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i 

51–763 2010

[H.A.S.C. No. 111–49] 

SPACE SYSTEMS ACQUISITION AND THE 

INDUSTRIAL BASE 

HEARING 

BEFORE THE

STRATEGIC FORCES SUBCOMMITTEE 

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

ONE HUNDRED ELEVENTH CONGRESS 

FIRST SESSION 

HEARING HELD 

APRIL 30, 2009 
(II) 

STRATEGIC FORCES SUBCOMMITTEE 

ELLEN O. TAUSCHER, California, Chairman 

JOHN SPRATT, South Carolina 

LORETTA SANCHEZ, California 

ROBERT ANDREWS, New Jersey 

JAMES R. LANGEVIN, Rhode Island 

RICK LARSEN, Washington 

MARTIN HEINRICH, New Mexico 

MICHAEL TURNER, Ohio 

HOWARD P. ‘‘BUCK’’ MCKEON, California 

MAC THORNBERRY, Texas 

TRENT FRANKS, Arizona 

DOUG LAMBORN, Colorado 

BOB DEGRASSE, Professional Staff Member 

KARI BINGEN, Professional Staff Member 

ZACH STEACY, Staff Assistant 
(III) 

C O N T E N T S 

CHRONOLOGICAL LIST OF HEARINGS 

2009 

Page 

HEARING: 

Thursday, April 30, 2009, Space Systems Acquisition and the Industrial Base 1 

APPENDIX: 

Thursday, April 30, 2009 ........................................................................................ 25 

THURSDAY, APRIL 30, 2009 

SPACE SYSTEMS ACQUISITION AND THE INDUSTRIAL BASE 

STATEMENTS PRESENTED BY MEMBERS OF CONGRESS 

Tauscher, Hon. Ellen O., a Representative from California, Chairman, Strategic Forces Subcommittee .................................................................................. 1 

Turner, Hon. Michael, a Representative from Ohio, Ranking Member, Strategic Forces Subcommittee .................................................................................. 2 

WITNESSES 

Blakey, Marion C., President and CEO, Aerospace Industries Association ....... 12 

Chaplain, Cristina T., Director, Acquisition and Sourcing Management, U.S. 

Government Accountability Office ...................................................................... 8 

Hartman, Joshua T., Director, Space and Intelligence Capabilities Office, 

Senior Advisor to the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics, U.S. Department of Defense ........................................... 4 

APPENDIX 

PREPARED STATEMENTS: 

Blakey, Marion C. ............................................................................................. 64 

Chaplain, Cristina T. ....................................................................................... 42 

Hartman, Joshua T. ......................................................................................... 29 

DOCUMENTS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD: 

[There were no Documents submitted.] 

WITNESS RESPONSES TO QUESTIONS ASKED DURING THE HEARING: 

[There were no Questions submitted during the hearing.] 

QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MEMBERS POST HEARING: 

[There were no Questions submitted post hearing.] 

(1) 

SPACE SYSTEMS ACQUISITION AND THE INDUSTRIAL 

BASE 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES, STRATEGIC FORCES SUBCOMMITTEE, Washington, DC, Thursday, April 30, 2009. 

The subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 1:01 p.m., in room 

2212, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Ellen O. Tauscher 

(chairman of the subcommittee) presiding. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. ELLEN O. TAUSCHER, A REPRESENTATIVE FROM CALIFORNIA, CHAIRMAN, STRATEGIC 

FORCES SUBCOMMITTEE 

Ms. TAUSCHER. Good afternoon. The hearing of the Strategic 

Forces Subcommittee will come to order. 

I want to thank you all for attending. This is an important hearing that will delve into issues surrounding the acquisition of national security space systems. 

During the past decade, most national security space programs 

have experienced significant cost increases and schedule delays. 

Our goal today is to explore why this happens and to figure out 

how to deliver satellite systems in a timely and cost-effective manner. 

Specifically, the witnesses have been asked to address the following questions: Why can’t we control costs, and deliver space systems in a timely fashion? Are plans for national security space acquisitions properly balanced with the industry’s capacity to deliver? 

Finally, what can Congress and the executive branch do to address 

these issues? 

We have three excellent witnesses today. First, we have Mr. Josh 

Hartman, who is Director of the Space and Intelligence Capabilities Office, and a Senior Advisor to the Under Secretary of Defense 

for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics (USD (AT&L)). Mr. Hartman is well-known to members of the committee. He is a former 

staffer here on the House Armed Services Committee (HASC) and 

on the House Appropriations Committee (HAC). Mr. Hartman 

began his career as an Air Force Officer, where his assignments included working on space programs in both the Air Force and the 

National Reconnaissance Office (NRO). 

Ms. Cristina T. Chaplain, the Director of Acquisition and 

Sourcing Management at the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO), will also testify. Ms. Chaplain is responsible for GAO 

assessments of military and civilian space acquisition. She has led 

a variety of Department of Defense (DOD)-wide contracting-related 

and best practices evaluations during her 18-year career at GAO. 
2 

Finally, my friend, Marion C. Blakey, President and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the Aerospace Industries Association (AIA), 

will testify. Prior to joining AIA, Ms. Blakey served a five-year 

term as Administrator of the Federal Aviation Administration 

(FAA). Before that, she served as the Chairman of the National 

Transportation Safety Board (NTSB). 

I want to thank each of our distinguished witnesses. 

I also want to recognize Mr. Steve Miller, the Director of the Operations Analysis Procurement Planning Division for the Cost 

Analysis Improvement Group, which we call the CAIG, in the Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD). He is with us today to answer any questions about the cost analysis report that Congress ordered the Secretary to complete. 

Last May, this subcommittee drafted language in the Defense 

Authorization Act directing the Secretary of Defense to task his 

Cost Analysis Improvement Group to analyze the industrial base 

that supports the development and production of space systems 

and provide a report by October 1, 2008. This report, which has 

been provided to each subcommittee member’s office, will form the 

basis for our discussions this afternoon. 

The report drew three conclusions. First, today’s workforce does 

not match the Nation’s needs. The demographic make-up is not 

sustainable, and hiring rates are insufficient to replace retirements 

over the next 10 years. 

Second, the CAIG found that every DOD satellite program had 

at least a 25 percent cost growth or 25 percent schedule slip, and 

almost half of all the programs had more than 100 percent growth 

in both cost and schedule. 

Finally, the CAIG concluded that, ‘‘Today’s DOD space acquisition strategy is not delivering well-performing programs,’’ and ‘‘a 

different approach is required.’’ Specifically, the CAIG report suggested that once a company develops competency in a mission area, 

the government should view them as a partner. The government 

should ask for incremental improvements to space systems, rather 

than trying to drive down cost through competition, which has not 

saved any money. 

As you can see, the CAIG report should give us plenty to talk 

about this afternoon. 

With that, let me turn to my good friend, our ranking member, 

the distinguished gentleman from Ohio, Mr. Turner, for any comments he may have. 

Mr. Turner. 

STATEMENT OF HON. MICHAEL TURNER, A REPRESENTATIVE 

FROM OHIO, RANKING MEMBER, STRATEGIC FORCES SUBCOMMITTEE 

Mr. TURNER. Thank you, Madam Chairman. Thank you for your 

leadership and for hosting this subcommittee. 

I also would like to welcome our witnesses, and also recognize 

Josh Hartman for his prior service to this committee. 

Today’s hearing comes in the middle of our full committee’s legislative efforts to address defense acquisition reform. Our intent here 

is to examine, in greater detail, one segment of this broader issue— 

challenges in space acquisition and the industrial base. 
3 

Forming the basis of our hearing today is some excellent work 

produced by the Department of Defense’s Cost Analysis Improvement Group, CAIG, and the Government Accountability Office, 

GAO. The data contained in the CAIG study presents a stark picture of national security space. Nearly every single defense space 

acquisition program is over cost and behind schedule. Our space 

budget is the highest to date, yet we launch fewer satellites per 

year than ever before. We have no inventory of satellites to provide 

insurance for an already fragile space constellation. 

