General Lance Lord
Commander, Air Force Space Command
AFA Los Angeles Symposium
November 15, 2002

It is an honor for me to be here with the whole SMC team and all of Air Force Space Command, thanks for the opportunity. I’m so excited I forgot my speech! So you are going to get three hours worth of bandwidth on demand, how about that?

Let me just recognize one group of folks who are part of what we are doing in Air Force Space Command and certainly out here in Los Angeles. The commanders are all great, don’t get me wrong, I’ve got the world’s best commanders in Air Force Space Command--but I want to recognize the Command Chief Master Sergeants. We have the world’s finest technology, there is no doubt about it, but a notch above our technology are the contractors, civilians and military professionals who make up Air Force Space Command and our whole Air Force. I count on good advice from my commanders, but with these Command Chiefs, I get the ungarbled truth straight to my face all the time! I appreciate that.

Thanks to the Air Force Association for bringing everybody together. The Air Force Association is a wonderful organization, certainly the Schriever chapter here in Los Angeles is a great team and the Aerospace Education Foundation is a wonderful program. From all of us, thank you for putting this together.

Thanks General Ryan for the wonderful remarks. I followed the Chief around as the A-Vice [Assistant Vice Chief of Staff of the Air Force]--I was the Deputy Support Group Commander for the E-ring! I always got candid advice from General Ryan, face to face, all the time. I didn’t have wait for him to retire to give it to me!

It is great to be in Los Angeles. We landed and brought the whole team out to the Space and Missile Systems Center, who delightfully agreed to host us when I called Brian [Arnold] and said “we’re coming to LA and will be at your base.” He said, “Ok, come on, we’ll be happy to have you.”

One thing that I got to do during this trip to Los Angeles was to go see Phil Jackson and the Los Angeles Lakers over at their practice facility. I don’t know how many of you know who Phil Jackson is, but he wrote a book called Sacred Hoops. It is about selflessness and awareness, two of the key things that he focuses on as a coach. I also got a chance to meet Shaquille O’Neal. Now he’s a large man! He had a foot injury, had his foot operated on, and he was working out on the stepper, getting back into shape, when I walked into the practice facility.

Now his father is an Army guy, which many of you know, and Dale Brown who was coach at Louisiana State University was on a visit to Europe, as many NCAA basketball coaches do. He was walking through the gymnasium on one of the Army posts over in Germany and there was a group of young men playing basketball--including one guy who was about a foot and a half taller than everybody else was! Being a basketball coach, he said, “I’ve got to go talk to those gents.” He worked his way up to the group, that he assumed were all in the Army, and he asked Shaquille, “What outfit are you in?” He said, “I’m not, Sir. I’m not in the Army. I’m in the eighth grade!” Dale Brown, being a a good coach, immediately said, “Take me to your mother!” He formed a relationship with Shaquille O’Neal, although it wasn’t overt recruiting at the time--you are not permitted to do that--but somehow Shaquille O’Neal ended up at LSU and you know the rest of the story.

As soon as I walked into that stadium, do you know what he did? He saluted me and he said, “General Lord, how are you, today?”
I said, “How is the ‘Sarge’?” That’s what he calls his dad. He said he is doing fine and is still associated with the Army Reserve. I told him, “You know, our people at LA Air Force Base live around the corner from your practice facility and there are great people there in the U.S. Air Force and certainly in the space business,” and he said, “I know, and I wish you all the greatest success in the future.” So I thought I would tell you that. That was an amazing tribute to what we do, although we think we do it in a closed business, there are certainly other people out there who know what we are doing.

Now, the Lakers knew I was coming because we sent word ahead to talk to the coach. I had played the University of North Dakota “connection”--that’s where Phil Jackson went to college before he went on to play with the New York Knicks. Now he has nine world championship rings. I guess one for the thumb is one that they can talk about for sure!

