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i 

22–459 2017

[H.A.S.C. No. 114–141] 

NATIONAL SECURITY SPACE: 

21ST CENTURY CHALLENGES, 

20TH CENTURY ORGANIZATION 

HEARING 

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON STRATEGIC FORCES 

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

ONE HUNDRED FOURTEENTH CONGRESS 

SECOND SESSION 

HEARING HELD 

SEPTEMBER 27, 2016 
(II) 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON STRATEGIC FORCES 

MIKE ROGERS, Alabama, Chairman 

TRENT FRANKS, Arizona 

DOUG LAMBORN, Colorado, Vice Chair 

MIKE COFFMAN, Colorado 

MO BROOKS, Alabama 

JIM BRIDENSTINE, Oklahoma 

J. RANDY FORBES, Virginia 

ROB BISHOP, Utah 

MICHAEL R. TURNER, Ohio 

JOHN FLEMING, Louisiana 

JIM COOPER, Tennessee 

LORETTA SANCHEZ, California 

RICK LARSEN, Washington 

JOHN GARAMENDI, California 

BRAD ASHFORD, Nebraska 

PETE AGUILAR, California 

(Vacancy) 

STEVE KITAY, Professional Staff Member 

LEONOR TOMERO, Counsel 

MIKE GANCIO, Clerk 
(III) 

C O N T E N T S 

Page 

STATEMENTS PRESENTED BY MEMBERS OF CONGRESS 

Rogers, Hon. Mike, a Representative from Alabama, Chairman, Subcommittee 

on Strategic Forces ............................................................................................... 1 

WITNESSES 

Ellis, ADM James O., Jr., USN (Ret.), Former Commander, U.S. Strategic 

Command .............................................................................................................. 5 

Faga, Martin C., Former Director, National Renaissance Office, Former Assistant Secretary of the Air Force for Space .......................................................... 7 

Hamre, Dr. John J., Former Deputy Secretary of Defense .................................. 4 

APPENDIX 

PREPARED STATEMENTS: 

Cooper, Hon. Jim, a Representative from Tennessee, Ranking Member, 

Subcommittee on Strategic Forces .............................................................. 38 

Ellis, ADM James O., Jr. ................................................................................. 47 

Faga, Martin C. ................................................................................................ 58 

Hamre, Dr. John J. ........................................................................................... 39 

Rogers, Hon. Mike ............................................................................................ 35 

DOCUMENTS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD: 

GAO chart, ‘‘Finding 1: DOD Space Acquisitions, Management, and Oversight Are Fragmented Across Approximately 60 Stakeholders’’ ............... 69 

WITNESS RESPONSES TO QUESTIONS ASKED DURING THE HEARING: 

[There were no Questions submitted during the hearing.] 

QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MEMBERS POST HEARING: 

Mr. Cooper ........................................................................................................ 79 

Mr. Coffman ...................................................................................................... 84 

Mr. Lamborn ..................................................................................................... 80 

Mr. Rogers ......................................................................................................... 73 

(1) 

NATIONAL SECURITY SPACE: 21ST CENTURY 

CHALLENGES, 20TH CENTURY ORGANIZATION 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, 

COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES, 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON STRATEGIC FORCES, 

Washington, DC, Tuesday, September 27, 2016. 

The subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 2:59 p.m., in room 

2118, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Mike Rogers (chairman 

of the subcommittee) presiding. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. MIKE ROGERS, A REPRESENTATIVE FROM ALABAMA, CHAIRMAN, SUBCOMMITTEE ON 

STRATEGIC FORCES 

Mr. ROGERS. Good afternoon. I want to welcome everyone to the 

Strategic Forces Subcommittee’s hearing on ‘‘National Security 

Space: 21st Century Challenges, 20th Century Organization.’’ 

We are honored to have a very distinguished panel of expert witnesses today. We have Dr. John Hamre, former Deputy Secretary 

of Defense; Retired Admiral James Ellis, former commander of U.S. 

STRAT Command—Strategic Command—the acronyms around 

here are just getting to me; Mr. Martin Faga, former director of the 

National Reconnaissance Office and Assistant Secretary of the Air 

Force for Space. 

Dr. Hamre, you are respected on both sides of the political aisle 

and known to be a wise and thoughtful leader on defense issues. 

And I am aware that you have been studying space issues with a 

group of experts for some time. And I am grateful to see you engaging in this very important subject. 

Admiral Ellis, you and Mr. Faga, your leadership in the national 

security space during your careers, as well as your recent cochairing of the National Academies study on Space Defense and 

Protection, will provide this committee a very informed view regarding today’s issues. 

So why are we here today? I would like to start with a quote. 

‘‘It is not sufficient to have just resources, dollars and weapon systems. We must also have an organization which will allow us to develop the proper strategy, necessary planning and the full warfighting capability. We do not have this adequate organization structure 

today.’’ 