We appear to be in a precarious cycle. With fewer satellites being 

launched, the requirements for each grow, because that satellite 

must now be many things to many users. Satellite complexity 

grows, schedules expand, and costs balloon. High costs and long 

schedules mean we launch fewer satellites, and we are back to 

where we started. All the while, the pool of experienced personnel 

continues to shrink. 

The principal question becomes: How do we break this cycle? 

How do we maintain a healthy industrial base, and keep smart scientists and engineers engaged when there are diminishing opportunities to design and build new satellites? Do we need to make fundamental changes to our space architecture and investment strategy to sustain robust on-orbit constellations and greater stability in 

the industrial base? 

Based on the statements submitted by our witnesses, there 

seems to be a consensus on what should be fixed in space acquisition. These recommendations sound like common sense—realistic 

cost and schedule estimates, requirements matched to resources, 

mature technology, stable budgets, and an experienced workforce. 

My question for our witnesses is then, how do we put these 

sound recommendations into practice? What are the barriers that 

have prevented them from taking root in the Department? Furthermore, with an acquisition strategy based on evolution, how do we 

preserve cutting-edge science and technology (S&T) and create the 

right on-ramps to incorporate these technologies into acquisition 

programs? 

As our subcommittee deliberates the fiscal year 2010 budget request for space programs in such areas as missile warning, protected communications, and imagery intelligence, we will be looking to apply these acquisition recommendations and lessons 

learned from the past. 

Lastly, the statement of one of our witnesses notes the negative 

impact that U.S. export control policies have had on the health of 

the space industrial base. Representing several of these secondand third-tier suppliers, I hear firsthand their concerns. I hope, in 

a bipartisan way, our committee can work together on a pragmatic 

approach that strikes a balance between protecting our unique, advanced space technology and capabilities and promoting a viable 

defense industry that competes in the global marketplace. 

Our witnesses bring a diverse cross-section of government and 

industry views on these challenging acquisition and industrial base 

issues. I look forward to hearing their testimony. 

Thank you, Madam Chair. 

Ms. TAUSCHER. Thank you, Mr. Turner. 
4 

We will begin with Mr. Hartman. We have received your prepared statement in advance, and it will be introduced in the record. 

We welcome your remarks, Josh. 

STATEMENT OF JOSHUA T. HARTMAN, DIRECTOR, SPACE AND 

INTELLIGENCE CAPABILITIES OFFICE, SENIOR ADVISOR TO 

THE UNDER SECRETARY OF DEFENSE FOR ACQUISITION, 

TECHNOLOGY AND LOGISTICS, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE 

Mr. HARTMAN. Thank you, ma’am. 

Chairwoman Tauscher, Ranking Member Turner, and distinguished members of the subcommittee, it is both a pleasure and an 

honor to come back to the committee and, in fact, subcommittee 

where I started my career on the Hill. So thank you for the privilege of appearing before you today to talk about the state of space 

acquisition and the space industrial base. 

We live in an increasingly complex world. The future demands 

of the world from a national security perspective will vary widely, 

and we will need systems from our acquisition process that will enable speed and agility, that are responsive and relevant to that 

changing environment. 

Past performances, as you have noted, in the development of our 

space intelligence systems has not given us great confidence we 

will actually be able to produce these systems in the future in a 

timely or an affordable manner. Today, we largely survive on systems that have long lived past their design lives; and, for tomorrow, we hope that systems that were built with a Cold War mentality will be delivered successfully and able to meet threats of the 

future. 

As noted by the President and increasingly accepted across the 

Department, as recently as the Secretary of Defense’s public statements on the budget which will soon come over to you and the Congress, we in the Department are recognizing and do recognize—for 

many of us, for quite a while—that, in the past, we have not been 

buying the right things and in the right manner. However, we have 

several initiatives under way that will address this. 

They are: increasing the program manager empowerment and accountability; implementing configuration steering boards to manage 

requirements; the use of defense support teams, joint analysis 

teams, and independent program assessments; encouraging prototyping and competitions as well as demonstrations; and executing 

principle-based acquisition set upon a group of fundamentals that 

should be dependent, or part of any acquisition program, and not 

dependent upon an individual system. 

So in your invitation, you asked me to specifically address the 

state of acquisition. My assessment of that is that current execution of our major systems has improved, but we are not there yet. 

There is still more work to be done. 

As a whole, in the space and intelligence mission area, we can 

point to increasing levels of success and stability. But, as Exhibit 

1 would show you, the performance of our space programs through 

the electro-optical (EO), the infrared (IR), the weather, the precision navigation and timing, as well as space situational awareness 

(SSA) throughout the Air Force, the Navy, and the National Recon-
5 

naissance Office, as well as tri-agency efforts have been anything 

but successful. 

The results of these programs have been a delay in critical capabilities to our intelligence customers and to our warfighters. We 

have put fixes in place, but, as I suggested, we haven’t gone far 

enough. 

The way that we currently buy and deploy these systems have, 

and will continue to produce critical capability gaps and delays in 

fielding those systems, especially as we move into an environment 

where responsiveness and dynamic tempo will be much more of a 

driver in our operational conflicts. 

So to establish a theme that will cover throughout both my statement and, I presume, the questions, I want to quote from the executive summary of the OSD CAIG’s Space Base Industrial Assessment of 2008, and that is: ‘‘The recent focus on transformational 

systems has hampered the execution pace required to maintain legacy capabilities. Stability in the workforce and the Department’s 

desires must be achieved. The Department must re-examine its acquisition strategies to secure continued operational performance 

from these space domains. Successful programs are those that have 

realistic cost and schedule expectation, are well understood, have 

stable budgets, experienced and stable staffs, and have a spiral development acquisition strategy.’’ 

In the past, our corporate level Office of the Secretary of Defense 

oversight was inadequately or improperly focused. Our space and 

intelligence organizations operated autonomously, largely. There 

was not a good, strong organization to provide this oversight within 

the Acquisition, Technology and Logistics (AT&L) area within OSD. 

But, to address this, OSD has created an organized and certified 

set of acquisition professionals who are space savvy within the office of AT&L, called the Space and Intelligence Capabilities Office, 

who will perform this function now. 

So we are putting back in charge of the acquisition of these—I 

am sorry—the oversight of these acquisition programs a good pool 

of skilled acquisition professionals who will know right where to go 

in order to help manage these programs in the future. 

Over the last two decades, the skills of our workforce and of our 

government folks have atrophied both in program management and 

in engineering. This can be attributed primarily to a training deficiency, leadership shortfalls, and an unstable investment in the 

space industrial base. 

Today, we face a challenge with an aging workforce and low recruitment that results in junior and middle management gaps for 

the current state of acquisition, as well as the future. We see this 

in Exhibit Number 2, where you will see the older, more experienced engineers will soon be retiring, and we have had trouble 

bringing on younger engineers, putting them in the right programs 

to be able to replace that skill set. 

Our programs will need technically smart people and accountable, disciplined leaders who can execute them properly. Stable 

funding in the industrial base, grassroots technical education efforts, and changes in the space community business model will 

make this area a more enticing place to work and make our recruitment goals easier to achieve. 
6 

Our most daunting problem, though, is that across the space and 

intelligence community we have asked the industrial base to do 

things that are unwise, inefficient, and often, frankly, impossible. 

We have attempted to buy large monolithic systems that produce 

a capability of ‘‘one-size-fits-all,’’ meaning a single system that satisfies all of its users. 

The philosophy of ‘‘one-size-fits-all’’ has driven much of our acquisition strategy since 1970; and, using the CAIG data, you can 

see the remarkable change in Exhibit 3, that as we move from year 

to year comparing the annual number of launches to the overall investment within the space community, we move from a high number of launches at lower cost to a low number of launches at higher 

cost. 

