Although Defense Secretary Robert Gates has said he’s only postponed the Air Force’s next-generation bomber, it is “zeroed out” for 2010, deputy Air Force budget director Patricia Zarodkiewicz told reporters at a Pentagon briefing Thursday. No placeholder money is in the procurement or R&D budgets. Gates has said he wants more clarity on the NGB program—a position criticized by some defense analysts and lawmakers, who cite the 2006 Quadrennial Defense Review and a decade of study. As recently as last year, the Next Generation Bomber was expected to be a $5 billion R&D effort. The budget does contain $500 million to continue upgrading and operating the existing bomber fleet, mainly with new radars and communications gear. There’s another $173 million to keep 76 B-52s available as nuclear platforms. However, USAF officials could not immediately say whether there’s any money for upgrade, service life extension, or replacement of the AGM-86 Air Launched Cruise Missile or AGM-129 Advanced Cruise Missile, which only the B-52 carries and without which it has no nuclear mission. The Air Force announced a heavy drawdown of both missile inventories two years ago.
The Air Force’s study of possible links to elevated rates of cancer among personnel who worked on intercontinental continental ballistic missiles has begun, the commander in charge of the U.S. ICBM fleet confirmed March 28. The initial phase of that study will mine cancer registries for information and compile a…