>General Lance W. Lord
Commander, Air Force Space Command
Air Warfare Symposium
Lake Buena Vista, Florida
February 2, 2006
>General Lord: It's a delight to be here this morning on behalf of the almost 40,000 men and women of Air Force Space Command. I know at the end of a day and a half here everything's been said, but everything hasn't been said by everybody. So I get to participate. It's great to follow Air Combat Command Commander General Ronald E. Keys and certainly the thousand-pound brain that Principal Deputy Director of National Intelligence General Mike V. Hayden carries. I'll tell you, what a great guy to have in that business for us. It's a delight to be here with my four-star colleagues and Chief Master Sergeant of the Air Force Gerald R. Murray. Thanks again for your great service.
>And thanks to AFA and [AFA Executive Director Donald L. Peterson] for helping us shape and influence the future.
>A thought occurred to me last night as I was thinking about getting up to speak in front of you today, that when [Air Force Chief of Staff General T. Michael Moseley] said he was going to cut the top off the pyramid, that my retirement was not related to the first general officer he said he was going to get rid of; or at least I was hoping that was not true!
>But I talked to the Chief shortly after he assumed command in September, and I said, “Chief, I'm contemplating finishing up after 37-plus years in the business. It's time for you to have a new Air Force Space Command commander. You need to have your own team that can serve with you through your time, so I'm contemplating retirement.” He said, “why don't you take a little leave and go think about that, then come back and talk to me?”
>So what I did is I gathered the family down at Patrick Air Force Base—and there are some folks here from Patrick, not too far from us down on the Atlantic side there, doing great work at the gateway to space. We gathered the family together, and brought our sons and one girlfriend and one daughter-in-law and two grandkids and Becky and we went down there to spend a little time and think about the future.
>We decided as a family that while we were there we would visit Sea World. I wanted to go see Shamu the whale and take my grandkids, Abigail and Matt. So I put on my stuff and I said, “I'll go buy the tickets over at NWR at the recreational services place because I know where that is on Patrick.”
>So I dressed up in my bermuda shorts and my Ron John's T-shirt and hat. I wanted them to know I knew where Cocoa Beach was. I walked in and I said, “I want to buy some tickets to Sea World.” The lady says, “well, we sure can take care of you.” But like most GIs—and I'm sure there are some in this audience—my ID card was in my wallet, in that transparent thing. So I laid that up there on the counter. She looked at my ID card, looked at me, looked back at my ID card, looked at me, and she says, "You're still on active duty?" [Laughter] [Applause]
>So I called the Chief right away and said, “okay, I'm leaving.” [Laughter] There's a lot of things I could have said to that lady after that was over with, but I said, “no, you're probably right. It's time to go.”
>But I've had a wonderful time working with people like you and like the great men and women of all this United States Air Force and that's why it's important to think that way. So I wrote my letter to the Chief when I got home. I think he agreed before he decided to do the force shaping thing, which we need to do.
>As I thought about what to talk about today, I wanted to kind of reflect a little philosophically about a couple of things. One is—you probably know this—that one of the great philosophers of all times as well as in the scientific business is Albert Einstein. I think he's got something to say for us about interdependence and I'll get to that very quickly, but I know you know some of his philosophy. Somebody asked him one time to explain the theory of relativity, and his answer to that was if you put your hand on the stove and you remove it, in seconds it feels like hours, but if you sit next to a pretty girl for hours it seems like seconds. That's relativity. [Laughter] That's one thing he said.
>The other thing he said is life is an equation. Success in life is an equation and you would expect Albert Einstein to say that. Success in life is A = X+Y+Z. X is your work, Y is your play, and Z is keeping your mouth shut. [Laughter] So there are times when you've got to do all those I think.
>But what he really said I think speaks to why we need to be interdependent when he said that the technological prowess we have as a nation, when it's in the hands of a psychopath, is an ax. If you think back to when he lived, an ax murderer or something like that was a pretty heinous crime, but he was really talking in terms of the technological progress that we'd been able to achieve.
>If you think about it in our terms, it's a challenge for us to be interdependent in this Global War on Terrorism because we are up against, as Ron said, and Mike Hayden said, and the Chief and the Secretary have all talked about, a tremendous threat.