[The information referred to can be found in the Appendix on 

pages 35, 37, and 38.] 

So, as we progressed, we began to rely more on individual systems. We piled more and more sensors on those individual systems. 

We raised the complexity of those individual systems. And, in the 

end, we wonder why we don’t find the performance that we once 

had. 

This model, I would suggest, is a Cold War relic. It is when space 

systems were needed to satisfy only strategic policy decisionmakers, and events unfolded in a fairly static timeline. Today’s reality is that one size does not actually fit all. We need to evaluate 

alternatives to the large, complex systems, use less complex systems, less risky systems when we can do so without compromising 

the missions of our satellites that are needed to perform those critical missions. Our needs neither can be, nor should they be satisfied from one orbit with a single mega-sensor acquisition model. 

There are three remaining reasons for this. First, instability in 

government demand caused by the mega-sensor model has evaporated much of the skills in the workforce to meet the demands in 

the future. Additionally, our business practices have provided insufficient volume for the sub-tier component and technology providers to remain viable or to stimulate benefits from innovation or 

competition. 

Second, different types of users require different amounts of 

data, and at different times, in different geographic regions, from 

different sensors. For example, users in Southern Command 

(SOUTHCOM) might require foliage-penetrating radar or electrooptical imagery, while the capability would largely go unused in 

Central Command (CENTCOM) because there aren’t many trees in 

the desert. Pacific Command (PACOM) may need open ocean surveillance of ship tracking, while European Command (EUCOM) 

may want to understand the pattern of low-level IR events. The 

operational tempos in each of these areas of responsibility (AOR) 

will diverge. We know there is high demand in CENTCOM, low demand in SOUTHCOM. Developing a system that can satisfy all of 

these users, all the time is unsustainable, if not impossible. 

Third, we must begin to consider the implications of a contested 

environment in space. I think there is no debate that protection, 

dissuasion, and deterrence must be a part of our national security 

space strategy. Deploying architectures with constellations of just 

a few satellites leave the Nation incredibly vulnerable and invites 
7 

our adversaries to target our systems. The bang for the buck is just 

too great for them to pass up. Taking out a satellite of a 5-ball constellation versus a satellite of a 20-ball constellation completely 

changes the calculus and the risk for attacking our assets in space. 

Survivability must be a consideration in our acquisition processes; 

and our current acquisition model, unfortunately, only reinforces 

this vulnerability. 

The solution is to change our business model that will enable the 

employment of an architecture of distributive multiple nodes, layered capabilities to provide the right layer of that capability at the 

right geographic regions, at the right time. Architectures should leverage commercial systems. Multiple sensors from different sizes of 

spacecraft and non-space platforms should be an integrated architecture that weighs the benefits of those multiple sensors and those 

multiple media in which we need the capability for our warfighters. 

This model will provide for a balanced architecture where a 

foundational capability will provide for medium or large systems. 

At the same time, small and agile, less complex systems would be 

layered to augment in optimized orbits with additional capability 

in high-demand areas, or niched capability for special operations, 

irregular needs, or crisis situations. 

As recommended by the GAO and by the CAIG, evolution of capability would be a hallmark and a key tenet of this model. Systems would purposely be designed to live shorter lives to reduce the 

system complexity and the amount of redundancy required. It 

would synchronize on-orbit life with development time. It would increase industrial volume and take advantage of rapidly advancing 

technology. 

This new business model would have multiple benefits in the industrial base, the government workforce, and the capability of our 

warfighters. It would shorten cycle times, allowing for the quicker 

fielding of assets. It would allow for larger volume purchases and, 

as I suggested, a greater technology refresh rate at a time when 

technology changes quicker than we can launch systems. 

It would produce a more stable workforce due to the synchronization of development time and mean mission duration. This is 

really very important, and I want to try to highlight why that is 

important. 

If I build a system that takes me 8 years to build and it lasts 

for 15 years, I immediately have a disconnect between the workforce that is rolling off of a program and then should be rolling on 

to the next program. I have got to find something for that workforce to do for the next eight years until the replenishment of that 

satellite is needed. 

This new model will reduce overall program risk. It would raise 

confidence in delivery at a time when, frankly, the users have little 

confidence in our ability to deliver. It would generate efficiencies 

that our current system does not produce; and, due to the shorter 

development schedules, it would create a continuity of expertise, a 

sense of ownership of individual systems by the workforce, government, and industry, which would increase morale and the 

attractiveness of the space field, having a positive effect on recruitment. 
8 

The model would restructure competition and reinvigorate innovation through a focus on new payload and subsystem developments. The competition model that we use today is to compete in 

the entire system but a bus—a satellite bus is a satellite bus. I am 

oversimplifying a little bit. But the true innovation comes at the 

sensor and payload level, and that is how we ought to structure 

competition. 

Last, this business model would architect survivability of space 

assets by design, making it more difficult and costly for an adversary to negate our space capability. Adversaries rarely play to each 

other’s strengths, so we shouldn’t be surprised that future adversaries and future environments don’t conform to the results of a 

‘‘one-size-fits-all’’ acquisition in architecture. 

We shouldn’t presume that our warfighters will be taken care of 

under this model. We shouldn’t presume that industry can produce 

under this model. As a result, we should adopt a new business 

model and implement these new architectures for our space and intelligence systems. 

I believe all these changes can be appropriately introduced to 

produce the desired results. However, many of the problems I have 

talked about are enmeshed in our culture, and this culture has to 

change. Congress has a role in helping the Administration reinforce 

that cultural change. 

I look forward to working with you and answering your questions 

today. 

Ms. TAUSCHER. Thank you, Mr. Hartman. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Hartman can be found in the Appendix on page 29.] 

Ms. TAUSCHER. Ms. Chaplain, the floor is yours. 

STATEMENT OF CRISTINA T. CHAPLAIN, DIRECTOR, ACQUISITION AND SOURCING MANAGEMENT, U.S. GOVERNMENT ACCOUNTABILITY OFFICE 

Ms. CHAPLAIN. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman and members of 

the subcommittee. Thank you for inviting me today to discuss this 

topic. It comes at a critical juncture for the space acquisition community. 

First, it is clear that there are acquisition problems that continue 

to restrain the ability to invest in the future. Second, there has 

been recent cancellations of programs that actually represent that 

future DOD was hoping to get to. Third, DOD currently faces culture capability gaps in very critical areas: protected communications; weather surveillance; space surveillance; navigation, timing, 

and positioning. And, fourth, there are concerns about the capacity 

and leadership and that we are losing our edge in space technology. 

My testimony today is going to focus on the condition of space 

acquisitions, the causes, and the solutions; and I believe you will 

see a lot of commonality between what Josh said and I said. I think 

that is a good thing. 

On the condition of space acquisition, we continue to find large 

cost overruns in space programs, adding up to billions of dollars 

and schedule delays adding up to years. In fact, some programs we 

thought were going to be on a better track last year saw some setbacks this year. 
9 

Just a couple of examples. The Advanced Extremely High Frequency (AEHF) program ran through some more delays this year 

because it had encountered design and workmanship problems in 

the process of integrating the satellites. Last September, the program reported a unit cost about 130 percent above the baseline due 

to both technical problems and a decision to buy another satellite. 

The National Polar-orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite 

System (NPOESS) program, which is focused on weather and environmental study, continued to experience problems in development 

even after being restructured shortly—just a year or so ago. The 

launch date has slipped from November 2009 to January 2013. It 

is a three-year delay. The original life-cycle cost was $6.5 billion. 

It is now $13.5 billion and likely to go higher. 

Why is this happening? I think what we see in our reviews is 

consistent with what the CAIG saw, the Defense Science Board has 

reported, and other committees and study groups have said. 

