AFA National Symposium and Annual Air Force Ball
November 19, 1999

General Dick Myers
CINC USSPACECOM
National Symposium and Annual Air Force Ball
November 19, 1999

Thank you General Shaud. As usual, you didn’t mention that you were my boss in the basement of the Pentagon and, of course, everything I learned that’s any good I’ve learned from General Shaud and I thank you, Sir, and pay my usual homage.

What I’d like to do for all the distinguished guests here and the former secretaries and the chief and all the AFA dignitaries and the rest of this distinguished crowd: we’ve got a video we put together at Air Force Space Command that highlights space contribution to Kosovo. It is really supposed to highlight our young folks. I’d like to run that real quickly and then get into my remarks. Run the tape. [Soundtrack of the video omitted]

I don’t know if you recognize the voice, but a special thanks to Leonard Nimoy for narrating that for us. He did that for a really good price — gratis — so we thank Leonard Nimoy for that. We contacted some others, and others wanted a little bit more than Leonard wanted, so I thought it was very nice of him to support our young folks and help tell the story.

So, it is great to be here and help to kick off another Air Force [Association] symposium here in Los Angeles. I think our folks did a pretty good job of putting that video together, and I think it captures what we are talking about in a very succinct way. It showcases our forces-how we work together at our best, and that was certainly true in Allied Force. Even though it took up about a third of my time, I think it was worth showing, because my watch doesn’t work this morning, so I am going to go until I finish this, anyway--not true.

Let me start by saying that space isn’t cheap, and I don’t think there is any argument about that. These systems are expensive to build and expensive to launch. But it is tough to put a price tag on the count of lives that I believe we saved due to space support in Kosovo. Airmen’s lives, civilian lives and many others for that matter. In fact, there is little question that space was vital to the allied victory. Some of my air breathing brethren may say--and by the way, I’ve never heard this, but I am sure there are some out there that say--"wait a minute, Myers, you didn’t fire a shot. Are you saying we couldn’t have won without space? You are an old lead slinger after all." I agree. I would also agree that we probably could have done it without space but it would have taken longer. You bet. With more collateral damage. Probably for certain. And with more loss of life. I don’t think there is any doubt about that. I will always be a space advocate for achieving the full promise of aerospace, at least for awhile longer that I am the five-hundred pound gorilla that wanders around Petersen [Air Force Base, U.S. Spacecom Headquarters] pushing for space support to the warfighters. And in just a few months I’ll turn that over to Ed Eberhardt, and I assume next year he’ll be up here pontificating as well.

This morning I’d like to talk to you about a few space issues that have my attention and could impact our ability to bring space to the fight in the future. First I want to talk about mitigating risk associated with space lift. Then I’ll touch on some space control issues, and I’ll close with a few words about how we modernize our constellations.

Risk, to state the obvious, is inherent in every worthwhile endeavor. The question is, how much risk can we afford to take in the launch business today? You may argue with me, but I submit that given our recent track record, we really can’t afford much. I am not naive. I know that we will never achieve a 100 percent success rate in the launch business. It is a tremendous engineering challenge in a very harsh environment, so we are not going to be perfect.

The question is, how do we plan for the mishaps and catastrophes that we know will occur occasionally? One train of thought involves mitigating the impact of failures when they do occur. Another is to build a hedge in your acquisition strategy. A third involves firm fixed-price contracting for services on orbit. When we go down these roads, we begin to get into controversial areas like launch insurance and acquisition strategies. But whatever the solution, we need to do something, because over the last 15 months or so we’ve lost several key payloads, approximately three to four billion dollars worth of capability, things like the NRO [National Reconnaissance Office] shot a year ago in August, the Defense Support Program satellite, and, recently, in May, the MILSTAR satellite. These were catastrophic losses, and more than once I thought, wouldn’t it be great to walk into Washington DC, hand them my insurance policy, and tell them I am cashing in on this loss. I need my million dollars so I can reinvent this particular capability. But mention launch insurance and everyone shudders. And I don’t blame them. It is a pretty expensive proposition, an expensive way to go. That is, assuming we can get insurance in the first place. I say that because my requirements folks tell me that in the future insurance may cost approximately one-third of the asset value. In real terms, that is like paying 10 grand to ensure a 30,000 car. It is not a very good option for us. Why are those projections so high? Frankly, we are often, in the DoD, high risk. The launch of a Titan twice a year is never a routine operation, and these risks aren’t limited to our legacy launch vehicles. We may experience problems early in the life cycle of the Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle as well.

