Maintaining Momentum in National security space
In the year since the establishment of the U.S. Space Force, the newest service worked diligently to define its unique culture, to build up its structure, to recruit new personnel from the public and other branches, and to map out its mission. While this progress is laudable and impressive, much work remains to be done in terms of the service—addressing key issues that led to its establishment, not the least of which is acquisition—as well as the broader national security space enterprise. It is critical that the inertia and momentum that led to the service’s establishment and the renewed focus on the space enterprise writ large not be lost. Since the publication of the first National Security Space Program report, the Center for the Study of the Presidency& Congress (CSPC) convened over a dozen roundtables and events, bringing together over 200 experts from across government, private, academia, and non-profit sectors to look at necessary reforms to enhance and strengthen America’s position in space. The report that follows offers a series of critical recommendations to enhance the national security space enterprise by making it more competitive, more responsive, and more closely tied to the national security strategy of the United States. It is no longer sufficient to view space as a separate, disconnected domain from the broader national security and foreign policy mission. The United States must take the lead in establishing an American-led, rules-based, multilateral order on-orbit, and to do so it must ensure that it maintains the preponderance of space power. Doing so requires revisiting the old models and adopting new ways of thinking, ways that match the speed of innovation of the private sector with the speed of acquisition
publication details
Authors:
Glenn C. Nye III, Mike Rogers, Joshua Huminski, Dan Mahaffee, Michelle Miller, Jamil Jaffer, Ethan Brown, Andy Keiser, James Kitfield, and Michael Stecher
Publication date:
May 2021
Pages:
16