>So it's important for us to be interdependent and I think space is really one of the key mediums in which we can be interdependent, and [former Air Force Space Command Commander] General Chuck Horner talks about his experiences in Operation Desert Shield and Operation Desert Storm and he said, “any time we have to go to war in the future you must crank space into the equation.”
>We've been cranking space into the equation I think every day, working with our colleagues in Air Combat Command and the rest of the United States Air Force as well as the Army, the Navy, the Marine Corps, the Coast Guard and our whole community to make sure that we can integrate to be that interdependent force and to help make sure that the medium of space was exploited to achieve the combat effects that we needed to support our national objectives.
>So in just a few minutes I want to talk about—as you might suspect in keeping faith with my academic tradition—three main points. I want to talk about the mission we've done, I want to talk about the people, and I want to talk about the future very quickly, and then hopefully we'll have a chance for just a few questions and answers, and by then the sun should be out and people will be ready to go do whatever they want to do this afternoon.
>You take a look at the world we live in and the missions we have and the people that we're recruiting that are part of this great force that Chief Murray helps us keep in touch with, our tremendous enlisted force as well as the wonderful civilians as well as our partners [Air Force Reserve Command Commander] Lieutenant General John Bradley and [Director of the Air National Guard] Lieutenant General Danny James, aiding our Total Force approach to space. I think we've got a great team.
>But if they're like those of you in this audience, the many young people out here right now, Airmen are coming into this business more adept, more computer literate, more capable than I think anybody we've ever recruited. That speaks volumes for us because we've got to take those talents and mold them in a way that will help us be even more interdependent as a force and certainly the medium of space helps us as we work together in that respect.
>I know this from just working with my almost three year-old grandson who is old enough to understand how to turn on the DVD and put in the DVD and turn on the television. So what's it going to be like 15 years from now when he's eligible to come into the United States Air Force? The skills and abilities that that generation is bringing to us! Our capability to deal with that I think is going to be important. So as a team, we've got to work hard in that respect.
>Our mission of being transformational and being part of this interdependent force really harkens back to [former Air Force Systems Command Commander] General Bernie Schriever, and America is starting on the second half of our first 100-year cycle in space. Like powered flight in air, which just celebrated in 2003 its 100th anniversary, we just went over 50 years in space, having started in 1954.
>The interdependent force we have in space helps us fight the tyranny of distance that [Pacific Air Forces Commander] General Paul V. Hester and [U.S. Air Forces Europe Commander] General Tom Hobbins talked about yesterday. I think it's going to help Ron Keys and his team in Air Combat Command as we link these things together and give him what he needs to make sure we can do the job both kinetically and non-kinetically as we face the future.
>We're going to develop the transformational satellite constellation so that we can get comm on the move and be even more interdependent. We're going to build Space-Based Infrared Radar and we've gone through some tremendous acquisition issues and we'll talk about those in just a minute in a broad sense, but that's going to help us in our missile warning. Advanced, extremely high frequency satellites to help us with protected satellite communications. Space radar to be that unblinking eye and give us the capability to link space, air and ground sensors together to give those combatant commanders the persistent surveillance they need to develop the kinds of information that General Hayden talked about.
>The real key in all of that, and the Chief and the Secretary talked about this yesterday, is the people that are able to take this on. I would argue that as we look at the future we may be collecting more now and enjoying it less. We need to develop those skills and ability to take the surveillance and reconnaissance (S&R) part of intelligence and really work on it. I think we know how to do the S&R and will know even more in the future as we have more complex and capable systems.
>Time sensitive targeting. We can do things quickly. But like Ron said, I think very appropriately, do we need to spend all the extra dollars to get from three minutes to a minute and a half? That may be true in some certain circumstances. In others it may not. We've got to make those kinds of value judgments. We've got to use this technology and this interdependent capability to really make the right kind of choices at the right time that we can afford.
>Space… I think ever since I've been involved in the business and part of what's going on and went to war during Operation Enduring Freedom, connected by video teleconference (VTC) to “Buzz” Moseley when he was running the Combined Air Operation Center at Prince Sultan Air Base day to day; we put those kinds of capabilities together. Space has helped us achieve those combat effects.