Our partners in the commercial industry aren’t immune from the fact that two launches of the Delta III failed here recently. Fortunately for them, their payloads were insured, as I understand it. One more point, then I’ll get off this insurance kick. Given the dynamic nature of the budgetary process, how would we budget for insurance without someone taking the pot of money for other programs? I mean, you can’t have that sitting around. After all, it is money there as a hedge and what are the odds it is going to remain there as a hedge? From what I’ve seen in the budget process, I’m not sure we would have the fiscal discipline to hold that money in abeyance. Discipline was another word, like dynamic, that I very carefully chose. There are other words I could have used.

Another way to mitigate this risk is to build it into the acquisition strategy; in other words, have more spares in the barn. Plan for success. If the constellation calls for 10 satellites, build 11. It makes sense in some ways, because your launch success is somewhere in the mid-90s. You’ve got your spare, and it is built into the whole acquisition process. You know the Navy has taken a novel approach, or a--novel from the rest of DoD--with the UHF [Ultra High Frequency] Follow-on Satellite. They put the onus on the contractor and only pay for the asset once it is on orbit and functioning. This mitigates launch and initial satellite failure deployment failure risk. Of course, when you buy this on orbit, versus on the pad, it usually drives the cost significantly higher. Other options include accelerating launch schedules, reducing our warfighting capabilities or leasing additional bandwidth from the commercial sector, and so on and so on.

When all is said and done, we must find a solution. Insurance may not be affordable, and reduced warfighting capabilities shouldn’t even be in our lexicon. But buying additional satellites is a solution and not a bad one, and if that is not practical, obtaining perhaps emergency supplemental funding when we have a failure, like we do for crises in Kosovo when you have unexpected expenses, should be an option. Whatever the solution, our first priority--and I think the onus is on us at U.S. SPACE Command and Air Force Space Command or for that matter the United States Air Force, since we bear, as the chief said, the burden for this business--is to convince people that we must have a plan to mitigate the few failures that we know we are going to have over time. We can’t just present the Air Force with a billion bill for MILSTAR and say, "go fund it." It is just not going to happen. Our focus is usually--when these things come to a head and the leadership has to decide--we focus on the financial losses, but I am personally more concerned about the capability that we lose when these catastrophes occur. Think of it this way; if you have a ‘63 split window Corvette and it gets totaled, your insurance company may give you some money, but the money won’t replace that particular car. I am not saying Gene Tattini is buying any ‘63 Corvettes or ‘63 capability, by the way. It was just an analogy.

Or like the recent launch failure involving the MILSTAR payload. The program called for a four ball MILSTAR 2 constellation. So we built four satellites with the concept of self indemnification. Well, you know the story. We lost one, and I am having a hard time finding the claims office in Washington D.C. We may have to live with reduced capability and a three-ball constellation when it comes to MILSTAR. Either that, or find supplemental funding that is often wrapped up in other political considerations, and that is some kind words for saying that your timing has got to be perfect here if you expect success to get supplemental funding without offering offsets. But we haven’t even laid the plan for that. That is my point. But even if we can find the money to replace it, then it takes time, of course, to build the asset again, and you are probably still going to have a gap in capability no matter what path you take. The bottom line is that there is no substitute for mission assurance. That is what the Broad Area of Review points to and that is what the teams that Dr. Widnall chaired and so forth, and we will hear more about that later. That is getting back to basics, paying attention to detail and ensuring that the engineering intent has flowed down to the manufacturing floor. Those are all very important things that we’ve got to get back to because, after all, this is really rocket science.

