At least one current space leader couldn’t agree more with Peter Teets (above) that a future space cadre must include all services. Lt. Gen. Michael Hamel, head of Space and Missile Systems Center, Los Angeles AFB, Calif., also would include a much wider array of experts. Writing in Air and Space Power Journal, Hamel asserts, “The space cadre must include a diversity of specialties beyond simply satellite operators; it must include intelligence, acquisition, communications, and C2 [command and control] experts.” He goes on to note that space professionals must not devalue the “technical expertise, innovation, personal initiative, and mission focus” that “made military space programs and operations so successful in the early years,” however he would increase the value of an “operational warfighting focus and ethos.”
A new report from the Government Accountability Office calls for the Pentagon’s Chief Technology Officer to have budget certification authority over the military services’ research and development accounts—a move the services say would add a burdensome and unnecessary layer of bureaucracy.