If you remember when Phil Jackson was coaching the Chicago Bulls, they started out with a team that had Michael Jordan and a whole lot of other guys. He didn’t make Michael Jordan better. What he did, with the awareness and selflessness he talked about [in his book], he brought the whole team up. When you bring the whole team up to the super star level, you can see the results—three world championships, six, and then onto nine total.

I would like to take that note about selflessness and awareness and think about that as we develop a framework for the future and as we look at what we can do as a collective group here in the space business.

got a chance to command three times at wing commander-level, both in Air Force Space Command and back in Strategic Air Command--and I remember when I got to go back to the unit where I started out as a second lieutenant to be the wing commander. When I walked back in, about 18 years later, I thought maybe I’d lived down my reputation as a lieutenant and a young captain, but the wing commander’s secretary was the same lady who was there when I’d left! Many of you know how they are the collective wisdom in the front office. Her name was Nita Fox, at Grand Forks Air Force Base, 321st Missile Wing. When I went back in she said, “Colonel Lord, you are the wing commander I’ve been waiting for.” That made me feel real good. I said, “Why is that, Mrs. Fox?” She said, “When the lieutenants start coming back as wing commanders, it is time to retire.” I guess she saw me as a generation passing. She served for 32 years and that was my first duty as a wing commander, to retire my secretary.

The moral of that story is that in this business, it was certainly true then and it is true now, “you’ve got to be careful what you ask for because you just might get it.” The Space Commission laid something out for us--we asked for it, we’ve got it and now we’ve got to do something with it. To do that, we need a framework.

Tex Winter is an assistant coach with Phil Jackson and the Lakers. Tex is the father of the triangle offense. I had a chance to talk to Tex, too, when I talked with Phil Jackson and I said, “Tex, you put together this wonderful offense.” He said, “Yeah, it’s a great offense. It’s a great plan. You can draw this stuff out and teach the players to do it. But it doesn’t make any difference what it looks like on paper. It is how you execute, General,” he said, “It’s all about execution.”

I’ve taken the NBA and used them as [an example of] one of the world’s finest intelligence gathering organizations. They scout other players, they scout the teams. They scouted Phil Jackson and the triangle offense for years. Do you remember what happened when the Utah Jazz and the Chicago Bulls were playing Game 7 in the Delta Center there in Salt Lake City? They knew what Michael Jordan’s tendencies were. They knew he would get the ball about 18 feet from the basket, take two steps to the left, and shoot that fade-away jump shot. What happened in Game 7 of the championship? Michael Jordan, with three seconds left on the clock, gets the ball, 18 feet from the basket. What does he do? He dribbles left…fade away jump shot…nothing but net. Thank you, I’ll take the world championship trophy! A great [intelligence] collection mechanism, but if you don’t have a framework that you can execute based on, then you are not going to be successful in this business. That is why it is important to do what the Chief said and that is, we’ve got to integrate space within this kind of framework.

True to my academic heritage, I am going to talk to you and tell you how we are going to execute that framework in three main points. Let me talk a little bit about the first point. That is the organize, train and equip part of what General Ryan talked about.

What is new now that we didn’t do prior to the Space Commission? I titled these remarks “The Space Commission and Beyond,” but it [actually] starts way back. We just had our 20th anniversary at Air Force Space Command. General Hartinger, when he took that flag and they stood up the command, said, “Space is the medium we have to exploit.” To do that, you’ve got to have a framework. You can’t create this stuff out of whole cloth. We’ve got to have a framework. It has got to be developed and based on a solid operational framework.

We are going to organize, train and equip…be a full functioning MAJCOM 24/7/365…with an Air Force Space Command commander in charge all the time. That is not to say my tri-hatted predecessors weren’t good commanders. They were great commanders, but they had to check every day, when they were wearing three hats, which one they had on. They could have had some interesting conversations with themselves! Wearing one hat, they might say, “What do you think about this as a CINC?” And then change hats and try to answer the question. It’s kind of like coming back to a command you served in so many times before--you can end up answering your own mail. You also knew who made those other decisions. So, you have got to live with those, too.