>We did it in Kabul, we've done it in different places. We like to brag a little bit that space helps take the ‘search’ out of search and rescue. As General Moseley talked about Junker 13, the Navy F-14 guys had to punch out of a non-operational aircraft, and General Moseley said back then, “if you float down in that area, they'll kill you.”
>We were able to put our national systems together with some of the folks working in 14th Air Force at Vandenberg Air Force Base, connecting directly to the theater and helping with the location of those folks. We were able to take the ‘search’ out of search and rescue. One hundred minutes after first indications, we had them picked up and taken out of there. That to me is amazing when you contrast that to what happened to Colonel Bud Day, the Air Force Medal of Honor winner in the Vietnam era, when he was shot down. He spent three million minutes in captivity. Had we been able to locate where he was and scoop him up very quickly with some of the most absolute tremendous combat search and rescue capabilities that we've been able to put together lately, I think it would have made a difference.
>Position navigation and timing. The Global Positioning System (GPS) is important. I mentioned before, if you've got a GPS hand-held set or OnStar, you can use that. Have you ever pressed that OnStar button and said where am I? They'll tell you. A friend of mind did that, pressed the button, and said, “okay, where am I?” They said, “you're on I-65 in between Montgomery and Auburn, Alabama, and you're heading toward Atlanta, and you better slow down.” [Laughter]
>So we've got position and navigation, we've got vectoring, we know where you are. We're following you. We can also follow your charge account as well. [Laughter]
>It's a total team effort, though, working hard with the teams in Operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm, as we talked about, where we improved the accuracy of the weapons. The Chief certainly talked about that with GPS direct attack munitions. As also Mike talked about, it’s come down from miles to literally feet. It made a big difference then, it's making a big difference now.
>You might have read this morning that as we take these missions and look at them, we need to examine how we integrate our capabilities with that significant portion of our ICBM force that was just deactivated, the Peacekeeper weapon system. Now we're looking at providing Ron a kinetic strike next generation, looking at a conventional application for ballistic missile technology, where that might fit in the overall kind of portfolio of capability that we could offer through a Global Strike/Joint Force Component Command to a combatant commander. It's just one of the options that are available. But the speed, range, lethality, accuracy of that kind of system would certainly fit into that portfolio. So we'll work with [U.S. Strategic Command Commander] General James E. Cartwright and his team. There will be a quick demonstration and then a follow-on Air Force program, I believe, to help think through the Analysis of Alternatives and work that. So whatever the combat commander needs, we're working together to make this interdependent capability even more so.
>The missions I think are going to take care of themselves because our people are dedicated to that. That brings me to those great folks who I've worked over the last 37-plus years, and there's no doubt in my military mind that they're going to make us strong for the next 3,700 years. We've got great hardware, no doubt about it, but the Airmen and the lieutenants and the new civilians are going to grow up to be the chiefs and generals and senior civilians in this business and they've got what it takes.
>But we need to work hard and think about how we're going to take these people and make them better for our business. We talked to our folks in Los Angeles, [Air Force Space and Missile Systems Center Commander] Lieutenant General Mike Hamel and I. I was questioned by an Army colonel who said, “what can we do to really help this interdependent force, and how can we be more joint in our operations?” I said, “I think what we need is we need more of you—Army, Navy, Marines—in our program offices in Los Angeles so we can really integrate the kinds of capabilities you have.” In some cases we've got more foreign and allied officers helping us as opposed to folks from our own sister services. We need their input to help us take these interdependent space capabilities which are inherently joint and interdependent and grow them up from the beginning.
>The problem is that we have a system where you don't get joint credit if you're assigned to something like that. One of the things that came to me as we talked yesterday and certainly as I listened to Ron today and others is that we may have to rethink our joint accreditation process for people involved in these kind of interdependent programs.
>There are different ways I think to achieve those kinds of objectives.
>Reforming our educational process at the System Program Office (SPO) and other places throughout our command is something we’re certainly doing because we want to send the right kind of people forward as part of the Air and Space Expeditionary Force to be part of what's going on in air and space operations.