First, there is a tendency to start programs too early, before technologies are fully understood, before requirements are settled, and 

before we even have agreements between the community on what 

the system represents and how we are going to use it together. 

Two, space programs are increasingly ambitious. In terms of requirements, as Josh mentioned, we are trying to build satellites 

that are more monolithic and serving too many communities, but 

also ambitious in terms of schedule that seems to be immovable 

and creates a lot of pressures on the program. 

Third, there is a lot of optimism in the planning phase in terms 

of cost and schedule. We performed a review for this committee a 

couple of years ago, and in virtually every major space program, we 

found very consistent optimism across a number of categories, including things like industrial base capability, technologies, requirements, stability to fund the programs. 

Fourth, there is a diversity of stakeholders in space that you 

don’t see in other weapons programs. So this is an added difficulty 

to space acquisitions that we don’t see on the other side of weapons. Some programs involve all military services, various Pentagon 

components, various components in the Air Force, Strategic Command (STRATCOM), potentially the NRO, potentially the National 

Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA), and even outside agencies in 

cases like the Global Positioning System (GPS). There is no one 

really at the top to negotiate all these competing priorities and try 

and focus on getting acquisition and being able to make those toplevel decisions. 

We have identified a number of other factors in our review that 

I think have been identified by others as well, one being funding 

shifts within the programs. Ultimately, some programs become bill 

payers for other programs, and that caused the delay in the start 

of the GPS IIIA program, which is now facing a lot of schedule 

pressures. 

Also, there are gaps in the workforce. As you heard from Josh 

and you will hear from others today, when we go to program offices 

ourselves, we see big gaps in the program offices. A lot of key technical and business positions aren’t being filled, and often the people 

we see who know the most about a program are the contractor employees or the Federally Funded Research and Development Cen-
10 

ters (FFRDC) employees versus the government employees. When 

we did our cost-estimating review for this committee, we also found 

gaps in cost-estimating expertise. 

Another issue is short program manager tenure and lack of accountability. Another one is the lack of funding for testing articles 

in space. In fact, a lot of people have said over the years it seems 

like there is more an aversion to test and fail before an acquisition 

than to try new things and to see failures and wring out the risks 

before you can begin an acquisition. These days, there is not 

enough funding to be able to even test in general. 

There are some factors we have identified that are tied to the industrial base. Consolidations in the space industry have resulted in 

less competition. Conversely, there has been a desire to compete 

and go with a lower price, which has resulted in going with contractors who don’t necessarily have the expertise needed to complete that program. In fact, on a few programs you hear complaints 

that we have ‘‘lost the recipe.’’ 

There has also been the consolidations during the 1990s with the 

emphasis on acquisition reform. When it was implemented in the 

space world, it was really more of a relaxing of oversight and quality assurance activities that really had an impact on the things like 

quality of parts and systems engineering that has had a big impact 

on space programs. That happened within government and within 

industry. 

Also, there is a gap of technical workforce in the commercial sector that we have seen reported by a number of study groups. So 

it is not just happening in government, it is happening in the commercial sector. 

I would like to note, though, that we have visited a number of 

commercial satellite suppliers in a recent review, and they each 

told us they feel like they do have the workforce they need to do 

their work. 

When it comes to a solution set, I really believe there is broad 

agreement between what we are saying, what the CAIG is saying 

in its report, what the Allard Commission said in its recent study 

for these committees, and what has been said by many others over 

time, and also the solutions, I believe, is what is being advocated 

for the entire weapons portfolio. And they are very simple tenets 

that were suggested by the ranking minority member. 

First, more achievable requirements; second, more up-front understanding of technology; third, strengthened leadership; fourth, 

stability in funding—and that means setting priorities to which 

systems receive the highest and so forth. Next, is strength in workforce. And also that comes with giving good incentives to program 

managers and ensuring they stay long enough so they can be held 

accountable for the decisions that they make. 

Next are the types of solutions that Josh has been talking about, 

kind of looking at solutions that focus on smaller kinds of satellites, 

more achievable systems, and programs that stay in production for 

long periods of time, that constantly are renewing themselves so 

you are constantly renewing and strengthening the industrial base. 

The CAIG also noted in its study a need for stability in contractors with specialized expertise. We agree that programs that have 

switched contractors who don’t necessarily have the expertise to do 
11 

a program has caused problems. But when you talk about an approach that is going to stick with one contractor for a certain kind 

of capability over multiple programs, there are some cautions that 

need to be kept in mind. 

One is you still do need competition at some level. Josh suggested that would be at the payload or sensor level, and we would 

agree with that at GAO. 

Second, you still want a process where you are going to encourage new entrants into the acquisition process. They are the ones 

that give you the opportunity to innovate and get better value. And 

there are some programs in defense—and the National Aeronautics 

and Space Administration (NASA) focused on getting new entrants. 

We just need to maintain that focus and make sure it is well 

resourced. 

Third, under any conditions, you need strong oversight on the 

government’s part. It is more important than ever if you are sticking with one contractor, program after program, that it is difficult 

to do when you have deletions in program management capability 

and oversight on the government side. 

Last is just to keep in mind that stability in contractors is not 

the only fix that we need for space. There are other issues here 

that really need to be addressed, one being making sure technologies are well understood before a program begins; making sure 

requirements are understood and remain stable; making sure funding remains stable; making sure tenure in program managers is at 

a length that ensures accountability; and making sure you have the 

leadership over all space programs. 

What is being done today, there are a lot of good actions being 

undertaken. At the DOD-wide level, there are actions designed to 

strengthen program managers and to make them more accountable. There are actions designed to improve the investment process 

so that you can focus better on priorities. 

At the Air Force level, there are a lot of actions going on in the 

area of cost estimating. There is emphasis on a back-to-basics policy that focuses on evolutionary development, not biting off more 

than you can chew. 

On individual programs like the GPS IIIA program, there are a 

lot of good decisions being made upfront to better position those 

programs for success. 

At Congress, there has been legislative proposals—one of which 

was discussed this morning by the larger committee—that have a 

very broad span of actions designed to increase knowledge upfront 

and better execute programs throughout. 

While there is widespread agreement on what needs to be done, 

you still need to make sure that there are larger changes in the 

planning, budgeting, and acquisition processes that sync up to 

these reforms that really establish priorities. You also need to ensure that there is accountability in this process, something that has 

been hard to do, to date. You do need, as Josh said, changes in the 

culture and mindset to accept these kinds of changes, even a different kind of architectural approach that focuses on small, more 

achievable, versus large, exotic, monolithic. 

I don’t want to diminish the good things. Even with all these reform efforts, I really believe a focus needs to be really strong on 
12 

just maintaining the capability we have and ensuring that we don’t 

face capability gaps in some of those areas I mentioned. 

That concludes my statement. I am happy to take any questions 

you have. 

Ms. TAUSCHER. Thank you, Ms. Chaplain. 

[The prepared statement of Ms. Chaplain can be found in the Appendix on page 42.] 

Ms. TAUSCHER. Ms. Blakey. 

STATEMENT OF MARION C. BLAKEY, PRESIDENT AND CEO, 

AEROSPACE INDUSTRIES ASSOCIATION 

Ms. BLAKEY. Thank you. 

Good afternoon, Madam Chairman. I appreciate very much the 

chance to be here with you all this afternoon and to be able to 

speak before this distinguished panel. Ranking Member Turner, 

thank you very much for the opportunity. 

Before I go on, I would like to congratulate you, Madam Chairman, on your new nomination, too. Needless to say, we are very enthusiastic about the prospect of having you as our Under Secretary 

for Arms Control and Nonproliferation. So we look forward to having you in that role, as well. 

Ms. TAUSCHER. Thank you. 

