure is expensive. Within the Air
Force, no one disputes that point, Gen.
Richard B. Myers told the Air Force
Association’s Los Angeles National
Symposium on Nov. 19.
However, it’s worth the price, said
the Air Force’s top space officer.
Take Operation Allied Force. Without
space assets, triumph would have
taken longer and cost more, both in
collateral damage and lives of allied
service personnel.
AIR FORCE Magazine // February 2000
AIR FORCE Magazine February 2000 49
49
In Los Angeles, Myers spoke as Several countries already have la- and acquisition strategies in order
commander in chief of US Space sers than can blind optical sensors on to get the right capability up there
Command and North American Aero- US satellites. Others are working on when needed,” he said.
space Defense Command and as missile warheads capable of dispens-
commander of Air Force Space Com- ing satellite-killing shrapnel in Low Gen. Michael E. Ryan
mand. He was confirmed in October Earth Orbit. A nuclear detonation at As a nation, the United States has
to become vice chairman of the Joint the right altitude would leave people an ever-growing investment and
Chiefs of Staff. on Earth unharmed, yet fry every interest in the medium of space,
“It is tough to put a price tag on satellite in Low Earth Orbit. Gen. Michael E. Ryan, Air Force
the count of lives that I believe we “It is vitally important to protect Chief of Staff, told the Los Angeles
saved due to space support in Kosovo. ground launch and uplink–downlink symposium. All told, space repre-
... There is little question that space components as well,” said Myers. sents about a quarter of the overall
was vital to the allied victory,” said “Many of our overseas ground sites US aerospace industry effort, he
Myers. are remote and potentially vulner- said. US government spending
That operational experience aside, able.” on space reached $30 billion last
the last two years have seen some Critical space systems should be year. Private industry will reach
difficult times for military space. A able to withstand attacks with little and then surpass this level early
string of launch failures has destroyed or no damage. They should be able in the 21st century.
payloads worth $3 billion to $4 bil- to detect and report when they are The Air Force represents a large
lion, including a Milstar bird lost last under siege and locate and identify portion of US space efforts. The
April and a National Reconnaissance the attacking system. Ground control- service accounts for 90 percent of
Office spy satellite that was lost in lers need to be able to quickly assess DoD’s dedicated space personnel,
August 1998. attacks and rapidly restore capability 85 percent of its space budget, and
These experiences have raised a if needed. 90 percent of its space infrastructure.
difficult issue for Air Force Space Commercial as well as military “Each year,” said Ryan, “space
Command: How should the Air Force systems are at risk. Eighty percent of systems and space operations account
mitigate the risks associated with the spaceborne communications used for a growing share of the Air Force
spacelift? in the Kosovo campaign traveled on budget. It will continue to grow.
“The question is, how much risk commercial systems. That will be both an opportunity and
can we afford to take in the launch “Clearly, our reliance on commer- a challenge for the US Air Force.”
business today?” said Myers. cial space has created a new center of The military implications of in-
Mention launch insurance and “ev- gravity that can easily be exploited creased US involvement with, and
eryone shudders,” the space chief told by our adversaries,” said Myers. reliance upon, space systems are
the AFA audience. That is because it New technology would provide immense. Space will become a place
would cost upward of 30 cents per some protection for satellites against the nation must be able to control,
dollar of asset value—for the Air attack. But it is impossible to upgrade as it controls the atmosphere, when
Force, anyway. a system that’s already on orbit—and need be. That will not be easy, and
“That is like paying 10 grand to new systems may be a long time it will not be exact, said the Chief
insure a $30,000 car. It is not a very coming. of Staff.
good option for us,” said Myers. “The bad news is that our GPS “As the second half of the 20th
Another way of mitigating launch [Global Positioning System] satellites century has matured the air realm,
risk would be to plan for it. Buy more are lasting longer than predicted. Bad the first half of the next century will
satellites than requirements call for, news because we have capability on mature the aerospace realm,” he said.