‘‘We have made improvements, but those improvements have 

only been made at the margin. We need to do much more to be able 

to fight in today’s environment that will require the concerted efforts for all four services.’’ 
2 

‘‘The services can’t operate alone. We are basically a committee 

system. Committees are very good at deliberative process, but they 

are notoriously poor in trying to run things,’’ closed quote. 

This statement rings true for today’s hearing. In fact, those 

words were spoken in this very same hearing room by a person sitting in this very same seat as our witnesses are sitting today. 

However, the statement was made by a witness in February of 

1982. The witness was the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, 

Air Force General David Jones, speaking about the organization of 

the Joint Staff. The statement General Jones made took great courage and upset many people in the Department of Defense at the 

time. 

Organizational change is hard, and unfortunately, many people 

take it personally. However, General Jones’ candor with Congress 

led to one of the most sweeping, greatly needed reforms of the DOD 

[Department of Defense], the Goldwater-Nichols Department of Defense Reorganization Act of 1986. 

Just as General Jones had the courage to talk honestly with this 

committee, I commend the witnesses today who have had the courage to discuss the challenges of the posture and organization of our 

national security space activities. 

No one in this room needs to be convinced of the importance of 

space to national security. Space allows our warfighters to project 

power across the globe and to keep our homeland safe. Unfortunately, potential adversaries have recognized this, and they are developing weapons to take away the advantages that we have built 

into space. 

There is a fundamental question before us today. Is the Department of Defense strategically postured to effectively respond to 

these threats and to prioritize the changed space domain over the 

long term? It is all too clear that we are not. 

There is no clear leadership of the military space domain below 

the Secretary of Defense. Yes, there is an adviser, councils, chiefs, 

directors, and even commanders. As the GAO [Government Accountability Office] states, ‘‘DOD space leadership responsibilities 

are fragmented,’’ closed quote. 

While we certainly have great leaders within the space enterprise, the structure is set up such that far too many people are able 

to say no without the consequence for the delay and the costs they 

create. Those responsible for the organizing, training, equipping, 

and operational missions in the national security space are not actually in charge. 

As General Hyten told the Senate Armed Services Committee in 

his confirmation hearing last week, ‘‘We are moving much slower 

in certain areas than our adversaries. We need our industry and 

our acquisition process to move faster,’’ closed quote. I agree with 

General Hyten that we need to move faster. 

However, I am concerned with the performance I am seeing 

today. For example, the GPS [Global Positioning System] next-generation ground system program is currently going through the 

Nunn-McCurdy breach for massive cost overruns, including a delay 

of operational capability that is 5 years beyond when it was originally planned. 
3 

And I would like to talk about the Air Force mismanagement of 

the weather satellite program, but I don’t wanna get spitting mad 

in front of everybody today. Unfortunately, this is not a single 

point case, and it raises questions on the current enterprise’s ability to deliver the next-generation space system to address the 

threat we face. 

Separately, the military space activities are managed within conflicting priorities of each of the armed services. Many resisted the 

views of the airpower visionaries, such as Brigadier General Billy 

Mitchell and General Henry ‘‘Hap’’ Arnold, to have an independent 

Air Force. However, very few will argue today of the wisdom of 

their vision. 

We have the best military and civilian space professionals, alongside the most talented industry in the world. I believe the question 

is not of their ability, but rather what tools, structures, incentives, 

and responsibilities and authority we need to give them to succeed. 

Put it another way, even the best leaders can’t succeed with a 

failed system. 

For those that shy away from reform, I ask if it is better to wait 

for a crisis to motivate those to change, or to instead build a better 

system in a thoughtful and a deliberate manner in order to avert 

such a crisis in the future. Dr. Hamre foreshadows in his statement 

for the record, ‘‘Space systems will be attacked,’’ closed quote. 

The 9/11 Commission noted that we had all the information and 

people we needed to prevent the day’s events. We suffered from a 

‘‘failure of imagination,’’ closed quote. We must resist temptation of 

bureaucrats to wait for a disaster to fix this known failure. We 

must expect better. This committee will. 

This hearing is the start of a focused oversight that we will conduct on this important topic. I anticipate it will lead to major reform in the Fiscal Year 2018 National Defense Authorization Act. 

I thank the witnesses again for being with us today. I am looking 

forward to your testimony. 

I now recognize my friend and colleague from Tennessee, Mr. 

Cooper, for any opening statement he may have. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Rogers can be found in the Appendix on page 35.] 

Mr. COOPER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and welcome to the witnesses. I am happy to join the chairman in this effort. I am glad 

that we have got, once again, the coveted mid-afternoon hearing 

spot. 

[Laughter.] 

Not everyone is able to achieve that in the way we have. 

[Laughter.] 

But I would just ask unanimous consent my opening statement 

be inserted for the record. I look forward to the testimony of the 

three wise men here. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Cooper can be found in the Appendix on page 38.] 