Ms. BLAKEY. It would be hard to overstate the importance of our 

national space infrastructure. Security space infrastructure is absolutely vital to our country’s overall high technology capability, and 

it supports virtually every aspect of our modern military and civilian way of life. The space industrial base also accounts for thousands of high-quality, high-paying jobs; and this, of course, is critically important in today’s economy. 

There are several challenges that we see as posing specific 

threats to the national security space industrial base. The first 

challenge is the shrinking aerospace workforce. America’s scientists, engineers, and other technical workers are the core of our 

Nation’s space industrial base. But we have real concerns that, as 

the current generation ages and retires, we are not renewing the 

workforce to keep America at the forefront of technology development. 

According to a survey that we did with Aviation Week—the aerospace industry has tackled this very issue, and we found that more 

than 60 percent of our aerospace workforce was age 45 or older, 

and many are near or in fact at retirement age at this point. 

Indications show that there are not sufficient numbers of high 

school and college-age students studying science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) to replace the generation of 

workers that are about to retire. And the shortfall of experienced 

workers ages 35 to 40 calls into question the ability of our industry 

to meet the Defense Department needs. 

The second challenge is the defense acquisition process itself. 

Both government and industry have the goal of providing the best 

equipment possible, at the best value to taxpayers just like you and 

me. There is room for significant improvement in DOD’s process, 

which is hampered at this point by size and complexity and instability in important areas like requirements and budgeting. 
13 

The last challenge is our outdated export control system, which 

directly hampers the aerospace industry’s ability to meet Defense 

Department needs, as you noted, Congressman Turner. The U.S. 

export control system has negatively affected the Nation’s space industry, particularly the network of supplier companies that provide 

the components for our space programs. 

The United States used to dominate the global satellites export 

market until the rules changed about 11 years ago that put commercial satellites on the U.S. munitions list. As a result, our share 

of the export market dipped below 70 percent—dipped from about 

70 percent in 1995, to about 25 percent in the year 2005. Those 

who know the details of the change, know that the intention behind this was good, but clearly the results have been disastrous 

and directly impact the industry’s ability to provide the equipment 

our warfighters rely on. 

We have several recommendations to preserve the health of the 

national security space industrial base. First, the Administration 

should establish a national space management and coordination 

body that reports directly to the President. We believe they should 

have the authority to coordinate, across departments and agencies, 

all of our space efforts. 

Second, officials must support and invest in the science and education national priorities that we have detailed. This, of course, 

first and foremost, are the STEM initiatives to address this workforce challenge. 

Third, the DOD should implement management practices that 

promote requirement stability and accurate cost estimates, just as 

the other witnesses here today have noted, because this will ensure 

that programs can come out on time and on budget. 

As articulated by the Office of the Secretary of Defense Cost 

Analysis Improvement Group, the CAIG, I also will quote from 

their report: ‘‘Stability starts with government’s funding and plans, 

leads to an efficient and productive industry workforce, and results 

in well-performing programs that deliver mission area success.’’ 

First and foremost, again, stability. 

Lastly, I would note that lawmakers and the Administration do 

have to take concrete steps to reevaluate the International Traffic 

in Arms Regulation (ITAR) controls on commercial satellite technologies. This is very important, and we believe it needs to be addressed at this point. 

So, in closing, it is absolutely vital that we continue to maintain 

and upgrade the national security space systems, adequately protect them, and ensure the healthy industry base that is going to 

be needed for their development. 

Thank you, again, for the opportunity to be here today. 

Ms. TAUSCHER. Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Ms. Blakey can be found in the Appendix on page 64.] 

Ms. TAUSCHER. I am going to begin with questions. 

Mr. Hartman, in your testimony, you describe actions to empower program managers, create steering boards, provide technical 

support, increase competition, and practice principle-based acquisition. Yet, I am still not clear how the Department intends to estab-
14 

lish stability in industry, and which programs offer procurement of 

a very small number of highly complex items. 

Specifically, with the cancellation of the Transformational Satellite (TSAT) program, what actions will the Department take to 

retain industry engineers and scientists involved in protected communications? 

The second, sub question: How would you recommend managing 

the missile warning business post-Space-Based Infrared System 

(SBIRS) to avoid another major disconnect in this business line? 

Mr. HARTMAN. Thank you for the questions. 

Protected Comm is a national asset. We will continue to have demands in this new environment that I mentioned that will force us 

to move most of our Comms, we believe, to protected assets. 

In the future, in light of the cancellation of TSAT, we will look 

at how to implement additional capabilities on Advanced EHF and 

the WGS—Wideband Global Positioning System—and begin to look 

at, as I suggested, a layered approach to finding that additional capability from a protected and anti-jam perspective. 

We are just in the midst of cleaning up all the pieces after the 

cancellation. There is lots of potential technology harvesting that 

should and will take place as a result of the nearly $3 billion we 

spent on TSAT that will become the foundation for the future plans 

for that augmentation to advanced EHF or additional free-flyer systems to produce that layered architecture I talked about. 

Ms. TAUSCHER. How do you make sure that the technology that 

is harvested actually has a human capital component to it that we 

don’t lose? 

Mr. HARTMAN. We have been working with the two prime contractors and their subs to take a look at the next level down, primarily focused at their sub-vendors. In the space industry, the 

primes don’t really have the core of the expertise to produce these 

systems. That strength comes from their subs. So we realize that 

the strength in that workforce-protected Comm will result in investment in the sub-tier. So we will look at the right arrangement 

with industry to maintain that workforce level. 

Ms. TAUSCHER. I think the things that you described earlier, and 

that Ms. Chaplain talked about, too, when you have long lead on 

a lot of these systems, and it takes five, seven, longer to actually 

develop and put these things in orbit, you have got to understand 

that there has got to be something for people to do in the meantime. Whether we have a blended solution that includes a suite of 

acquisition—I think part of what we have to do is understanding 

that very few of these things are, in and of themselves, the totality 

of what we are looking for. 

So I think very much like they do in the computer business— 

they went from selling boxes to selling suites—because you have to 

stretch out the capability of your workforce to continue to work 

while you are in development of new things. 

Perhaps what we have to do is to look at a suite of systems and 

make sure that when we are doing acquisitions, we are not buying 

onesies and twosies. We are buying enough to keep the capabilities 

fresh, to keep the workforce energized, and to have a very aggressive outreach to universities and colleges, and where we are really 

dipping down into high schools, frankly, and making it very clear 
15 

that these are robust jobs, good-paying jobs that have a long life, 

and that you are not going to be out on the street every time somebody decides to either cut the funding or switch to something else. 

So I think that there is a combination. I know Mr. Turner and 

I talk about this offline quite often. I think that you could get a 

lot of bipartisan support in—both the industry and the Administration could get a lot of bipartisan support in taking that approach 

so that we weren’t finding ourselves always trying to figure out 

how to patch things together when one situation doesn’t meet our 

expectations. 

I am going to pause here. I have a number of other questions 

both for Ms. Chaplain and Ms. Blakey, but I am going to yield to 

the Ranking Member, Mr. Turner. 

Mr. TURNER. Thank you, Madam Chairman. 

I have got one question about the CAIG’s recommendation, and 

then I want to get to the trade issue. 

The CAIG is recommending a 20- to 30-year long-term program 

and resource plan for the national security space enterprise. What 

are your thoughts on such a plan? 

Mr. HARTMAN. I think in the current business model that something like that has to be done, because it takes us 10 years to 

produce a system. So in order to develop that continuity that Congressman Turner talked about, you have to look that far in advance. 

But I would argue that that would be a difficult process. It will 

be a process that changes a great deal. And the reason why is in 

the space domain, the users are very unsophisticated at this point. 

They have a hard time articulating what it is they need 2 years 

from now, let alone 20 or 30 years from now. When you match that 

with the quickly evolving pace of technology, it is very difficult for 

me to put together an architecture and a capability plan 20 to 30 

years from now. So that is why I think it is important for us to 

restructure the business model and allow us to be able to field systems in a 2- to 3-year period or 4 to 5, rather than this 10-year 

period we are currently on now. 