We are going to get past that three-hat business and on to organizing, training, and equipping the force 24/7/365. Those commanders and Chiefs in this room, you know that you’ve got me…I’m yours…and we are going to make this work together. There is no doubt about it. We’ve had a wonderful couple of days to focus, we’ve got high goals for this command and we’ll continue to do that.

We are going to be the world’s most respected ICBM and space experts. There is no doubt about it. We have got to be. That is our task. That is our role. That is our responsibility. We’ve got two Numbered Air Forces, the Space and Missile Systems Center and the Space Warfare Center to help us do that along with all the wings and organizations that flow from that [organization].

Not only are we going to be ICBM and space experts, because that is what you demand and that is what we have to be, we are also going to understand the air, land and sea business. We are going to have to integrate space across the air, land and sea mediums. We don’t just do space for air purposes. We do it for land purposes and for sea purposes, too. If we can do that and do that right, and we are trusted in our relationships, then we will be able to do what the Chief requests. We’ve put together a structure that will help us manage the requirements and that people can trust and rely on.

Now that we’ve got Lieutenant General Brian Arnold and the SMC team as part of our Command, we want to make sure the full weight of the Command rests with General Arnold and his System Program Directors. When the Art Ballengers and the Mark Borkowskis and the Mike Dunns and the Sue Mashikos and the Christine Andersons and the Ed Alexanders of the world--the program directors--stand up and talk about what they are doing in their program, they are not just speaking for the program, they are speaking for the whole command. That requires us to be connected, not only in the acquisition business, but also certainly in the concepts of operations (CONOPS) and in static requirements. That is where our DO [Director of Operations] and our DR [Director of Requirements] are critical--making sure we coordinate and talk to Brian and his program directors. We have to stabilize requirements and avoid the thrash that results in an ever-expanding design of the system. I think we’re working that hard.

We also made some decisions over the last couple of days. We’ve taken a look at our launch wings--the 30th and the 45th. We are going to blend the talent that Brian has in the launch acquisition business--his detachments on both coasts--with our operational squadrons so we have a hybrid, best-of-breed, launch generation and launch execution organization.
Additionally, we also looked at what Tim McMahon is doing in 20th Air Force as we move away from the threat-based approach to the ICBM business to one that’s capabilities-based. That frees us up to think dynamically and creatively as we shape the future of our ICBM force. We can think broadly within this construct about how the wonderful people operating, sustaining and securing this force will create military effects in the future along the continuum of operations and we’re fortifying that with ideas and concepts that Skeet Frazier and his team are doing at the Space Warfare Center. There, we are thinking about how you apply the tactics, techniques and procedures as part of a solid operational framework that we are selflessly involved in and that people can depend on.

That is point number one—organize, train and equip. We are going to work that hard--putting the full force of the MAJCOM behind our space and ICBM efforts. One Command--One voice--Shaping the future.

Back on this day in 1806--November 15th, First Lieutenant Zebulon Pike first saw the mountain later named after him, Pike’s Peak. He never got to climb Pike’s Peak, but today it bears his name. As a matter of fact, he was arrested for trespassing on Spanish Territory! Maybe many of us won’t get into space…won’t be able to climb that mountain…but we’ll have the capability as a full functioning MAJCOM to help shape and influence how this whole environment is going to emerge in the future. And standing on Buzz Aldrin and his colleagues’ shoulders, we are going to really reach up there and do some great things.

Point number two, and the Chief already mentioned this, is that we’re going to be a full functioning MAJCOM in our component role. What does it means to be a good component? I’ve had many discussions with Admiral Ellis in STRATCOM and we’re helping to put together that team working with his folks in Omaha. They do have, left in Colorado Springs, some residual elements from USSPACE--they are called STRATWEST. Pretty soon, STRATWEST will be STRATCENTRAL. They will all move and the “Road to Space” will include Omaha after it starts in LA with Brian and the concepts and the labs and running through Colorado Springs. That will be the way things are going to go.