We do all we can to get these assets off the pad and into orbit successfully, and we do a pretty good job. But once we get them there, others may try to take them away. Let’s turn to space control for just a moment. Let me start by saying space superiority is fleeting, and what do I mean by that? Simply that we can’t be intoxicated by the fact that we had space superiority in Kosovo and for that matter in Desert Storm and the Gulf. We dominated space not because of superior technologies or strategies, I would argue, but because our adversaries simply didn’t use space. Thus, we had superiority by default. Fortune may not be so kind next, time for we are seeing worldwide proliferation of space-based capabilities. Today, almost anyone can buy global SATCOM, precision navigation, and one-meter imagery. And it doesn’t take a gold card, either. It takes some bullion some times, but not a gold card. In today’s wars, it is universally acknowledged that achieving air superiority is a primary objective. We’ve got also technologies that say conflicts require both air and space superiority. Air superiority today is not assumed. It is planned for. It is executed. It is won. Today, space superiority is assumed. The United States has space superiority, but tomorrow-- and tomorrow, I think, is essentially right now--space superiority also must be planned for, executed, and won. Airpower evolved from supporting warfighters on the ground to air combat and finally to strategically projecting force on the battlefield. Similarly, space power is currently in a support role but is rapidly moving toward developing the ability to directly impact our warfighting capability. In Kosovo, the Serbs had little recourse against our space systems. But we will face tougher challenges down the road. Our adversaries clearly understand the value of our activities in space and could use asymmetric methods to exploit our vulnerabilities. Make no mistake, we are vulnerable, because many of our space systems lack the basic self-defense measures like those integral to our air missions.

Several countries already have lasers that can blind optical sensors on our satellites. Other countries are developing technology using ballistic missiles to disperse tiny shrapnel into low earth orbit. This would ultimately create a space version of an interstate pileup since even small objects can produce disastrous collisions at orbital speeds of 17,000 miles per hour. A nuclear detonation at the proper altitude would be harmless to the people here on earth, but radiation could fry the electronics on every satellite on low earth orbit.

Additionally we need to protect our space systems from natural and environmental threats, as an impact by the meteor showers that we’ve just witnessed here in the last few days and charged particles. Finally, we need to protect our space systems from unintenti,onal man-made threats, such as orbital debris, radio frequency interference and friendly laser fire. That latter one is becoming more and more of an issue as we go forward.

Not only must we protect our space craft, but also it is vitally important to protect ground launch and uplink/downlink components as well. Many of our overseas ground sites are remote and potentially vulnerable. Our launch capabilities are particularly at risk, because there is little redundancy or extra capacity today. In fact, we only have one Titan launch pad on the East Coast today, one Titan launch pad that launches MILSTAR, DSP [Defense Support Program] and NRO payloads. That is not a very redundant capability, obviously. Furthermore, our links between ground station, on-orbit assets and users are subject to jamming and intrusion. Several countries have already shown the capability to jam signals. They’ve also shown their willingness to do that as well.

We classify space control in terms of defensive counter-space, offensive counter-space and supporting capabilities such as National Missile Defense and space situational awareness. The threats are real, so today I will concentrate on the protection or defensive counter-space piece. In the Air Force Space Command defensive counter-space Missions Needs Statement, we’ve analyzed the threats and documented our needs in five key areas.

First, our critical systems should be able to withstand attacks with minimal or no damage. We might employ physical and electrical magnetic hardening technologies or the ability to deploy mobile ground segments in order to avoid attack.

Second, all of our systems must be able to detect and report when they are under attack. We need to quickly discriminate system malfunctions from hostile acts.

Third, locate, classify, and identify the attacking system. The ability to determine the source of attack will provide a deterrent effect and allow us to counter that particular attack.

Fourth, we must be able to assess the attacks, that is, whether the attack results in permanent damage or temporary denial of service. Knowing what the adversary has done to our capability to fight is critical to choosing effective counter-measures.

Finally, number five, we need the ability to rapidly restore space capability if successfully negated. This may include using redundant capabilities, eliminating the source of the attack, or rapidly replenishing damaged assets.

The five functions I’ve just discussed are all performed in varying degrees today; however, we have a long way to go until we are appropriately protected against the threats that we see. Protecting this particular center of gravity is important, and people are starting to listen. In fact, the Office of Secretary of Defense has directed Dr. Hamre’s [John J. Hamre, Deputy Secretary of Defense] study on space control in terms of where to put our resources, and U.S. Space Command and Air Force Space Command and the other components are working on a space control strategy to help focus that particular effort.