Mr. TURNER. My biggest concern, in addition to the export controls in the industry, is the concept of innovation. It would seem 

to me that although you can tell if you have a 20- or 30-year plan 

what your current capability gaps would be, what you can currently do that you are going to lose, it would seem very difficult 

to project what needs you might have or what ingenuity that might 

arise, causing you to be interested in a new technology that you are 

not currently pursuing. 

That also goes into my concept of is this workforce, the fluctuations in demands—you are not going to be getting—the opportunity 

for ingenuity frequently happens on the shop floor when someone 

is tinkering with something, not when someone gets a contract 

with a spec requirement that someone did at their desk. That tinkering, that ability to work with what you are doing, gets suppressed when you have these spurts and then valleys. 

Mr. HARTMAN. Sir, I think a great way to describe what you just 

talked about is, in a model that forces us to look that far in advance, we are forced to use invention rather than innovation. Innovation, as you suggested, is taking today’s capabilities, tinkering 
16 

with them, to produce results in the near term, as opposed to producing a big-bang sort of invention that will satisfy our needs in 

a 20- to 30-year timeframe. 

Mr. TURNER. Ms. Blakey, your thoughts. 

Ms. BLAKEY. I think we do need to pay attention to the opportunity, though, for both invention and innovation. And research 

and development (R&D) is at the heart of this, having enough 

funding and enough support for R&D and, frankly, a tolerance for 

failure. Because it does, at times, come down to that. Are we willing to take some risk to make leapfrog technologies happen? 

So all that, I think, is what the industry is very eager to offer, 

if we have the support to do it. 

Ms. TAUSCHER. Mr. Chairman, could I ask you a question? I 

think what Ms. Blakey just talked about, I think, is part of the nut 

of the problem. Part of the problem we have got is that so much 

of what we are doing is not R&D but actually trying to put things 

out. And if we could bifurcate, like the real world tries to; if we had 

a constancy of R&D, instead of trying to do R&D on a job, because 

you don’t have funding for R&D. Instead, you have to wait to get 

the job, and then you do R&D and try to call that the job, but, in 

truth, you are still trying to spiral-up to get the capability. 

You and I have talked before about a constancy of R&D and a 

way to have that happen. Clearly, we have got a private sector that 

would like to spend more in R&D, but they don’t get paid for that. 

I think we should try to talk together as to what ideas you all 

have. 

For me, what Ms. Blakey just said reminded me of the fact that, 

for a long time, we were forcing the private sector to effectively do 

their R&D on the job. Wait until they get the contract and then 

try to push ahead. A lot of this is on the move, and what we need 

to do is have much more of an invested, consistent, predictable 

R&D base. Then I think you actually pretty much know what you 

are going to get when you buy something. Because they have developed it, not just dreamed it up, and then you can control—considering the fact you can’t control much—but you can control for some 

level what the cost and what the deliverable will be, instead of having a lot of this on a wish list called a contract. 

Mr. TURNER. That would be great. Those are excellent points. 

You are close to advancing a product. You are advancing knowledge. That, then, can lead to products. That is excellent. 

Ms. TAUSCHER. Thank you. 

Mr. TURNER. The export control issue is one that I am very interested in because, as you were describing, Ms. Blakey, you said that 

we had 70 percent and then went down to 25 percent in the market. Although we recognize, as you did in your comments, that 

there are some things we don’t want to put out in general commerce or in the hands of just anyone, it would seem that since 

someone else is satisfying that market that someone else has the 

knowledge and capability and is selling knowledge and capability, 

so the end result is people have some technical capability and that 

we ought to be able to have an opportunity to commercially participate in that. 

We certainly have the review process when someone asks to export something. I wonder what you know of, when we do that as-
17 

sessment, what is lost. We are down to 25 percent. Is that gap one 

that we are prohibited in participating? In other words, I might 

have the best widget, and the export control says, ‘‘You can’t give 

them that.’’ 

Is the competition providing the equivalent, or are they providing 

something less? And who would be doing that? How do we know 

what is out there in the commercial area that we are losing as we 

try to address this issue of export controls? 

Ms. BLAKEY. Well, I continue to believe that U.S. industry can 

provide the finest technology out there. In terms of quality, unparalleled. So I genuinely believe that we still can be highly competitive in this arena, despite the downturn that the ITAR restrictions 

have caused for us. 

When you have companies out there worldwide, advertising that 

they have ITAR-free satellites that can be immediately contracted 

for, and those who are needing the service say, ‘‘We would like to 

have the U.S. quality, but in fact the delays, the problematic nature, perhaps it won’t happen,’’ all those kinds of things really do 

put a tremendous drag behind our capability. 

And I would also go to your point earlier, Congressman Turner, 

and that is we are talking about the second and third tier of smaller, specialized providers, that those suppliers are really not in a position to go through all the hoops that ITAR often requires, and so 

they have to content themselves with supplying only to the U.S. 

Government. And that is a very thin support at times for those 

companies. 

Mr. TURNER. Mr. Hartman, any comments on export controls? 

Mr. HARTMAN. I think—I won’t go into great detail, but I think 

the current regime has been burdensome. I think it was developed 

at a time when it was to address specific needs at that time 11 

years ago, as Ms. Blakey said. We exist in a new global environment, and I think the new regime needs to adjust to that new global environment to make our industry more competitive overseas 

and to allow the partnerships that I think we are going to need for 

the future to be able to bring the capability to the users of space 

systems. 

Mr. TURNER. I think there was a time when the U.S. economy 

was viewed with such vastness we thought there were areas we 

could take hits in by being overly restrictive. Now, as we are in 

these economic times, it shows there are areas that we need to be 

competing in in order to thrive. 

But I do also think it goes back to the issue of ingenuity, that 

the more that we are doing, even in the commercial side, the more 

we are going to have. As our chairman was saying, that the concept 

of R&D can have an alternative source of funding, also, to support 

operations. 

Thank you. 

Ms. TAUSCHER. Thank you very much, Mr. Turner. 

We are now going to go to five-minute questioning. I want to 

thank all the members for coming. We have a large cadre of members here, and I appreciate that very much. We are going to go to 

Mr. Larsen for five minutes, the gentleman from Washington. 

Mr. LARSEN. Thank you, Madam Chair. 
18 

Ms. Blakey, I don’t want to sound critical of the term ‘‘tolerance 

of risk,’’ but this chart that Mr. Hartman had is why the tolerance 

may be at an all-time low for risk here in Congress and, as well, 

why we’re looking at an acquisition reform bill in the full committee that Ms. Chaplain outlined. It is because of the cost increases, the budgets and schedules being far above what anyone 

planned. I think until we get past that—until we can get through 

acquisition reform, that the tolerance for risk might continue to be 

fairly low, which probably doesn’t spell out a very good future in 

terms of the budgets that we have seen in the past, especially in 

the satellite programs we have overseen here on this committee 

over the last several years. It has been a point of frustration for 

a lot of us. 

I do want to, though, ask you a little bit more about the exportcontrol issue. I think you are absolutely right-on with regards to 

the problems with ITAR and the ITAR-free advertising. But, as 

well, the point Mr. Hartman made about, perhaps 11 years ago, it 

might have been time for the particular export-control regime we 

have—let history judge that—but can you speak to this point: I 

have been over to China, the China Academy of Science and Technology, which is where their satellite showroom is located, basically. They will put you in a car for $5,000. The whole design of 

this place is to go around and show other countries who want to 

be involved in space activities, commercial or otherwise, to show 

folks what the Chinese can offer. 

In other words, the export-control regime certainly hasn’t seemed 

to stop any other country from moving forward on satellite development, satellite launch, commercial or otherwise. 

