While pundits and bandits line their pockets encouraging endless beltway debate on Space Force policy and its impact in 2050, China continues to hammer away at a blistering pace, surging into Earth orbit and working to colonize the moon. Just yesterday, it proudly announced the successful return of moon dirt (called regolith) into a return capsule. Simultaneously, China has not only cemented its very open alignment with Russia, Space Force leaders are now highlighting their concern over its collusion with Iran and North Korea in opposing the spread of western liberal democratic ideals.
It’s past time the U.S. space community, both industry and government, fully realizes that victory in this century’s Great Power Competition is depending on them more than any other sector, and we are falling behind quickly. Even the lumbering Government Accountability Office has come out screaming about it in its latest report. If we lose, not only will our ability to deter and win wars be lost for decades, but so will our economic might, which is so dependent on it.
For those not keeping up, Xi Jinping has even mandated that his military be ready to roll into Taiwan in 2027 if he deems it necessary to complete his desire to fully integrate it into the mainland, like it’s doing with Hong Kong.
The preparations his space force has made, even what’s been revealed at an unclassified level, are frightening. Upstart commercial space analytics company, ExoAnalytic, delivered a blistering unclassified briefing that clearly communicated what China is doing today on orbit. It should force all of us to wonder if the billions being spent developing next generation geostationary communications and early warning has been done in vain. For those of us who have been involved in the aerospace business for more than 30 years, it is embarrassing how much leadership ground we have lost in the last 10.
The irony of it all is that it doesn’t have to be this way. The truth is that when we have encouraged the full might of the American economy to flourish, no other economy or economic model even comes close in both innovation and scale. Whether it’s the energy sector, transportation, tech or aviation, we create, build and sustain profitable markets that lift the world’s living status in diversity, fairness and opportunity.
To our credit, we have awakened from the slumber over the last few years and have at least put our work clothes on. The stand up of the U.S. Space Force as a separate service and NASA’s Artemis Accords were pivotal in restoring American leadership. Without Elon Musk’s venture-backed SpaceX’s production, launch and operation (which yesterday’s opponents now eagerly take credit for), the U.S. space program cannot get out of its own way. We are not only not moving fast enough, without SpaceX we seem to be barely moving at all. More and diverse capability and capacity needs to be the priority. And the Space Force hitting the easy button with a sole source contract to SpaceX? Sorry, that does not constitute a national space capability.
But how can we move faster? The biggest impediment to advanced space capability for the government are the agencies that provision it. Commonly referred to as space acquisition, faster delivery to orbit requires streamlined requirements approval and fair competition among companies that can meet them quickly.
Streamlining requirements is easy:
- Set aside the endless debates about the threat and approve urgent mission need statements as if we were at war—because we are.
- Incentivize delivery on orbit as the highest priority—no more than two years from contract award or penalties accrue.
- Specify satellite performance to what is available today to meet warfighting commanders’ needs with flight qualified subsystems.
- Ignore the fantasies of armchair consultants who have neither operated nor designed real spacecraft.
- Rigorously plan for regular software updates to enhance performance over their orbital life, much like every successful computer company does for the tech market.
For the performing contractors, only pay on delivery, not on R&D. The Space Force can no longer lead technical innovation into the future, but it can lead in the innovative application of industry’s best space tech for the warfighter. It also must encourage even greater innovation in the private sector by keeping abreast of what is being created and modifying that for what our fighting forces need and (equally important to investors) not buy what it does not need. The Space Force would be wise to remove the words “develop” or “invest” from Guardian vocabulary—buy/modify competitively and quickly, and demand urgent delivery timelines since that is what is needed. Get out of the habit of rewarding studies, armchair pontification or social media one-upmanship.
Cash on delivery, plain and simple.
While C-suite aspiring executives in the U.S. have been chasing each other around conference tables and trade associations dole out meaningless awards, China has retooled, redirected and is now outmaneuvering us to claim the mantle. To lead change into the future, our government must lead by example both in style and substance like our country’s very future depends on it—because it does.
We should remind ourselves that it only took seven years from JFK’s famous speech at Rice University until the Apollo 11 astronauts safely returned to Earth. The problem is not that Americans don’t understand what the Space Force does, it’s that the same leadership problems persist five years after the Space Force was created to solve them. So, let’s forget about road shows and cable TV appearances explaining the Space Force to people. What’s needed is for it to deliver on its mission post haste.
It’s time to talk less and truly unleash the full might of our commercial space capabilities and dominate space. To not win is unthinkable—we won the first space race and may lose the second? How could that possibly happen?
Read the full article here