As a component, we have got to present our forces. What I’m talking about is providing those capabilities, the outputs, rather than flying the satellites. Take GPS for example. The day-to-day business of flying the GPS satellites, which we do at the 2nd Space Operations Squadron at Schriever [AFB], is important. But then we have to worry about the output of those GPS satellites--the position, navigation, timing and accurate signal that is important for creating warfighting effects. We’ve got to manage that, and Mike Hamel and his folks at 14th Air Force are doing that on a day-to-day basis. We have to think critically about how we present our forces and their capabilities in a framework that is accepted for use in warfighting.

Next Saturday, I’ll take off for Southwest Asia. I want to visit some of our space folks, walk through and take a look at what is going on in the Combined Air Operations Center. I had a discussion earlier this week with General Franks, and I told him I appreciate everything he has said recently in hearings with the Secretary of Defense in front of Congress about how important space has been to the warfighting effects created in Operation Enduring Freedom.

It didn’t start out that way. It got that way as people have come to trust our space capabilities and our capability to deliver and present forces through the Combined Forces Air Component Commander--in this case it was Chuck Wald followed on by Buzz Moseley. We built up that relationship of trust with senior space leaders like Willy Shelton and Dick Webber [who were] involved at CENTCOM and also over in the theater as well as all the space folks who have been integrated into the CAOC team. If we have to go to a conflict in the future, space folks will be there. We’ve got to work that even harder in the future, because space is integral to combat operations. I brag a little bit about that as Chief talked about JDAMs and AMRAAMs being uninhabited air vehicles that just don’t come back. I said, “GPS put the “DAM” in JDAM--Damn, that was good!”

That said, there’s a lot we’ve still got to to do. Not only do we need to organize, train and equip the force, we need to make sure our headquarters is structured and organized to present our capabilities to the Combatant Commander, Admiral Ellis. We’re working hard to make sure that happens. That is point number two.

Now, the third point in our framework that I’d like to quickly mention is that we want to make Mr. Teets, as the Under Secretary of the Air Force, and the Air Force in our role as the DoD Executive Agent for Space successful. We need to make Mr. Teets the most successful guy in Washington! Because if he is the most successful guy in Washington, we will all be successful. We’ve got to do that.

I don’t want to steal any of his thunder--and this is not an attempt to try to get seven main points in a three main point speech--but I want to tell you what he is working on. Mr. Teets is working on assured access to space. Like I said, we could use Shaquille O’Neal in assured access to space! He is also working black and white space integration--taking the best from both places [Air Force space and NRO] and building a hybrid set of capabilities. Mr. Teets is certainly augmented by great guys like Bob Kehler, who is out there in the audience, Joe Sovey and Bob Dickman. They are working together with Dennis Fitzgerald and the NRO folks to make sure we can put together the best from the black and white space and make them work together.

We’ve had some successful operations in this area at the people level. We’ve had people selected to be NRO squadron commanders off our squadron commander list and we’re going to have some interchanges. We just went through a series of personnel moves and things that will pay off in the future to really make sure that we get the people part of the business working so that we can help enable the rest of the framework. Also, the launch organization structure I mentioned earlier will help not only on the white side of space but also with respect to mission assurance for our National Reconnaissance Office launches as well. Nobody wants to launch a bad rocket. Nobody wants to build a bad rocket. Nobody wants to build a bad payload.