And so, looking at this export-control regime, it seems to be 

something we want to do because it certainly hasn’t achieved its 

objective. If we still come to the same conclusion that we want to 

have it the way it is, then let’s do that intelligently, rather than 

blindly, which it what it seems we are doing now. 

Can you comment on that? 

Ms. BLAKEY. No, I think that is exactly right. I think that we all 

agree that for truly sensitive technologies—technologies where we 

are maintaining our national security based upon very fine technologies that should not be allowed outside of our country or only 

in a very trusted community of allies—that is set aside, and that 

we should focus more on, in fact, being very careful on those. 

But in the commercial world where, just as you say, this is widely available and it really is a question of being competitive on the 

basis of quality, reliability, deliverability. We could and should 

compete there in a way that we are just not able to with the current, very outdated system and list. So that is what we are asking 

for Congress to take a good look at, because we do believe at this 

point, it is time. 

I should also probably be clear in my remarks earlier in talking 

about risk, because what I was going to was not on specific programs where there is a deliverable and you have got both cost and 

budget deadlines that must be met. We are actually proposing a 

number of reforms on the acquisition front because we believe it 

must be much more reliable and effective. 
19 

But R&D, our country right now is underfunding, we are underinvesting, and, honestly, this Congress could address this. Because 

making the R&D tax credit permanent so that we in industry know 

what to count on, it may not seem that large, but without that stability, living year-to-year, hand-to-mouth on this, it is not the way 

you are going to get the kind of robust investments, whether it is 

industry or government funding, that is at issue there. And the industry would like to step up more. 

Mr. LARSEN. Mr. Hartman, would you say that the CAIG recommendations would be consistent, or nearly consistent, or not at 

all consistent with what Secretary Gates has said about trying to 

get to a 75 percent solution rather than a 99 percent solution? 

Mr. HARTMAN. I wouldn’t want to speak for the CAIG. We have 

Steve here to talk about that, if necessary. 

But I think, in talking to Steve, my assessment of what the 

CAIG’s recommendation is is completely in line with where the 

SECDEF is. The SECDEF has talked about the need for ‘‘good 

enough.’’ He didn’t specifically mention space systems. But it is 

very applicable to space systems, and it goes in line with the business model that I was suggesting. 

And, in the context of requirements management and expectation 

management, we ought to spend more time working with the users 

to explain to them really what a space system can do for them and 

the timeline associated with being able to produce this capability; 

letting them know that in three years we can give them this good 

enough capability and continue to shoot in the next evolution toward what their end desires are. 

Mr. LARSEN. I just want to conclude by saying sometimes ho-hum 

works better than whiz-bang, which sometimes never works. 

Mr. HARTMAN. Absolutely. 

Ms. TAUSCHER. Let me give members and our witnesses the state 

of play. We are about to be called in about 15 to 30 minutes for 

an hour of votes. Today is Thursday. This is ‘‘get out of town day,’’ 

as we call it. So I want to give members a chance to at least ask 

a question, and then if we still have time before the votes are 

called, we will go through it again. 

We have got four members with five minutes each. If members 

have more lengthy questions that are more substantive, if you 

want to submit a question for the record, please feel free to do that. 

Those members who have already asked questions are free to do 

that, too. 

I want to turn to Mr. Franks of Arizona for five minutes. 

Mr. FRANKS. Thank you, Madam Chair. I will try to not abuse 

the time here at all. 

I appreciate all of you for being here. I think we all do. It is a 

critically important subject, and it is reflected in some of your testimony. Of course, the United States can’t afford to do without the 

national security space system. It is not only critical to gathering 

information related to terrorists and unfriendly nations’ weapons 

programs, our military leaders would be completely blind without 

what all of you do. I certainly thank you. I know the whole committee does. 

Mr. Hartman, I know that a lot of this has been covered, but acquisition in the Department of Defense is obviously a notoriously 
20 

kind of slow and inefficient and costly process. Sort of a bureaucratic challenge. It is not to demean the Department. It is just a 

complicated job. And that reputation is especially true related to 

space acquisitions. 

Sometimes Congress tends to think that the solutions come in 

the form of greater oversight, creating more offices and programs. 

Is there anything that you think that we can do away with or add, 

notwithstanding Ms. Blakey’s suggestion, to make the circumstances better? What do you think is currently being done that 

would resolve the bureaucratic condition of the space acquisition 

program? 

Mr. HARTMAN. Sir, I think I would recommend three things that 

Congress could focus on. First is helping the executive branch toward consolidating and establishing strong leadership in the space 

and intelligence community. That would clarify a lot of the problems. It would focus us in on the requirements and investment 

issues that we continue to have in the debates. 

The second thing I would do is look at finding ways to encourage 

the Department to fully fund programs through the entire— 

through five years of our planning cycle. Our resource team tends 

to focus on the year of execution, which is the most important year. 

It is the year that we bring the budget over to you. The problem 

is that, in a planning perspective, many of these programs are 

often broken in the outyears, and we find ourselves in what I call 

the ‘‘Wimpy Syndrome,’’ for those of you who are familiar with Popeye: I will gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today. 

The suggestion is they will fix the funding disconnects during the 

next budget cycle. And it is not a sound way for a program manager to be able to expect his funding to come through. That stability needs to be able to exist through that planning process. 

The third thing I would do is—and I think, Mr. Turner, you 

touched on this a little bit and, Ms. Blakey, you talked about the 

importance of R&D. Investment in invention ought to happen in 

the science and technology world. We ought to reinvigorate the lab 

system and build that linkage between the S&T community where 

invention ought to happen so that we can then innovate inside the 

program offices. 

Ma’am, you mentioned the same thing. We should no longer be 

trying to work technical miracles within the program office. We 

should be doing those things before the program ever comes. And 

one of the key ways to do that is something that the committee did 

back in their authorization act in 2006, which was to direct the executive branch to develop the science and technology plan. It happened, and then it stopped happening. And that needs to be a continual thing. 

It is focused on space. There is a larger science and technology 

plan, but one for space needs to also happen. And it needs to have 

the buy-in of not just the science and technology community, but 

the acquisition community. It ought to be connected to each other. 

So those are the things that I would suggest that Congress would 

be the most help on. 

Mr. FRANKS. The Operationally Responsive Space (ORS) initiative has, as you know, enjoyed some pretty significant bipartisan 

support. What do you think—how can it help mitigate the risks of 
21 

capability gaps, whether it is positioning or navigation or timing or 

missile warning or communications even of weather? How can we 

use that to help mitigate these capability gaps? 

Mr. HARTMAN. Sir, I think the way that you pose the question 

is a great way to look at it. ORS is not a blanket solution for all 

of our capabilities. There are certain ways that ORS can play in 

individual mission spaces; weather, for example. There are some 

commercial opportunities out there that will allow us to buy data 

to satisfy—or to keep requirements away from the end-post program or future weather satellite systems. We ought to find a way 

to integrate that into—that is the Tier-1 ORS solution. 

They are looking at that same model for radar right now. And 

we are, in the U.S., behind our international competitors when it 

comes to a Tier-2 radar, meaning not the exquisite stuff. We are, 

because of the industrial base—lack of industrial base investment 

in the R&D side and on the operational side by the U.S. Government, forced to look for international partners for satisfaction of 

mission capability within that realm, bring in another Tier-1 capability. 

But, as I talked about earlier in that business model, the architectures we ought to employ ought to be layered. They ought to be 

focused on geographic areas. They ought to use optimized orbits, 

niche capabilities. ORS would play a great role in providing that 

top layer. It is not going to satisfy all of the mission requirements. 

It is going to satisfy those specific mission requirements for that 

specific joint forces commander. And I think you can do that in all 

of the mission areas. Positioning, Navigation, and Timing (PNT) is 

one that you mentioned. But imagery, whether it be radar or 

electro-optical can be one, or IR. I think that the opportunities are 

boundless when it comes to looking at the ORS applications from 

that perspective. 