>Mike Kerry… Mike, please stand up. Mike's our wing commander from the 90th Space Wing, at Warren Air Force Base in Cheyenne, Wyoming. [Applause] We sent Mike to Qatar where he worked as the Director of Space Forces for Operations Enduring Freedom and Iraqi Freedom. One of his first tasks when he was over there was to make sure we could work these forces together and integrate them. He also worked to deny some of the enemy command and control. That was another task they were given. At the same time, they had to limit collateral damage as they worked this problem.
>That sounds easy, but in some cases they could be two competing objectives. Trying to deny the enemy with electronic warfare using command and control, but at the same time eliminating collateral damage. For instance, if we're going to jam signals, we could end up interfering with our GPS capabilities in the theater.
>So Mike was able to work with his colleagues, understand the two objectives, and put those together in a way where we could truly make the space forces interdependent in that kind of operation. We were successful in military operations as we worked in the city of Fallujah. Mike was there. Now we've got a lot of people in Air Force Space Command who want to be just like Mike.
>I think that's a great story that’s come out of that, working together with our air colleagues, making these interdependent capabilities fit together. It's paid off for us. But if we're going to really achieve our full potential to make these things interdependent, we need to work hard and we've got kids outside who are interested in coming in, and young people in our Air Force. We want to make sure that we communicate to them how important it is to be involved in this business.
>I certainly was imprinted on and directed and mentored by teachers throughout my life. General John Bradley, the Commander of Air Force Reserve Command, his father was my high school principal. John and I went to high school together. John's dad taught chemistry and taught physics, but we had another guy named Merlyn Sanders who was our chemistry teacher and to this day I can still do some of the chemical bond stuff from the fact that I had somebody like that teach me the right way to think about chemistry. I know you've probably had the same kinds of situations.
>One of my additional duties is to do space education and that kind of oversight for all of Air Force Space Command. I’ve been given that task by the Secretary of the Air Force, and directed by the Space Commission. We're going to try to do a little outreach along the lines of what the Air Education Foundation (AEF) does for the Air Force Association.
>So a week from today, I'm going to teach the first class in an elementary school in Colorado Springs called “High Frontiers Adventure.” We're going to go out and I'm going to ask every member of Air Force Space Command to spend at least four hours every year either in a high school, junior high school or elementary school talking to Cub Scouts, Girl Scouts, and PTA as part of their continuing education to make sure we spread the word about how important it is to be interested in science, mathematics, technology, and the kinds of things that will pay off for us in the future. I'm looking forward to partnering with AEF and others to make sure that we can continue to carry that message. So we'll be out there, and maybe you'll join us. I think it will be a great opportunity to help spread the word and make sure that we're interdependent as we continue to grow in the future.
>The fact is we're getting out-produced 14 to 1 in terms of engineers and scientists and technologists and to continue to prosper in the world we're going to need, as General Hayden said, operational warriors who are smart, think smart, and have a broader perspective on the future. But we don't want to be deterministic. We've got to understand math and science and technology, but we've got to understand that it's an input, not an output, and we need to talk in terms of how to make thing more effective. So we're going to leverage those folks in our business and I look forward to spending time with them.
>The missions and the people, now to the future... Can we achieve this interdependent force? I'm convinced we can. We've been able to do that when we stick to our basic formula and understand what we have to do as a team working together.
>We’ve had 43 successful launches in a row in the space business, and we’re on our way to a thousand in a row. We went through a period in the late '90s where we had some launch failures. Since the government reinsures itself, if you lose a payload, you've got to buy another payload. By my count, we've saved ourselves $12 to $15 billion in insurance premiums.
>Right now, we're engaged in proximity operations with the XXS-11 satellite partnered with the Air Force Research Lab. Our people are learning what it means to operate in the environment of space, doing proximity surveillance and understanding the kinds of things we'll need to really work hard and prosper in the environment of space in the future. Those kinds of technologies I think will be important for us as we develop this interdependent force.
>So I'd like to say we're entering what I call the “jet age” of this business. We got up to the 50-year point and now we're really ready to move. Just like General Horner said and those who followed him—General Joe Ashey, General Howell Marion Estes, Jr., General Dick Myers, General Ralph Eberhart—continue to advance the state of the art and make sure that we can maintain our dominance in air and space and cyberspace as we look to the future. And as General Hayden said, we've got to protect everything all the time against one thing and it's going to take an interdependent force to do that. And space has played an important part in that.