We are following suit, and we have the stick in the Air Force when it comes to developing a comprehensive strategy including investment planning, technology development, and the application of policy, training and operations procedures. Last year, Congress approved a $7.5 million plus-up for a new space control program element. The Department of Defense has followed suit by laying in $10 million per year through 2005. This year’s appropriations conference approved an additional $3 million for a total of $13 million for Fiscal Year 2000. This new PE, program element, will fund technology work for protection, surveillance, prevention, and negation. We are taking near-term steps to fully exploit the capabilities we have and making plans for the long-term improvements in all of our capabilities. We have concentrated our efforts on forming a defensive counter-space team to analyze this particular mission area, documented our efficiencies and pursued material and non-material solutions. Initially, we are going to focus on Air Force systems and other Department of Defense assets, but eventually we are going to address civil, allied, and commercial systems and infrastructures.

Our DoD policy states, "to ensure civil and commercial capabilities are used to the maximum extent feasible and practical, including the use of Allied and friendly capabilities as appropriate, consistent with national security requirements." In my view, that policy gives us the key to go beyond just protecting our DoD satellites. For instance, 80 percent of the space-borne com [communications] that went into Kosovo was all commercial. That is not protected, by the way.

The National Defense Industrial Association surveyed industry last year at our request at Petersen [Air Force Base] and couldn’t find anyone in industry who could make a business case for protecting their space assets from hostile threats. Clearly, our reliance on commercial space has created a new center of gravity that can easily be exploited by our adversaries. When I say this, it is a fact. We know this. We have Red teams that go to our Joint EFX experiments and prove this on a routine basis. The adversaries that we use, the Red teams, are not highly technically trained or folks that have inside information about our systems. We take second lieutenants right out of school. We send them to Radio Shack and they can bring us to our knees, and that is, how easy it is, folks. This is not rocket science, it turns out. The previous was.

Our dependency on these assets and DoD policy drive us to work with industry and our allies to help protect these systems, systems that we will leverage in time of peace and in conflict. That brings me to the final piece of my talk today, and it deals with Space Command’s ongoing operational mission and the necessary subset of that mission, modernizing our constellations. The point here is that many of our Cold War era capabilities haven’t kept pace with current or future requirements. It is time we take a hard look at launching for capability versus launching for sustainment. The bad news is that our GPS [Global Positioning System] satellites are lasting longer than predicted. Bad news, because we have capability on orbit designed for a previous era and not responsive to our current needs. But since we have functioning assets on orbit, assets that are dramatically exceeding their life expectancy, it is hard to convince the people who hold the purse strings to replace them with the needed capability. On the surface it seems like a logical place to slip funding, and, in fact, the GAO [Government Accounting Office] recommended that not so long ago, that since they are lasting longer, you can slip your launch profile and manifest and you can save yourself some money. That is a good way to look at it if you are an accountant.

Nothing could be further from the truth in my mind. It is similar to the struggle over the F-22. No question the F-15 is dominant today. But the question is, will it be dominant tomorrow? And the answer is no. We need the F-22. The same thing is true with The Global Positioning System. Right now we have 27 satellites in the GPS constellation and 18 additional satellites in the barn waiting to be launched. Unfortunately, these remaining satellites are, for the most part, merely replacement birds and don’t provide the totality of the new capability that we need. To top it off, their main mission duration, expected life, has recently been extended to about 8 years once on orbit, and we can polish our badge on that one and say, boy, aren’t we good. At the same time, that brings with it some of the problems that I am talking about. The GPS satellites that we want on orbit aren’t scheduled for first launch until 2007 currently. These new satellites give us must-have capability. They feature a jam-resistant military signal called the M-code, two additional civil signals and a dramatically increased power output. It is not a pretty picture. The increased life expectancy of our on-orbit satellites has serious implications for GPS planning efforts. Traditionally, we’ve relied heavily on satellite’s life expectancy in making a decision for the entire GPS program. In particular, reseeding the constellation. In other words, we’ve used the constellation sustainment strategy rather than a capability-based strategy. We lay out a schedule and stick to it, regardless. There are some advantages. Doing business this way allows us to neatly package systems for planning, programming and budgeting. But it doesn’t necessarily meet the warfighter’s needs.