Mr. FRANKS. Thank you all again; and thank you, Madam Chair. 

Ms. TAUSCHER. Thank you, Mr. Franks. 

Mr. Langevin of Rhode Island for five minutes. 

Mr. LANGEVIN. Thank you, Madam Chair. 

I want to thank the panel for what has been a very fruitful discussion. 

A lot of the issues that I have had concerns about have already 

been asked or the panel addressed them. I appreciate, Ms. Blakey, 

you addressing the issue of lack of support, investment in the 

STEM programs, encouraging our young people to go into those 

programs. I share that concern as well, and have pursued a number of opportunities where we can provide more support in those 

areas, especially the younger ages. 

We have got to encourage more of our students to go in there. 

It really is a national security issue at this point. We are losing our 

edge in the area of math and science, engineering and such. So we 

obviously have to do more in that area. 

I share the concern, also, about the issue of export controls. We 

have our foreign partners or competitors putting out satellite capabilities that are pretty robust, and our industry is prohibited from 

exporting our technology. I understand clearly we have got to be 

concerned about our national security and not letting our best R&D 

technologies out that could be used against us. It would be a dis-
22 

advantage. But the commercial sectors in other countries have developed these capabilities and are available to foreign competitors. 

I think we need to really look at our export controls in wondering 

is it—it is clear we need time to revise those export controls. And, 

obviously that has important implications for our industrial base as 

well. 

I also agree with the issue of—you know, one of the problems in 

rising costs and acquisition, we need acquisition reform on the 

issue of R&D on the fly. Sometimes this issue of doing too much, 

too soon just doesn’t work. 

And another thing, in addition to doing R&D on the fly as we go, 

is these changes in mission requirements as we go, trying to—you 

know, you start out with one set of requirements and then you do 

the add-ons, which are an increasing problem. 

The other thing that maybe you can comment on is the issue of 

focusing more in developing a common bus so that as technology 

upgrades are achieved that it can be achieved more cost effectively. 

It is easier to do it and upgrade. 

Do you want to—— 

Mr. HARTMAN. Yes, sir. I think that is an important initiative for 

the future. The reality is that there are—there has been common 

buses. Our current primes have common buses. But there are several different kinds of common buses. 

What we are looking at doing—and this is primarily done 

through the Air Force research lab in the ORS office—is developing 

common standards across the industrial base that will allow us to 

plug and play and, as we talked about earlier, focus the investment 

and innovation and competition on that sensor and payload level, 

as opposed to the bus level. 

Mr. LANGEVIN. Let me ask you this: Secretary Gates has recently 

announced the decision to cut the Transformational Satellite program instead approaches two more bands Extremely High Frequency satellites as alternatives. What will this mean for our communications satellite industrial base, and how will this affect other 

major satellite acquisition programs? And will the fiscal year 2010 

budget reflect a commitment to prioritizing space acquisition programs? 

Mr. HARTMAN. Sir, I think the cancellation of TSAT and the investment of the Advanced EHF satellites, as you noted, will—what 

it will mean is the first step in what we have talked about here 

today, is evolving systems and not putting too much risk on an individual system. We will have to resist the pressures from ourselves to try to pile too much investment into advanced capabilities 

within both the WGS and the Advanced EHF systems. So I think 

that if we do this properly, it will be as I suggested, that first step 

moving in this direction. 

With respect to the priority of space systems, I don’t know what 

the total amount is for investment, but I think it will largely remain static. It will be a decrease from last year’s investment in 

overall dollars associated with the space industrial base sector. 

Ms. TAUSCHER. Thank you. 

Mr. Langevin. 

Mr. LANGEVIN. I yield back. 

Ms. TAUSCHER. Thank you. 
23 

When a plan comes together—we are called for five votes, and we 

have Mr. Thornberry of Texas for five minutes. 

Mr. THORNBERRY. Thank you, Madam Chair. 

I appreciate you all’s testimony. Particularly, Ms. Chaplain, Mr. 

Hartman, you all seem to agree on everything. And I have been in 

lots of hearings over the past several years where there is lots of 

agreement on the problem. You all are in agreement on where we 

ought to go, but it seems to me the problem is getting from here 

to there. 

You both mentioned things like culture and so forth. It is hard 

for us to pass a law to fix culture, I have found out. And I have 

tried to listen carefully to all of your suggestions: fully funding 

R&D, putting all the money in the fight-up for a program, and so 

forth. 

But it seems to me that in a number of cases, we find ourselves 

just trying to fill a hole or plug a gap or meet an immediate need; 

and, therefore, that R&D money is the easiest money to squeeze. 

It is nice to think about going to a real common bus or so forth, 

but we just have to—it takes all we can do just to do what absolutely has to be done, what the warfighter has grown dependent on, 

for example. So do you have any other—I don’t mean other suggestions, but do you have any more guidance for us on how to get from 

here to there? 

Mr. Hartman, you work in a big building. Not everybody would 

agree with all of the things that you have laid out, although it 

sounds perfectly reasonable to me. But either of you, how do we get 

from here to there and over that hurdle that seems to stop us? 

Mr. HARTMAN. You are right. It is a very big building. And that 

is exactly the trouble that we will experience in implementing 

something like this. The role for Congress is to keep this issue 

front and center and to speak about how important this is. It will 

force that attention that will be required to make these changes. 

But the problem that we are going to have, frankly, is that, 

under what I would expect to be static defense budgets over the future, there will be little room for new capital investment inside the 

space community. So the progress that we will be able to make will 

be similar to my response to Congressman Langevin’s question. We 

will have to, because of survival, evolve our system. What we will 

have to do is save ourselves from each other, and that is to resist 

piling additional capability on these systems. 

This change is going to have to take place over several years. It 

is going to be much like we are talking about, evolving our systems. It is going to be an evolutionary process, and that first step 

is to force us to take what we have, stretch it out and slowly push 

it into the future. 

Ms. CHAPLAIN. I would comment that the condition today has not 

always been the case, and there was a time when we did get a lot 

accomplished. There was cost growth, but not to the extent that 

you saw today. And there was a lot of reasons why that occurred. 

I think we kind of need to go back to that time to the extent possible. That means things like reducing complexity in the requirements process, making it simple, maybe reducing players involved 

in the acquisition process or, at least, making them accountable for 

the role that they do play. 
24 

There has also been talk about a national security space strategy 

in recent years, and that is very big because that does not exist 

right now in the way it should be. And there you can really lay out 

where are we going to go for space, not just for DOD but for the 

Intelligence Community for now. So, where are we going to go and 

why? What is the priority? How are we going to get there? And 

then you can even lay out the thrust areas that you want for S&T 

and pocket places for the inventions. 

This is things that we need to make room for, the next GPS that 

we don’t think we are going to have today. But I really believe we 

can get there. It is not hopeless, because we were there at one 

time. And maybe it is just time to go back and look at what made 

things work back then and try to get back there. There is a lot of 

people I know in that community who were there back then who 

would love to get back there today. 

Mr. THORNBERRY. Thank you. 

Ms. TAUSCHER. Thank you, Mr. Thornberry. 

I want to thank our witnesses for their testimony, for their hard 

work and the people behind them that have worked hard with 

them. Thank you for your patriotism. Thank you for being here 

with us. 

We obviously have a number of challenges coming forward. Certainly I have heard from my colleagues, ITAR and this whole question of R&D and how we get a better commitment to have 

deliverables that come on time and on budget and that are part of 

a suite of systems that maintain our industrial base. 

So I think this was a very, very good hearing. I am sorry the 

votes have come in the middle of it, but I think we have done a 

good job of making sure that these issues are out in front of us. 

So, once again, I thank you for your support and your testimony; 

and the hearing is adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 2:20 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.] 
A P P E N D I X 

APRIL 30, 2009 

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