on the theory that some will be lost orbit designed for a previous era and For Air Force purposes, space
in launch accidents. not responsive to our current needs,” and air are not separate domains,
Or use the Navy’s method. The said Myers. according to the Chief. Instead, they
Navy only pays for space assets At present, 27 GPS satellites are are two parts of the same whole, as
once they are on orbit and func - on orbit and another 18 are wait- closely related as oceans and seas.
tioning—an acquisition strategy ing on the ground. Most are older “We should think of the aerospace
that drives purchase costs signifi- designs. A version that incorporates domain as a seamless volume from
cantly higher. newer technology is not currently which we provide military capabili-
“We must have a plan to mitigate scheduled for first launch until 2007. ties in support of national security,”
the few failures that we know we are The must-have capabilities of the Ryan told the symposium. “Space is
going to have over time. We can’t just newer satellite include a jam-resistant a place, not a mission.”
present the Air Force with a billion military signal called the M-code, two Breakthroughs achieved during Op-
dollar bill for Milstar and say, ‘Go additional civil signals, and a much eration Allied Force demonstrate the
fund it,’ ” said Myers. higher power level. progress already made in integrating
The Air Force also needs a plan Traditionally, launch schedules space capabilities into the service’s
to defend its space capabilities, have been based on life expectancy, overall structure.
said the space chief. The nation’s the point being constellation sus- For the first time, the Air Force was
control of space remains vulnerable, tainment rather than maximization able to almost instantly calculate the
because space superiority is simply of capability. That needs to change, coordinates needed for GPS–guided
assumed—unlike air superiority, said the space chief. munitions to hit targets that had
which is planned for. “We need to rethink our launch been identified with atmospheric
50 AIR FORCE Magazine / February 2000
unmanned aerial vehicles. Preda-
tor video data was combined with Carol A. DiBattiste: The First Three Months
three-dimensional terrain data from
During her first 100 days as undersecretary of the Air Force, Carol A. DiBattiste
satellites, then beamed back to the has flown aerobatics in a T-38. She has participated in a three-ship C-17 low-level
cockpits of aircraft patrolling over airdrop mission and pulled seven and a half g’s in a two-on-two F-15 air intercept.
Kosovo and Serbia. She also got to send a navigation command to a GPS satellite—albeit under
Such efforts required much great- the watchful eyes of a room full of Space Command officers.
er communications capability than “Hopefully, the millions who use GPS each day didn’t know the difference with
me giving the commands, but it was truly awesome and a wonderful experience
was needed only a few years ago. for me to do so,” said Undersecretary DiBattiste at an AFA symposium in Los
Allied Force used five times as Angeles on Nov. 19.
much bandwidth as did Operation And while she was getting a taste of all the missions the Air Force performs,
Desert Storm, Ryan noted. The DiBattiste listened—and then listened some more. What she heard was that
the men and women of the service are excited about what they do—but also
Kosovo effort connected 40 differ- remain concerned about pay, health care, housing, retirement, and operations
ent locations in 15 countries using and personnel tempos.
a variety of military and civilian Pay and retirement changes that take effect in 2000 should help, she said. The
lines and satellites, and many new next step is to make similar improvements in the health care system.
ones were established. “We are also working fast and furiously to address and to fix our recruiting and
retention problems, and we need all of your help to do so,” she told the symposium.
“We worked over 44,000 spectrum Back in Washington, her three months on the job have exposed her to the
requests, some terrestrial, some at- tremendous pressures on the Air Force budget. She cited four major areas: the
mospheric, some for space systems, cost of the aging fleet, the need to improve quality-of-life programs, unexpected
and, as you may know, these are very personnel and operational costs, and modernization.
Smaller aspects of modernization can be just as important as big programs
gnarly issues with our host countries,” such as the F-22, she said.