Since I am triple hatted, let me take off my Air Force hat for a minute, and I’ll put on my CINC hat. I think it is time to step back and look at the way we modernize our constellations. It is fiscally prudent to launch for sustainment, but warfighter-prudent to launch for capability. We must find a compromise and a better way to do this, because it takes a long time to populate a constellation. Let me give you a hypothetical example. Let’s say we decided to upgrade our GPS constellation with modernized jam-resistant satellites today. How long would that take to make happen? In a perfect world, if all the satellites were already built and ready for launch, it would still take us to 2006 to get this capability on orbit. So we are talking six or seven years. Keep in mind, that is assuming we are putting them up at current launch rates and we are not waiting for on-orbit satellite attrition.

However, if we follow a more traditional strategy of launching for sustainment versus capability, it would take us until 2018 to get this much-needed capability on orbit. And you don’t need to attend MIT--in fact, as a land granter, it is obvious to me that equates to a 12-year difference. Think about what was happening 12 years ago. A lot can happen in 12 years. So budget notwithstanding, the right thing to do from a warfighter’s perspective is to accelerate our plans in order to get the right GPS capability on orbit. This makes sense when you consider how long it takes to populate a constellation. That means we’ll need to modernize some satellites ahead of schedule. It also implies that we may have to skip some satellites already built or maybe it makes sense to launch them as the on-orbit spares. But the crux of the matter is that we need to rethink our launch and acquisition strategies in order to get the right capability up there when needed.

Those are my messages today: mission assurance--and we’ll talk more about that later with the panel--space control and constellation replenishment. I think we have some big issues there. There are probably a thousand others we could talk about. You are probably tired of hearing me. I am sorry about that. Those are the ones that are near and dear to my heart that I think have the biggest policy implications and the biggest implications on how we do our business in the future.

Let me end with a story that I think is relevant. I flew in from Colorado last night, so this story concerns three men on horseback riding in the Colorado Rockies one starry moonlit night. As they made their way along the base of the mountain, a voice centered from the sky commanded them to stop and dismount. They immediately followed the instruction. Then the voice continued, "go to the river bed and pick up some pebbles and put them in your backpack and do not look at that until morning." Completing their task, the men began to mount up when they heard the voice again. The voice said, "this will be both the happiest and saddest day of your life." With that final thought, the men rode on their way. As the sun began to brighten in the eastern sky, the riders reached into their saddle bags, and to their amazement the pebbles had turned to gold. As they celebrated their new wealth, one of the men stopped and exclaimed, "now I know what the voice meant when he said this would be both the happiest and saddest day of our lives. Yes, we have the gold, but think how rich we could have been had we picked up more pebbles."

So it is with controlling the high ground. Let’s not be satisfied with a partial solution. The high ground is ours. We must replenish our saddle bags while the opportunity still exists. We don’t want to wake up some morning to lament this is both the happiest and the saddest day of our lives. Thank you very much.

General Shaud: First question. It is a vice chairman of the JCS [Joint Chiefs of Staff] question. You are going to like this. Where do we stand concerning the command structure as we get involved in fighting space, as in war games like Global Engagement and so forth? Does space capabilities from all services, fall under the JFACC [Joint Forces Aerospace Component Commander] [or is CINC USSPACE really the supporting CINC?

General Myers: I think we have that pretty well organized, and I think we did that pretty well in Kosovo. I would argue that all the components to U.S. Space Command have responsibilities to their service, to give their services, the space support they are funding them to do. At the same time, we’ve got to focus that space support for the joint force commander. That is normally done, I would argue, through the joint force aerospace component commander. That is where it probably ought to be focused. That is where it was focused for Kosovo. I think the way we do that is pretty well in our emerging doctrine and in all the joint pubs, and I don’t think there are real issues. There are issues from a CINC’s point of view, and I am talking about the theater CINCs now and how they get their space support. As an airman, I think they ought to look at their air component for that space support. There are other schemes out there. There is the special operations model, where all of the theater CINCs have a standing joint task force for special operations. I don’t think that ought to be our model. It goes back to what General Ryan says: We are talking about integrating space across the spectrum, not making it a separate stovepipe that stays out there in its own vacuum. I think we are pretty well organized and, as the chief said, we have the predominance of aerospace forces and people and resources and that is probably where it ought to be focused. We have pushed very hard to get space expertise into our air components in the theaters and we have done that very well. If I were a theater CINC and I wanted space expertise, if it is not resident on my staff--which it should be, by the way--but if it is not and if I need to amplify information, I ought to turn to my air component commander and ask him. That is what we hope happens.