Mr. ROGERS. I now will recognize the witnesses and I ask—first 

of all, thank you for being here. Thank you for the time it takes 

to prepare your statements for this hearing and to present your 

testimony. It is very valuable in assisting us in trying to develop 

the policy that is so sorely needed in the subject matter area. 
4 

And with that, we will start with Dr. Hamre. You are recognized 

for 5 minutes to summarize your statement. And I would say for— 

all statements will be admitted in total for the record, so you can 

summarize, if you want to, or you can read it, either way. With 

that, Dr. Hamre, you are recognized. 

STATEMENT OF DR. JOHN J. HAMRE, FORMER DEPUTY 

SECRETARY OF DEFENSE 

Dr. HAMRE. Mr. Chairman, thank you. Mr. Cooper, thank you. I 

know every witness comes and says how grateful they are to be 

here and how grateful we are for your leadership. I really do think 

you are doing an essential service right now. 

You know, we have been drifting for 8 years, maybe 10 years, 

with the knowledge that our space systems are deeply vulnerable, 

and we have not acted in any way in a manner that is commensurate with the nature of the threat we face. So I really am grateful 

that you are willing to take the lead here for the Congress, because 

this is crucial. 

I do have a statement, and I normally would, you know, go 

through it. I am not going to do that, if I may, because I know you 

have had a chance to look at it. I would like to say, you know, the 

Department does have pockets of real excellence in space. And you 

see the superb machines that we have built over time. I mean, 

these are marvels, the things we have done. 

And there are people that go to work every day with astounding 

dedication, you know, really working hard. But somehow, in a 

macro sense, we are failing to see what is obvious now to us, that 

our opponents understand quite well what they could do to change 

our entire posture. And we are not responding in a very effective 

way. 

And I ask myself why? Why is it that, when it is so obvious what 

is happening, why isn’t that we have been able to respond? 

And, you know, the one thing I have done is spend a lot of time 

thinking about organization in the Department of Defense. And 

there is no perfect way to organize the Department of Defense. It 

is such a vast enterprise. And I will say my testimony, it is about 

moats and bridges. 

I mean it. When you create an institution, the first thing that institution does is dig a moat around itself to protect itself bureaucratically. And it is up to then the Secretary to find ways to get 

bridges, you know, and drawbridges and hopefully they are down 

all the time, you know, where we can get them working together. 

And we are failing here on this. 

We do have mighty moats separating things, but we are not 

bringing the whole together effectively. There are three crucial circles. If you think of a Venn diagram, they shouldn’t be perfectly 

overlapped. There is only one place where these three circles overlapped in the building, and that is with the Secretary. 

But you have an organizing principle, the title 10 authority. You 

recruit people, you train them, you build facilities for them, you 

know, you give them equipment, et cetera. So you have got a title 

10 organizing principle. You have got an operational response of 

people that go to work every day to execute a military mission. 
5 

And then the third circle is the strategic guidance. What are we 

doing? Those three are not in alignment in an effective way in the 

Department. And they haven’t been in in an effective way for probably 20 years. 

That is, I will hope with your work you help bring a focus, how 

to bring those into proper alignment. We do have people that are 

going to work every day operating the satellites. We do have people 

who are going today building things, although I would say our recent performance has been disappointing compared to what it could 

have been and what it was in the past. 

We have, again, pockets of excellence. NRO [National Reconnaissance Office] is a pocket of excellence. But we are not uniformly excellent. I would say the piece that is missing is leadership. Now, 

that is the purpose of your hearing today, and I indicate in my little testimony, you know, there are four broad things you could do. 

You could create a fifth service, big mighty moat, very hard to 

build bridges. You could create an analog to the Missile Defense 

Agency with space. That takes care of the title 10 authority. That 

takes care of the operational authority. It doesn’t solve the leadership question. 

You could restore the stature of the Space Command, make it a 

four-star equivalent combatant commander, along with the Strategic Command. That is the easiest thing to do. 

You could give it SOCOM [Special Operations Command]-like authorities, you know, where it buys things—so you could again solve 

it. You are still not solving the leadership question. 

And then a fourth option is you create kind of a parallel to the 

Navy and the Marine Corps, where it is the Department of the 

Navy. You have a Department of Air Force, but you have got a separate service that is worrying about space. 

All of these are options. None of them still get at this core question of leadership at the top. And I know that the Department, or 

recently, they have tried to solve this by making the Secretary of 

the Air Force kind of the senior person. It is just not providing the 

leadership that we need as a nation. 

Let me stop at that, and we will come back and talk to it. My 

time is out, sir. Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Dr. Hamre can be found in the Appendix on page 39.] 

Mr. ROGERS. Thank you. 

Admiral Ellis, you are recognized for 5 minutes. 