Ryan told the AFA audience. “We must do our best to keep our space launch range infrastructure moderniza-
The Air Force is not the only US tion program moving forward,” she said. “I was told recently when I visited Space
military service interested in space, Command, as an example, that some of the ranges’ electronic patch panels that
but it is the only one with a full were used during John Glenn’s first spaceflight were still in use during his recent
flight on the space shuttle.”
spectrum of aerospace capabilities. Partnering with other agencies and with industry is one way that budget pres-
Maintaining that edge will be expen- sure might be eased, said DiBattiste. Another is simply making the case for
sive. That is why partnerships are so modernization plans and initiatives.
critical, said Ryan. What is the requirement? What is the threat? Is it cost effective?
“The better we can quantitatively answer these kinds of questions, ... the better
Partnerships with industry are al- we can evolve our aerospace force in the 21st century,” the undersecretary said.
ready a reality. In the Balkans, one
experiment has forward air controllers
using commercial satellite telephone
systems.
“The first test occurred last De- by a flat or declining budget, said access to the same services. That
cember. The forward air controller Babbitt. may be true in regards to naviga-
dialed 911 Air Force and received an “I expect the solution is a little bit tion, wideband communications,
immediate close air support aircraft of all. More topline and continued and remote sensing, said Babbitt.
in his area,” said the Chief. cost reduction,” said Babbitt. But access to services does not
The aerospace domain must be One initiative that might help save automatically translate into combat
integrated into how the service fights, money is greater use of commercial capability.
Ryan concluded. space opportunities, according to the “It takes a sustained commitment
“We are on a journey,” he said, AFMC commander. to tactics, doctrine, training, and
“combining and evolving aerospace A recent study by Air Force Space hardware to fully exploit these
competencies into a full-spectrum Command and AFMC’s Space and space-based services,” said Babbitt.
aerospace force.” Missile Systems Center said that The second obstacle is that the
not many opportunities exist in this military requirements and program
Gen. George T. Babbitt area. Babbitt said he was “surprised approval process remains too long
All the top officials of the Air and a little disappointed” at this and arduous for greater use of
Force accept that space capability is conclusion. He believes the subject civilian-provided services. Also
a key to fighting and winning in the deserves further debate before it can true—but perhaps not insurmount-
decades ahead. That raises another be dismissed. able, according to the AFMC chief.
issue, said Gen. George T. Babbitt, Discussions about commercial Third, commercial firms often
commander of Air Force Materiel space typically involve five mission make use of proprietary technol-
Command. How is the service going areas, he said: launch services, range ogy and nonstandard interfaces and
to pay for the space modernization support, wideband communication, provide little coverage in limited
that it needs? navigation, and remote sensing. Five market areas. Perhaps there is a way
Further force reductions are not obstacles to increased Air Force use to lure the civilian world into greater
likely to pay for much. More re- of commercial services are also typi- standardization, mused Babbitt.
engineering, outsourcing, and priva - cally raised, he said. “What can be done to encourage
tization won’t provide enough money. The first is that use of commercial commercial operators to comply
Perhaps the military needs of firms will establish a level playing with common user interfaces? What
America can no longer be satisfied field with adversaries who have additional investments would be
AIR FORCE Magazine / February 2000 51
required to expand coverage into in recent months have been lose–lose, Martin last May following Titan IV,
areas of military interest?” he asked. in the sense that a string of launch Athena, and Theater High Altitude
The fourth obstacle is that industry failures has destroyed important Area Defense missile failures.
is interested in commercial operation payloads intended for both military The first conclusion that this team
of ranges but uninterested in range and commercial uses. highlighted, said Young, is that mili-
investments. This reluctance should Widnall was the chair of Boeing’s tary space is different from every
not limit the dialogue in what is one recent mission assurance review of other aerospace area, even other
of the more promising areas for com- two failed Delta III missions. She defense areas. Oversight is more
mercialization. said that one problem was success. crucial than anywhere else.
The last roadblock is that US gov- The reliability of the Delta II lured “One person can make one mistake
ernment policy prohibits commercial Boeing into applying some of the that can [lead to] a total mission
investment in the GPS constellation. same engineering and oversight pro- failure,” said Young.
