After explaining a litany of modernization problems (read his written testimony) to the House Armed Services Committee Wednesday, Air Force Secretary Michael Wynne said his service is “OK, for tonight and tomorrow.” However, what most worries him, he said, is that by about 2020 “we will have shut down every production line” except for the F-35 and the new KC-X tanker. “Is that what we want?” Wynne asked the committee. In his opening remarks, committee chairman Rep. Ike Skelton (D-Mo.) acknowledged that the savings USAF expected to achieve from its plan to cut 40,000 personnel have “been eaten up by operating costs” and have left the Air Force with “increasingly urgent” budget shortfalls. Wynne earlier this year likened the situation to a company that is “going out of business.”
The Space Development Agency says it’s on track to issue its next batch of missile warning and tracking satellite contracts this month after those awards were delayed by the Pentagon’s decision to divert funds from the agency to pay troops during this fall’s prolonged government shutdown.