STATEMENT OF ADM JAMES O. ELLIS, JR., USN (RET.), 

FORMER COMMANDER, U.S. STRATEGIC COMMAND 

Admiral ELLIS. [Inaudible] for your calling this hearing today, 

and I am pleased to appear before it with my distinguished colleagues. As you mentioned, Marty Faga and I had the privilege of 

co-chairing a study over the last year and a half related to national 

security space protection and defense. 

And as I noted in my prepared testimony, that addressed technological, policy, and strategic issues. It did not address organizational findings and recommendations. And I appear at the invitation of the subcommittee to present my personal views on these 
6 

critical issues, not those of other study participants or the National 

Academy. 

In my few minutes of opening remarks, I want to touch on a couple of areas that I think are essential to successfully addressing 

this urgent national security need. They touch, bin largely into 

seven specific areas that, based on my long-ago naval background 

and, perhaps, in a too-cute pun I call the seven C’s, because each 

of them begin with ‘‘C.’’ 

And the first of them is commitment. We are facing a serious 

multifaceted threat to our use of space in support of our national 

security. And as Dr. Hamre has noted, the threat to our space assets has been emerging over two decades at an increasing rate, and 

our response to challenges identified long ago has been too slow. 

We now understand that mitigation of the threat and creating resilience in our space systems will require a focused effort over 

many years by many organizations. There is not a one-and-done solution. Whatever changes we make, be they policy, strategy, operational, technical, or organizational, must be rapid, flexible, efficient, and effective, and we must be committed to the task. 

The second ‘‘C’’ is capabilities, as you have noted. It is no secret 

that in the realm of national security space we are not where we 

need to be. We need enhanced and focused intelligence, dramatically improved space situational awareness, improved technical capabilities, and tactical tools made readily available to those we hold 

responsible every day for space security. 

We need to make resilience a specified requirement in all elements of our systems, and understand both that not all threats to 

our space systems are in space and not all countermeasures or responses are on orbit. 

Finally, and perhaps most importantly, we need better tools to 

analyze our space-related critical infrastructure so that we understand where the risk is greatest and the need most urgent so as 

to appropriately prioritize allocation of resources to get the most 

improvement in the shortest period of time. 

The third ‘‘C’’ is competence. We must effectively integrate national security space policy and strategy with procurement and 

operational capabilities. Neither can function well without the 

other. Diffused capabilities are often necessary to meet the varied 

needs of warfighters, but there must be consistency of policy and 

strategy and mechanisms for sharing technological innovation, procurement efficiencies, and best practices. 

I fear bureaucracies as much as anyone, but Admiral Hyman 

Rickover was fond of saying, ‘‘If everyone is responsible, no one is 

responsible.’’ There must be a leader, a champion for national security space at a level that cannot be ignored. 

The fourth ‘‘C’’ is credibility. Some use the word competence and 

credibility interchangeably. In my view, they are not the same at 

all. Competence is what you are, but credibility is what people 

think you are. 

Our national credibility in addressing national security space is 

shaped both by our policy and our strategy. I believe, as President 

Kennedy did, that conflict in space is not necessarily inevitable. By 

our policies and leadership, we can deal with the space environment we have while shaping the environment we want. 
7 

A clear and credible national space strategy is essential to defining deterrent concepts appropriate for the space environment. As I 

sometimes note, tactical energy in a strategic vacuum is a recipe 

for disaster. 

The fifth ‘‘C’’ is communication. Clear and unambiguous communication is essential to success in this effort. Externally, the tone 

and tenor of the conversation must be balanced and appropriate, 

but they must also be realistic in both reassuring allies and deterring adversaries. 

As a nation we must be clear as to what we stand for in space 

and what we will not stand for. Internal communication is also critical to shared understanding among those many entities in the 

interagency process. 

The sixth ‘‘C’’ is collaboration. Just as space can be seen as a 

newer version of the maritime global commons, addressing the security challenges demands a collective and international approach. 

Internationally, we must lead and shape not a coalition of the willing, but a coalition of the ready, willing, and able. 

This cannot be seen as a United States effort alone. It must be 

viewed as what it is, a shared effort for the benefit and security 

of all humankind. Domestically, the commercial space sector in all 

its diversity must be a real partner in the operational and policy 

effort along with NASA [National Aeronautics and Space Administration] and NOAA [National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration]. In fairness, we have seen nascent efforts in this area, but 

there is still much to be done. 

The seventh ‘‘C’’ is courage, as you noted earlier, Mr. Chairman. 

Effectively addressing the national security space challenges will 

require organizational and individual courage. We often say that 

change is hard, but the reality is that things change all the time. 

In my view, it is the rate and acceleration of change that is hard. 

In engineering terms, the first and second derivative. 

Creating an appropriate national security space architecture, improved analytical capabilities, enhanced capabilities, greater robustness, essential resilience, and real deterrence will require a 

sustained effort and real and effective change. 

I thank you and look forward to your questions. 