It also prevents the Air Force from cedures to the Delta III, where they Second, even when things are go-
any cost recovery from industry for did not work. ing well in the launch business, it is
its GPS investment. Yet few space The success of Delta II was due appropriate to worry. The Lockheed
systems seem better suited for some to years of incremental improve- Martin–established group looked not
sort of commercial participation than ments, said Widnall. But Boeing only at launch failures but at near-
the widely used navigation system, underestimated the Delta III design failures as well and came up with a
said Babbitt. challenge. surprising number of what it termed
“GPS has created a thriving com- “The same kind of processes that “diving catches” (where heroic ac-
mercial market, and ... continued Air were very successful in a mature ve- tion by one person saved a mission)
Force investment in that constellation hicle, a successful vehicle with incre- and “escapements” (where problems
diverts resources from systems that mental improvements, are not adequate were caught by normal review pro-
will never have a commercial ap- to deal with some major changes,” she cesses—but not when they should
peal,” said Babbitt. “We need to be said. “We believe this was a failure of have caught them).
sure before we rule out commercial systems engineering.” “There were a large number of near-
options [in this area].” The review’s first recommendation misses, diving catches, and escape-
Perhaps these obstacles are in- to Boeing was that quality must be ments. In fact, of particular interest,
surmountable and there truly is the company’s highest priority. The there were many in the Atlas program,
little room for greater involvement group also urged a strengthening of which has a record today of 48 con-
by private firms in providing key systems engineering activities and secutive successes,” said Young.
Air Force services. But more dis- more engineering oversight. Every one of these semifailures
cussion needs to occur before that “An extremely important issue should be treated as if they had caused
conclusion is reached, said the is to assure that adequate com- a mission crash, urged Young. That
AFMC head. munication exists between design means taking more corrective actions
“I don’t believe we have suffi- engineering and manufacturing,” than might otherwise be deemed
ciently explored commercial space said the former civilian head of the necessary.
options,” he said. Air Force. “I think as we looked at Mission success, not cost, needs
some of the recent failures it was to be the top priority.
Sheila E. Widnall very clear that there was a problem “You can’t get to cost by put-
One commercial–military space of what I would refer to as ambigu- ting cost No. 1. You get to cost and
partnership that symposium partici- ous technical orders.” schedule by putting quality or mis-
pants all described as a promising Supplier management is also a big sion success first,” said the former
start was the Evolved Expendable issue, as roughly 60 percent of the Martin Marietta chief.
Launch Vehicle program. EELV is going to be supplier parts Loss of experienced engineers has
EELV is a unique approach, said and components. Widnall also said hurt the space business, said both
former Secretary of the Air Force her committee felt that launch vehicle Young and Widnall. And account-
Sheila E. Widnall in a panel discus- teams should think explicitly about ability for mission success needs to
sion of challenges facing the space risk. Someone needs to consider the be focused, with both senior man-
industry. The Air Force has been able risk of failure due to proposed de- agement and engineers involved in
to leverage a fixed investment several sign, engineering, and manufacturing success-related oversight.
times over due to investments by its changes, she said. “The responsible engineer for a
commercial partners. “Finally, I think everybody who is component, a box, a subsystem, a
“The goal of all of that is that the involved in this EELV issue is think- software package really should have
military, the Air Force, the national ing very seriously about a first flight cradle to grave responsibility,” said
payloads should be able to get access that is some sort of a test flight of Young. ■
to space at fundamentally commercial perhaps a less-than-critical payload,”
prices, and, at the same time, we said Widnall.
should be able to get a very vigor- Peter Grier, the Washington editor
ous commercial space industry in A. Thomas Young of the Christian Science Monitor, is
the United States. It sounds like a A. Thomas Young, former president a longtime defense correspondent
and regular contributor to Air Force
win–win,” said Widnall. and chief operating officer of Martin
Magazine. His most recent article,
But EELV aside, a number of im- Marietta, was the head of a similar “New World Coming,” appeared in the
portant military and civilian launches assessment team formed by Lockheed December 1999 issue.
52 AIR FORCE Magazine / February 2000