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.”
The nation needs a better-coordinated policy for dealing with unmanned aerial systems that threaten domestic bases, Air Force vice chief of staff Gen. James C. Slife told a panel of the Senate Armed Services Committee. He and Pentagon acquisition and sustainment chief William LaPlante co-chair a panel looking at counter-UAS…