[The prepared statement of Admiral Ellis can be found in the Appendix on page 47.] 

Mr. ROGERS. Thank you, Admiral. 

Mr. Faga, you are recognized for 5 minutes. 

STATEMENT OF MARTIN C. FAGA, FORMER DIRECTOR, NATIONAL RENAISSANCE OFFICE, FORMER ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF THE AIR FORCE FOR SPACE 

Mr. FAGA. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and thank you. The clock 

is still counting. Thanks for the invitation to appear here today. I 

knew that my colleagues were going to develop the organizational 

issues that you raised, so I would like to develop it from the perspective of acquisition, where I am most expert and which is a key 

component of the challenges that confront us. 

During the conduct of the NRC [National Research Council] 

study, we recognized that acquisition has to be more flexible and 

far faster than it is today. The current times an analysis of alter-
8 

natives [AOA] typically takes 2 years. At the end of that time, it 

is commonly recommended that we continue on the same course. 

General Hyten recently noted that when he asked the authors of 

a recent AOA why they had recommended the status quo, they replied that they had received no requirements for resilience, so they 

didn’t know how to treat it. Now that isn’t a very desirable answer, 

but it is understandable. The combat commanders don’t yet know 

how to answer that question. 

Our space programs are accomplished by program managers 

[PMs]. They are my most admired people. In its recent report on 

defense space acquisitions, the GAO noted that for some programs, 

PMs are reviewed by 56 organizations at 8 levels above them. 

Needless to say, these long processes consume months and much 

of the time and energy of the program manager. 

In its report the GAO also stated, ‘‘By contrast the NRO’s processes appear more streamlined than DOD’s.’’ Why is that? There 

are a number of reasons. The NRO has a relatively narrow mission 

and its high priority is widely acknowledged. The NRO is a joint 

activity of the DNI [Director of National Intelligence] and the Secretary of Defense, and the director reports to them through a very 

short reporting chain. 

The NRO can fully engage in the budget process of which it is 

a part. I gave many more reasons in my written testimony that we 

can talk about later, if you wish. 

In addition to DOD and NRO space activities, there is a third 

element, commercial space systems with national security application. Today this is primarily satellite imaging and satellite communications [SATCOM]. The DOD buys lots of satellite communications, but usually with short-term contracts. 

For years, SATCOM operators have pushed the government to 

engage in longer term arrangements that would encourage and 

guide investments. There is an example of where the government 

did exactly that. 

NGA [National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency] has a 10-year 

fixed price contract with DigitalGlobe to deliver imagery as a service. This meant that DigitalGlobe capitalized the satellites, that is 

they raised the money, had them built, launched them, and operates them. NGA has substantial tasking rights and gets a large 

portion of the daily take, all for an annual fee. 

I will close by offering just a few thoughts on organizations. 

Ideas have been put forth for many years of ways to organize space 

more effectively, to put one person in charge, and to streamline. We 

do need to remember that acquisition of national space systems is 

carried out almost entirely by three organizations: Air Force Space 

and Missile Systems Center, NRO, and Navy Space and Naval 

Warfare Systems Command. 

All are relatively small, on the scale of military organizations, 

and capable organizations that work effectively on behalf of their 

users. Operations are carried out by Air Force Space Command and 

smaller Navy and Army commands. The problem they all have to 

deal with is those many levels in organizations above them that 

interact with every decision that they make. 

One common prescription is to establish a very senior position 

charged to pull all of this together. I worry that instead of solving 
9 

the problem, we simply increase 56 to 57, and I have seen that before. Moreover, and the most important thing I will say today, in 

my experience, the most important thing is to keep the acquisition 

process tightly tied to the mission, that is the ultimate users, 

whether they are intelligence users, military users, or whomever. 

Big organizational changes come with long-term impacts. I reorganized the NRO almost totally in 1992. It was the right thing to 

do, but it took 10 years for the NRO to fully work through that. 

The current situation I would start by asking the Secretary of Defense to review what do all the people who interact with space do 

and is there value added? 

I would measure the response by constantly examining what 

happens to the program manager, the person actually getting 

something done? When the program manager starts the journey, 

what happens along the way? If the program manager’s life is getting better, we are on the road to success. 

Thank you, and I look forward to your questions. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Faga can be found in the Appendix on page 58.] 

Mr. ROGERS. I thank all the witnesses for those outstanding 

opening statements. 

Now I will recognize myself for the first questions. And I want 

to start by trying to help us understand the challenges that we 

face. And I would tell all the witnesses, I am going to ask for a yes 

or no answer, but don’t worry. In just a minute on the second part 

of this question you will get to expand. So don’t feel like I am boxing you in. 

I would ask each one of you, do you believe that we are currently 

adequately postured to address the serious challenges faced in 

space? 

Dr. Hamre. 

Dr. HAMRE. No. 

Mr. ELLIS. No, I do not, sir. 