That is his second point. His third is that he, like the rest of us in this room, want to make sure we get our acquisition programs on track. We can control part of that, by making sure in Air Force Space Command, we’ve got good concepts of operation and stable requirements. Mitch Mitchell here, the DO, and Tom Sheridan, the Director of Requirements, are going to be the ‘requirements police’ to make sure the folks who are building the systems can count on a stabilized set of requirements. I think that the biggest threat to any acquisition is an unstable baseline. We want to make sure we work that.

r. Teets’ fourth priority--that is echoed by not only me, but General Jumper and Secretary Roche as well--is to develop a cadre of professionals to prosper in this environment in the future. We talked with our commanders this week about a Space Career Management Plan and had the opportunity to start looking at it at the tactical, operational and strategic level--just like you mentioned, General Ryan. I think we’ve got a framework that will fit within the force development construct.

For too long, we’ve looked at our life in pyramids. We start at the bottom and try to work our way to the top, instead of looking at life from the bottom and turn that pyramid upside down--looking at the expanding opportunities to broaden our horizons but at the same time to become absolutely steeped in our profession. Whether you are working for Tim McMahon up at the 20th Air Force in the intercontinental ballistic [missile] business or you are involved in the space side of the business…you’ve got to understand what we are talking about. We’ll teach you as you go up from the tactical to the operational and strategic levels--provide the knowledge, education and opportunities--to make sure you continue to focus so we can keep this business going in the future. That is a good framework. That is a framework for success.

In summary, we’re going to be a fully functioning MAJCOM--24/7/365. We’ll work hard at being a good component to US Strategic Command and do what we need to do as we present forces in the expeditionary structure. Finally, we will work together to make sure Mr. Teets, in his role as the Under Secretary of the Air Force, is the most successful person in Washington. Of course, we won’t be doing all that alone. We’ll do that with your help.

Many of you have heard me tell this story, but I’m going to tell it one more time. The third time I was a wing commander, I had the opportunity to command the 30th Space Wing at Vandenberg Air Force Base. It was on Friday the 13th and General Horner was visiting. We re-stood up 14th Air Force that day--I am a plank holder of that [organization]--and General Horner was on the stage when he said, “Lord, if you screw this up the third time, we are going to throw you out of the business.” I had my marching orders!

That night, Beccy and I were eating dinner at the officers’ club and the waiter came over and said, “Can I help you?” I said, “Yeah, I’d like some rolls with my dinner please.” I got no response. I waited. About five minutes later he came back and he asked, “Is there anything I can help you with?” “Yeah,” I said, “I’d like some rolls with my dinner.” Again, no response. Again, five minutes elapsed and he came back. He said, “Anything else you’d like?” I said, “Yeah, I’d like some rolls with my dinner. Don’t you know who I am?” I was getting fed up. He said, “Sure, I know who you are. You are the new wing commander. You just took over today. You are in charge of everything on this base.” I said, “Ok.” And he said, “Do you know who I am?” I said, “No.” And he said, “I am the guy that controls the rolls!” You never stop learning in this business. You know what I learned right there? We have different levels of authority and responsibility, but somebody always controls the rolls! Why don’t we get together and roll on in this business…and if you’re not in space, you’re not in the race!

Q: On the need to recapitalize our legacy systems, do you think we are on track and we are going to be able to keep that going?

General Lord: I don’t like the term “legacy systems.” I told our people I want to disabuse us of using the term “legacy” and talking about “flying out legacy systems.” That is the wrong approach. We can’t take a legacy approach to anything. If we’ve got it, we’ve got to operate it. We’ve got to make sure that the last rocket is just as good as the first rocket.

That’s what I’ve told our SPDs [System Program Directors] earlier--Mike [Dunn] and Sue Mashiko who is our EELV lady--she is down at the Cape right now. We’ve got to take that approach to business. Not only in the rocket side of the business, but the payload side of the business as well. We are working hard to shift gears and move from one system to the other. For example, we’ve got a lot of work to do and as we look at GPS. We’re getting ready to look at the alternatives, as I think Brian [Arnold] will probably talk about. And with Mr. Teets, we are going to have an acquisition look at that program again in early to mid-December to see what the future holds. We are doing good things and I don’t want anybody to think in terms of “legacy.” I want people to think in terms of capabilities, effects and outputs. The “organize, train and equip” business is our input and what we do in terms of capabilities and effects is the output. We’ve got to make sure we focus on the outputs as well as the inputs.