>We've got to, though, as Ron said I believe, tolerate a little ambiguity. We've got to tolerate a little failure. Everything's not going to work right all the time. Our first successful satellite program, Corona, in the reconnaissance business back in the early days of space, had 12 failures before a success. So we want to make sure that we can tolerate a little failure. We don't want to get to that point where we lose them on liftoff. We want to make sure that we build the technology in each case from the beginning.
>We've faced tough challenges before and you know that. You're part of it. I'm reminded of what Dr. Joseph Warren said before the Battle of Bunker Hill. His neighbors asked him to stay out of the fight. They said, “we've only got one doctor in this town. You can't go to war. If we lose you, we won't have anybody.” He told them, "On us depends the future of millions yet unborn. Act worthy of yourselves." What happened? He gave his life in that battle so that we all may live free.
>Today I'm convinced the future of millions yet unborn depends on our willingness to make the tough choices. So as Dr. Warren said, we all—contractors, civilians, officers, enlisted, all who work together to make this wonderful team interdependent—let's all act worthy of ourselves.
>It's been a delight to be with you. I certainly appreciate the opportunity to speak, and thanks to the AFA for all the great work. And last but not least, if you're not in space you're not in the race. Thank you very much.
>Q: As we move forward in further developing the interdependent force, do you see the integration of warfare centers as a prelude to integration of other Air Force organizations?
>General Lord: I think it's a great idea. We talked about this at Corona. They had the Air and Space and Information Warfare Center there at Nellis Air Force Base to put this team together in a great way to take all their skills and abilities. We have worked with Ron Keys and Goldie Goldfein and their team to put our space folks in there to work hard to develop the tactics and techniques and procedures.
>I would argue that that operation at Nellis is probably one of the most significant things we've done as a service to have a place to refine our procedures and capabilities to work together and develop the tactics and techniques and procedures that we will use to fight and win the wars we have to be part of. I think we'll continue to integrate and bring these capabilities together because as we've discussed over the last day or so, they are interdependent. I think there will just be more of those.
>But it's got to be driven by the basic framework that Ron Keys and Air Combat Command have put out there. I think it's a great one. It's stood the test of time. It's a discipline. It provides the framework. As my friend Tex Winter, the father of the triangle offense in the NBA said, “in the end it's not about the framework, it's about executing and getting the job done.”
>So that's what we'll be able to do. We'll train like we fight and fight that way and we'll win.
>Q: The Navy seems to have taken a lead in Prompt Global Strike when the Air Force missileer would seem to be the best answer. How do you meet the strategic requirement?
>General Lord: We spent a lot of time with [Air Force Strategic Command Commander] General James E. Cartwright on how he wanted to proceed with that. There's two phases here. We're going to have a demo phase and then we're going to have an enduring phase and we're parallel and we're connected with the Navy on the demonstration phase on Prompt Global Strike, but I think our capability to do a longer term program with the systems and the abilities we have will prevail and we'll have the longer term program.
>I think it was General Cartwright's decision to take a quick, short look at this and the Navy's program. We're connected with them, we're following them in a parallel sense. Should something happen, we'll be ready to step if needed. But the longer term program for conventional applications I think is truly the Air Force's to work.
>Q: Is near space still a valid concept?
>General Lord: It is. In near space from 65,000 to 300,000 feet, we’ve got some tremendous capabilities.
>As we talked about yesterday, we looked at the need to have that unblinking eye and the surveillance that we need to get the jobs done. That combination of space and near space with things that can loiter longer than maybe even a Global Hawk, maybe even a couple of weeks in certain circumstances, with platforms lighter than aircraft, we're able to do those types of things in that environment. I think our sensor technology will drive us in that direction.
>We're working hard with our team out at the Space Warfare Center. Our technology guys have been split away from where we took the folks and sent out to Nellis Air Force Base, but we're working that hard and we'll continue to do it.
>I think you'll hear more about that in the future.
>Q: We've heard a lot about the need for operationally responsive space assets. Can you add some specifics to the types of sensors you want for this mission?