Mr. FAGA. No. 

Mr. ROGERS. Great. Let me ask this. Why do you believe that, 

Dr. Hamre, and just be succinct and try to abbreviate your—in a 

nutshell what you think is the reason why we are not adequately 

prepared? 

Dr. HAMRE. I do not think that we have exercised the appropriate strategic leadership probably for 15 years on space. This 

problem has been growing. It is far more dangerous than we realize. We have not challenged the combatant commanders to understand their vulnerabilities. 

We have not done a stress test to really know what would happen to us. We have been too preoccupied with getting a broad space 

policy right without operationalizing it and turning it into real doctrine. 

Mr. ROGERS. Okay. 

Admiral Ellis, why not? 

Admiral ELLIS. I would echo Dr. Hamre’s comments. We have 

been surprised. We assumed space would always be the sanctuary 

it was 15 or 20 years ago. The technology and the threat has outpaced our creation of policy and strategy appropriate to the need. 

Most importantly, we lack significant capabilities. 
10 

We are playing catch-up in a very real sense, but it is not just 

about hardware and technology. A lot of it is about policies that 

deal, as I said earlier in my opening remarks, at the strategic level. 

What is it we stand for? What is it we will accept? What are the 

concepts of deterrence that are appropriate for this new domain? 

That conversation, while under way now, is beginning and you 

can look back, as the committee has, at virtually two decades of 

studies that have highlighted this both on the procurement side 

and on the operational and policy side. 

So I think we got surprised, quite frankly, and a number of people along the way predicted that possibility even and now we find 

ourselves playing catch-up in a very real sense. A lot is under way. 

The awareness is certainly there. 

You hear it and see it in a lot of the products and writings and 

things that are being produced, particularly within the Air Force. 

But unfortunately I don’t think we are moving at a pace that is 

going to close the gap that needs to be closed very, very quickly. 

Mr. ROGERS. Mr. Faga, why are we not prepared? 

Mr. FAGA. I would start off by saying we say quite a bit about 

this in our NRC study, which is available free online to anybody. 

We don’t fully know how to respond. 

The experience that General Hyten had of realizing the combatant commanders can’t yet tell him what capability they need, how 

will their war plans change, and what backups will they use? What 

non-space assets could be pursued? We don’t have all of that. We 

don’t have all that worked out. 

As Admiral Ellis testified, there are things we can do. Arrangements with allies, codes of conduct, deterrence measures, things we 

can do at the strategic level that will help the situation. 

This is a problem really only fully recognized, in my view, in 

2014. I will have to say, as Admiral Ellis said, lots going on in the 

Pentagon, but it certainly hasn’t come together to an adequate answer to the question you asked. 

Mr. ROGERS. Well, I think that the degree of exposure has 

heightened in the last couple of years and probably since 2014, but 

Admiral Ellis is right. This has been recognized for nearly two decades as a problem area and studied to death for 2 years, which 

leads me to my next question. 

Do you think this is a problem the DOD can correct itself or will 

it need to be compelled by statute to do something in particular to 

remedy the situation? And I will leave that to anybody who wants 

to answer. 

Mr. Faga. 

Mr. FAGA. So in my mid-career, I spent time as a staff member 

on the House Intelligence Committee staff. And one of the things 

I watched and learned is the first thing you want to do is lay out 

for the Department what the problem is and ask them to come up 

with a solution so that they do that inside the construct in which 

they live. It probably won’t be adequate. 

And secondly, they will need legislation from you for powers they 

don’t currently have. But I think it starts with, let them tell you 

what they need to do. 

Admiral ELLIS. Mr. Chairman, as we talked in your office, I am 

very reluctant personally when I am outside an organization to 
11 

offer prescriptive comments on exactly how they need to reorganize. 

It goes back to my days as a young test pilot when I would find 

a deficiency in a new aircraft and I was cautioned, never tell the 

contractor or the designer what to do to fix it, because if he does 

what you told him to do and it doesn’t fix it or it has unintended 

consequences, you are liable and the program is no further along. 

The better approach is to tell him this problem needs to be fixed 

and let him use his creativity and insight to do that. Now, he needs 

to be held accountable for that corrective action there is no doubt. 

So I would only suggest that DOD, with the right level of understanding, which I believe that they have now on the seriousness of 

this, ought to be asked and expected to identify whether the 

changes that they put in place have delivered on the promise that 

they expected, whether the timelines are reduced, whether efficiencies are being realized, whether this collaborative process is 

working. 

My personal view, and I think I am aligned with Dr. Hamre in 

this regard, is we need to put somebody in charge and give them 

the authorities and the accountability for outcomes, not aspirations. 

But I would encourage them to be given the opportunity to shape 

an organizational structure that best suits their needs. It is kind 

of like where you put the sidewalks on a college campus. In organizational structures you put the sidewalks where the paths are 

worn in the grass. And so within the organization, who needs to 

talk to each other, who needs to communicate in order to get the 

job done ought to be the way they begin to pursue organizational 

realignment. 