Q: As we look out into space, at the eight or nine thousand objects we’ve got out there, what about concern about impacting our shuttle or satellites? Anything we are doing to mitigate that risk?

General Lord: Space surveillance. Part of understanding the environment of space is knowing what’s out there. At a higher level, there is the whole idea of the counterspace mission area--which includes space situation awareness, offensive counterspace and defensive counterspace. This is one of the major growth areas for the future. We are devoting a lot of attention to moving from just tracking objects in space to really understanding more about the environment and what is in the environment of space and how things occur. We stood up, under General Sheridan and the DR folks, the Space Situation Awareness Integration Office to address that. We’ve got some programs in the future and we want to continue to improve our capabilities. We do a lot of what is called conjunction analysis, through our team in Cheyenne Mountain--the 1st Space Control Squadron, to make sure we can give NASA a warning if we think there is anything that might interfere with the international space station or the shuttle. We’ll continue to work that and get beyond our basic capabilities. This is one area we really want to improve in the future.

Q: You mentioned Space Command being a very large organization, around forty thousand folks or so. Outside of organizational concepts, what are your thoughts on how we can improve our processes? What are the challenges of improving our processes?

General Lord: We talked a lot about that over the last six months. In some cases, we are holding things together based on personalities of the people involved. That is why it was important for General Arnold and me, along with the launch wing commanders, to get together yesterday. We talked about what would make a good organizational construct for both launch generation and launch execution--clear lines of authority, as it reflects to the PEO [Program Executive Officer] structure, and clear lines of command to make sure people know who’s in charge. Part of being a good process person is really that you’ve got to be steeped in what the process is doing, day-in and day-out. If we are really going to be experts, as we are in the ICBM business and we are in the space business, then I think we can make the processes [that are] associated work. One that really is paying off for us is something General Lyles will talk about--an enterprise approach to how we do business and look at all the things that create the environment. Brian and I, although we are in AFSPC, are working with General Lyles and his enterprise approach to business. To me, that is going to be a great process for us as we work together--and that certainly includes the product center folks too. We are a different MAJCOM. I mean, we have our acquisition arm as part of our major command and we’ve got to do this right. We’ve got to be successful.

Q: Given our current organizational structure today, what do you see as the best way to integrate our information operations across the air mission and the space mission?

General Lord: A lot of what we do from space, really, is to create information that is useful for decision makers and we are setting up a structure to integrate [that information]. I’ve had initial discussions with Admiral Ellis about this role, that will end up being finally defined and assigned as unified command plan missions [assigned] to Strategic Command--computer network attack, computer network defense, and [we will] work those. Information operations are really critical capabilities. We took an action, during the recent Combat Air Forces Conference, for General Hamel and General Bruce Carlson from 8th Air Force to get together and coordinate what we think is a good way to approach this. I think, eventually, we’ll get to what General Ryan said in terms of one-stop shopping for all these capabilities in our component relationship, [though] it’s likely to take us several steps to get there. It is a matter of building up trust and relationships [that are] based on a solid operational framework--something people can depend on. As General Ryan said, the presentation of forces is critical. We’ve got to present seamless capabilities. Push them forward so that the warfighter can use them in an integrated fashion. That’s important. We’ve done that--we’ve been successful with space. We can be just as successful with information, but it has got to be worked that way.

Q: With the reorganization of SMC under Air Force Space Command, how do you see the relationship between SMC and AFMC evolving?

