COLORADO
SPRINGS, Colo. - U.S. Air Force Space Command and the National Reconnaissance
Office (NRO) have joined together to create a new program to advise the
military and intelligence community on how to protect space assets.
Gen. Robert
Kehler, commander of Air Force Space Command, said in a Tuesday interview at
Peterson Air Force Base that the Space Protection Program will report to him
and Scott Large, NRO director, and will help identify a wide range of possible
options to safeguard
space capabilities.
"It
isn't that we didn't have anybody thinking about this before," Kehler
said. However, the military lacked a single venue to focus the discussion on
the matter, he said.
The program,
launched March 31, will bring together officials from both organizations in
places like Los Angeles, Colorado Springs and Chantilly, Va., who currently
address this mission, Kehler said. The program ultimately will have a
headquarters, but that the top priority at the moment is the development of a
congressionally mandated space protection
strategy that is due in July, he added.
The program
could recommend options including development of new hardware, or changes in
tactics and procedures, Kehler said. He and Large will weigh recommendations
and then pass their decisions on to the appropriate places within their
organizations for execution, he added.
Kehler said
he and Large have made it clear they do not want the program to constrain
itself to one particular area of solutions for space protection.
"What
we don't want is if you're a hammer, every problem looks like a nail," he
said. "We don't want every problem to look like a nail. What we really
want them to do is to come in and say 'here are your options. Here are some
things to think about. Here are some alternatives. Here is a strategic way
forward. Here are some engineering solutions that you might want to apply now.
You - meaning me and Scott - need to go think through this and make decisions
on what it is you want to do and how you want to address this and what priority
this falls in,' etc. etc."
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