Mr. ROGERS. Thank you. 

Dr. Hamre. 

Dr. HAMRE. You know, it is the Congress that establishes national goals and gives direction to the executive branch to undertake them. I would think it is best for the Congress not to tell the 

executive branch how to accomplish those goals, but we have 

watched 20 years where this has not come together. 

And I ask myself why has it not come together? And I think it 

is because internally we have been fractured. And it has been hard 

to sustain a focus in the Department, common across the board. So 

I, I do think you are going to have to put pressure to get this done 

right and you have an opportunity with a change of administration 

coming. 

And I think you should think about concrete things that need to 

be done in a 3-year window, because that is roughly the window 

of a Secretary, and an 8-year window, roughly the time horizon an 

administration is in office and accountable, and then the past 8 

years. 

And I think each of the tasks we need in each of those categories 

will be equally urgent, but I think we need to disaggregate the nature of this problem. Because right now we are too diffuse—— 

Mr. ROGERS. Right. 

Dr. HAMRE [continuing]. And we are not coming up with answers 

to these problems. 
12 

Mr. ROGERS. Well, thank you. Before I yield to the ranking member, I wanted to point out just to give you some, everybody in the 

room some idea about how difficult this problem is. The GAO stated space acquisition management and oversight is fragmented 

across 60 stakeholders. 

So I asked the GAO to put together an organizational chart just 

so we could get a good mind’s eye view of what it is like. They said 

it was too complicated to put a chart together. So what they gave 

me was this list of—I don’t know what it is a list of, just complexities. 

So I had my staff try to put together an organizational chart, and 

this is it. Nobody has got line authority to make decisions, and this 

org chart has to be simplified. 

[The chart referred to can be found in the Appendix on page 69.] 

Mr. ROGERS. So with that, no pressure, ranking member, you tell 

us how we are going to simplify it. 

Mr. COOPER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I share your commitment to enhance our space capabilities. I do think it is important 

to point out, though, that we have much to be proud of, what we 

have today. I think none of the witnesses would want to trade our 

capability with that of any other nation. So I think, really, more 

the question is preserving our margin of excellence over any possible rival. 

I appreciate your testimony and the accumulated wisdom that 

you all have. There are many ways to fix a problem. I hope that 

the next Congress will be able to tackle this issue based on the 

foundation that the chairman is laying. 

Dr. Hamre, in your testimony, you talked about some pockets of 

excellence that are out there, things that even by our desire to enhance our program are still performing at near peak levels, and I 

think you mentioned NRO. 

Mr. Faga mentioned program managers as generally excellent in 

what they do. Would you share his enthusiasm for that level of 

what Air Force colonel that is out there making projects happen? 

Dr. HAMRE. Well, the NRO has had a demonstrated history of 

really quite high performance. You know, in general, I think our 

acquisition system has declined over the last 30 years. I hate to say 

it. 

I think it is in large measure because we have elevated the gunsmithing of buying things above the marksmanship questions of 

what we are trying to do. And I, you know, I just—I hate to say 

this, but we need to go back and revisit the Packard Commission 

and the way we created the institutions recommended in the Packard Commission. 

We have created a giant compliance organization in the building. 

It used to be that a brilliant colonel with a couple of briefings could 

be in front of the Secretary of Defense within weeks. You know, 

now it takes a couple of, it takes months, maybe even a year for 

a good idea to get in front of the Secretary. And the steps along 

the way are just unbelievable. So broadly, the acquisition system, 

in my view, is failing us. 

Mr. COOPER. That is, indeed, a big task, but Chairman Thornberry is working to try to improve that. One of you gentlemen 

pointed out to us before the hearing that there were many fewer 
13 

challenges, contractor contests of bids, you know, 10, 20, 30 years 

ago, but now it is almost a routine matter. 

So when you mentioned compliance, I think you are really talking about making something challenge-proof once the contract is 

awarded, right? This is kind of gold-plating the procurement process so that it is incredibly slow, and by the time the technology is 

fielded, it is largely out of date. 

Another important aspect of the overall testimony was Admiral 

Ellis’ focus on the global commons and comparing it with the way 

the seas were viewed, you know, a long time ago. Establishing 

some sort of international framework for this or even establishing 

our own warfighting rules is going to be a challenge. 

And I look forward to receiving your guidance on that, because 

these are indeed complex matters and probably no one has thought 

through all the implications of what needs to be done. 

I found particularly interesting Mr. Faga’s trust in the program 

managers and his management philosophy that if you empower 

them and get all the distractions out of the way, they will be able 

to do a better job. 

Mr. Faga, if you could describe for us briefly the career path of 

these program managers? We talked about this briefly before the 

hearing and about when they exit the Air Force or the service and 

then what they move on to? 