General Lord: I think it is really maturing and that is part of the reason I wanted to come out and visit with Brian and all the folks at SMC and Los Angeles Air Force Base. It is critical because we are all part of the same business. We [AFSPC and SMC] all wear the same patch now, but I’d be naive to stand up here and tell you that there aren’t stove pipes that we need to continue to work on, as well as details of our interface with AFMC. We’ll continue to work those together but I think, given what we’ve seen in the last couple of days, there is nothing that we can’t do by working together. By putting a team together, including AFMC and AFSPC, and focusing on this awareness of selflessness that Phil Jackson mentioned, we are going to create a good framework for the future. It is not as good as it can be, but it’s better than a year ago and it will keep getting better everyday--that is what we’ve got to do.

Q: How would you describe the current status of the follow-on to GPS?

General Lord: We looked at lots of options, and we are going to sit down and discuss those with Mr. Teets. As a matter of fact, as we get ready to go to this meeting in early December, we are making sure we go back through all the options [to determine] what we can do with the IIR, the IIM and the IIR-modified [satellites] and then get to GPS III and look at those. If I could do one thing different in the GPS, I’d say, “Let’s go with GPS 1, 2 and 3 as opposed to IIR, IIM, IIA.” That’s kind of confusing to me. I think we’ve got a chance to take a look at GPS in a very interesting way. General Ryan talked a little bit about it. I sometimes say that you can fill Invesco Field at Mile High Stadium to capacity with people who think they are in charge of what is going on with GPS outputs. We get a lot of people thinking about that; but we’ve got to put [them] together with Mr. Teets and with Brian and the team in a process that helps us put together the best capability. Position, navigation and timing are critical to military operations and are critical to the economic operations, not only in the United States but also all over the world. For example, one or two microseconds on timing make a big difference in funds transfer.

Q: Regarding our tactical, over-the-horizon communications and expanding our channel availability, not only for combat operations but also for training: Where are we on this?

General Lord: Transforming communications is important to us. Operation Enduring Freedom, as compared to Operation Desert Storm, [used] ten times the bandwidth [with] one-tenth the force involved. The footprint was one-tenth of what it was. Ten times the bandwidth. Some say, though, that 70 percent of that bandwidth was consumed by power point briefings! My personal view is that saying we want to eliminate bandwidth as a constraint forever is probably an unachievable goal. Bandwidth gets consumed. It is like software--applications grow until you fill up the memory you’ve got. What we really need to do is make sure we’ve got good solid operational frameworks, do a little “bandwidth appetite suppression” from the user end in terms of our CONOPS and our requirements, and then help share the load. That is not to say we don’t need new connectivity--we do. We are going to look at some exciting opportunities. We are going to start with Advanced EHF and the Wideband Gap Filler, but we inherited a system that’s got big replacement issues to deal with. We all thrive and live on information, so we’ve got to work those, but we have to do it in a smart kind of way. That is one area where I think the Chief was absolutely right. We need to focus hard on the requirements side of [satellite communications] to make sure that if you come to the table and want something, theater downlink for example, you need to have a good solid operational reason and argument why you want it--not just that you don’t trust the space guys to provide it for you. If you can tell me what effect you want generated, I think we can generate that effect for you--you don’t need to tell me how many channels you want or what you need in terms of the satellite capability.

Q: With most of our space systems being remotely operated, what do you see as our opportunity to impart some of that vast operational knowledge we’ve had in space systems operating remotely to the UAV program?

General Lord: I think that’s important. We need to have interchanges every time we get together with the rest of the Combat Air Forces--and we are certainly doing that. We put the team together--folks like Generals Hal Hornburg and Speedy Martin, General Lyles gets to come to those and also General Bill Begert. There is one thing you’ve got to understand about the UAV business. I’m sure people know this, but sometimes they don’t recognize it--although the vehicle is uninhabited, how you operate and how you set it up isn’t. You need good personnel associated with that. We are working those concepts in what I think is a good process.

It is my honor to be with you…and since we are in LA, 30 years ago, Bachman-Turner Overdrive said, “You Ain’t Seen Nothing Yet!” The same is true for AFSPC and space!

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