General Shaud: On October 1^st, Space Command assumed responsibility for computer network defense, CND, now that that is part of your outfit, what challenges are you seeing as you take this on?

General Myers: We don’t have enough time to talk about the challenges involved with that. We just had our independent strategic assessment group led by retired chief of staff General Larry D.Welch and a bunch of folks that have studied this area. They came in a couple of days ago. And after we had that session, we explained our plans and they poked holes in everything we were doing. I haven’t had a good night’s sleep since. I really don’t have time to get into that other than the fact that I think if you had the responsibility for computer network defense for the entire Department of Defense, and we’ve bound it appropriately and we are marching in that direction, somebody has got to give us the resources to help do that job. We have not gotten an extra body yet to help do that job, and we are an Air Force-funded headquarters. We have gotten some funding support from the Air Force. That has been one of the bright spots, but it is not enough. I’d be happy to talk off line with anybody who wants to talk about CND and where we are headed, but the point I would like to make is that this is going to be a more significant mission even in the future. It is a very daunting task, and you’ve got to resource for it properly. And it is not all military: you’ve got to have the money to buy civilian contractors, because some of the expertise you really want resides there, and also for Department of Defense civilians. And we are getting great support out of the Secretary of Defense and the Chairman and so forth, but we still need our bodies, so I hope this isn’t in my in basket when I get to Washington. I’ve asked General Ralston that if he can contribute, I’d like to take this out of his in basket and decide this before I get there, but somehow, we need to figure how to resource this very important mission.

General Shaud: If you could get extra funding, which--with enabling technologies for space dominance--would you emphasize, if you could pick one?

General Myers: The next technology and the next mission that ought to migrate to space is surveillance, and technologically we are not very far from the capability to deploy a relatively low-cost space-based system that can do moving target indications over about 70 percent of this globe. There are some things to be provided, and that is what the Discoverer II program, which is under the gun, of course, is designed to do. But my view is that technology is just around the corner, and we can do it for life cycle costs that would be cheaper than other alternatives. We need to go finish that program and decide if we can go move this to space because you’d have some great capabilities that you can’t do alone with air-breathers. And there is some mix there, but that is the one I’d focus on. If I were to commit right now today, I’d make sure Discoverer II went forward because that is the next big leap.

General Shaud: The next question has to do with space control and defense systems. It has to do with actually putting them in place. Do you think it will take an actual incident to motivate a significant program in this area?

General Myers: Probably. Like everything else. I think it will. We have discussions that, this is not space-related, but homeland defense. And there is a lot of debate in Washington about how we ought to handle it and what role the Department of Defense plays in that. That will all be moot the first time we have a big biological or chemical attack in a major population center. Very quickly after that we will get ourselves organized. In the meantime, we are going to have lots of debate. I think the same thing is true for space. I think it will take probably some sort of incident where we lose capability and they will say, "oh my goodness, we’ve got to protect our assets." That is why one of my roles is to try to move this along faster than the event is going to take place, so we can avoid them.

General Shaud: Last question, having to do with homeland defense, at least in part. Space Command is planning to one day operate a ballistic missile defense system against limited strikes. Will the command integrate space-based, ground-based and air assets, or what do you see about this?

General Myers: I think we have to. At first, we can probably have a stand-alone National Missile Defense system, but as Navy Area Wide comes on and other systems, they are going to have to be integrated somehow, and the command and control--we are just beginning to think about that. But the battle management command and control and communication systems being developed for National Missile Defense has to take that into consideration, and the hooks have to be there to eventually have that all in one command and control system. That would be my view. I am not talking about the theaters now, I am talking about the national piece. The theater still ought to belong to the theaters.

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