>General Lord: We talked to all the combatant commanders and asked them what would you desire to have in your theater if you could have something that was responsive, ready to meet your needs, and you didn't have to worry about somebody else countermanding your collection or your tasking requirements?
>Two answers came back. One is surveillance and the other is communications connectivity, on demand.
>So that's the requirement set, or the needs that we're trying to solve with faster payloads to space, things that we can put in the theater and make them available for the Air Force in Iraq and elsewhere. Right now, that’s done through the Joint Force Component Command for Space at 14th Air Force, and this will really be a joint operation and focus. We worked with Danny in the Arizona Guard to give us the first kind of look at people who go into theater to be able to set up to support a combatant commander. But we need faster payloads in about the 1,000 pound category. We need to get them to space.
>My sense is that the world is moving toward smaller satellites. Big satellites do great things. We've got to continue to have big satellites, but smaller satellites may be quicker to check out, more easily available for use to support a particular set of needs, and we would dedicate them to a theater commander.
>Q: There have been some comments from Washington lately about the Air Force's commitment to space programs, with suggestions that the Global Positioning System (GPS) program could be shifted over to the Department of Defense. What are your thoughts on that?
>General Lord: I don't think that's a good idea. I think that once all the smoke cleared from that argument, there was a whole lot of misinformation in there. What we had done and were able to do because [Air Force Chief of Staff General T. Michael Moseley] agreed with this is we took a little operational risk in the GPS program by looking at what the future requirements were for 2F satellites and then looking at when we could get the GPS3 and we think by taking a little risk now in the constellation sustainment we can free up some resources to help us make sure the ground segment is all synchronized and to get to GPS3 a little bit sooner.
>Once all the smoke cleared from people pushing back and forth, I think we decided that's probably a good way to go. We need a central focal point in the Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD) to make sure that we're riding herd over the whole GPS program. We don't have anything, I don't think, from the Air Force perspective to be sorry about concerning our stewardship of the Global Positioning System. We worked that hard. That's not to say that those resources haven't been adjusted based on Air Force needs throughout the lifetime of the program, but I think we've got an executable program and we'll continue to do that. We'll work with our colleagues in OSD.
>I've sometimes said that you could fill Invesco Field a mile high with people who want to give you directions on GPS, but I think our team has put together a great program and with the support of our Air Force and certainly the folks on the third floor, I think we've got a strategy that's good for modernization. We are committed not only as an Air Force, but certainly also as a nation, to being the world standard for position, navigation and timing.
>Q: Looking back over a very productive and important career, do you have any comments about the things that stand out as most important to you?
>General Lord: I would really like to say as I leave, and I'll say this again a month from today as a matter of fact, that Air Force Space Command is only 24 years-old as a command this coming September. It takes about 20 years to get 20 years worth of experience. [Laughter]
>We have grown and matured as a system. So much so that our previous Secretary said during the heat of Operation Iraqi Freedom that space is an equal partner with air, land and sea. It's because of these guys and the leadership and those who were executing the mission day to day that I think we realized that potential. Now it's up to us and those who follow us to continue to press on in that environment.
>I think we would rue the day that—although things are going to be tough resource-wise—that we try to separate this business out and make it a separate service. I know there's a whole lot of those who may not agree with that, but I think it's natural step in our progression as an Air Force and if we don't take it, it means 25, 30, 40 years from now we won't be the Air Force that we could be.
>So I'm delighted to have been able to serve with all of you and I look forward to sitting in a rocking chair and watching you do it. So thank you very much.
>Air Force Association Executive Director Donald L. Peterson: Sir, before you step off the stage, we want to say thank you for a long, distinguished career. Not only in space, but in every area you've touched in our Air Force. You've made it better, you've made the lives of our Airmen and their families better, and you've left us a great legacy to move forward on. We appreciate it.
>I'd like to offer a small token of AFA's appreciation to you now and present you our AFA Eagle. I say this Lance Lord, there couldn't be a greater supporter of the Air Force Association. You’re a Life Member of AFA and your comments earlier about volunteering and inspiring the men and women who serve our nation to also reach out and inspire our youth about aerospace education, well we appreciate sincerely.
>General Lord: Thank you very much. [Applause]