Mr. FAGA. I did describe a career path, unfortunately one seldom 

followed today, but it typically starts as as a junior officer or civilian at a subsystem project level, then moves up to project manager 

for a subsystem. It usually involves an operational tour of some 

kind. 

At some point a director of engineering in the SPO [system program office], commander of a ground site, deputy program manager, program manager, and that typically took about 20 years. 

And as I said to you, nobody ever contested those colonels. 

When I was at the NRO, I called them the great colonels. And 

when I talk to some of them today, 20-some years later, I still say 

the great colonels. But we are not doing that kind of development 

nearly as much today, whether in the NRO or in the Air Force. 

It is one of the reasons I pushed hard a few years ago, successfully ultimately, to get a permanent engineering cadre in the NRO, 

which it did not have and which it is now building. My view being 

this is very complicated stuff and people need to spend 20 or 30 

years doing it, not an occasional tour. 

Mr. COOPER. You pointed out something to me I found very interesting, that these colonels actually shunned promotion. 

Mr. FAGA. Again, we are talking a time in the past, but I would 

speak to lieutenant colonels and say, look, you have got to get out 

of the NRO. I will help you get a great assignment in a regular— 

you can’t get promoted maybe even to colonel, certainly not to general. 

Every single one of them said, ‘‘I don’t care. I believe in this 

work. I like the organization. I will retire as a lieutenant colonel 

or a colonel. I will go into the industry. Please don’t worry about 

me anymore.’’ 
14 

Mr. COOPER. So it sounds like part of it was the passion for their 

project, but part of it was an alternative career path that was as 

attractive for them or more attractive than becoming a general. 

Mr. FAGA. Frankly, the most successful post-military careers are 

colonels who are in their late forties or early fifties, plenty of runway. Many of them became vice presidents in the business, and 

they knew that. They knew that. But frankly to them it wasn’t the 

rank or the money. It was, ‘‘I can stay in the business. I can keep 

doing this.’’ 

Mr. COOPER. So perhaps we on the committee need to understand that real world relationship and take that into account. One 

thing that I have worried about for a long time is the punch-yourticket mentality where people do an assignment for 2 or 3 years, 

but by the time they get good at it they get promoted out of there 

and you lose that expertise that you are training into them all the 

time. 

But another facet seems to be that some of these extraordinary 

performers are being taken by private industry. And they lead very 

productive commercial lives then but we lose their military expertise. So figuring out that relationship is something that we are 

going to have to be able to do, as is having fewer layers of management over these people so that there is less red tape to cut through. 

I thank you, Mr. Chairman. Perhaps we will have time for another round of questioning. 

Mr. ROGERS. We will. I thank the gentleman. 

The Chair now recognizes gentleman from Arizona, Mr. Franks, 

for 5 minutes. 

Mr. FRANKS. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank all of 

you for being here. It is always encouraging to me to have people 

like you thinking and doing the things necessary to help protect 

our children. I have got 8-year-old twins and I really like them, and 

I really appreciate you guys for watching out for them. 

Admiral Ellis, I was particularly impressed with your testimony 

and I wanted to ask you, what is your understanding of the arrangements there in place between the DOD and the Intelligence 

Community as it relates to the various commercial companies regarding the U.S. Government’s ability to task and use those commercial satellites that we have in space in times of crisis or wartime? 

Admiral ELLIS. Well, thank you, Mr. Franks. There are a couple 

of dimensions or a couple of levels to that. First off, as we have 

noted earlier, there is a nascent effort to bring on the operational 

side the private sector, the civilians into the JICSpOC [Joint Interagency Combined Space Operations Center], and as you are well 

aware and bring a presence there. 

The authorities do not yet exist, as I understand it, for DOD to 

exercise actual control over those resources and the like. But at 

least they are communicating to the extent that classification levels 

permit, which is, again, an issue that we have to deal with sometimes. 

The space situational awareness, the information that we have 

we can’t share with the commercial colleagues. So on the operational side there is movement and some low levels of progress. 
15 

On the procurement side, as Mr. Faga has already indicated, I 

think DOD is recognizing that the improvements and enhancements in the private sector capabilities that are resident on orbit 

are absolutely staggering, and in many cases offer a more ubiquitous, if you will, presence and ability to draw unnoticed perhaps 

that would not necessarily be resident in a DOD dedicated system. 

And you have to assume that our adversaries know exactly what 

the orbital parameters are and when the television camera is overhead and the like. And the more of those things on which we can 

draw, I think, the better. 

But I don’t, and my impression is, I don’t have, you know, upto-date information as of today, but the contracting vehicles that 

Marty referred to earlier, the ability to buy this access on a regular 

basis on the spot market, to make long-term commitments that 

would allow the private sector to grow those capabilities even more 

given a level of certainty in terms of the DOD being a reliable customer is not yet where it would need to be to close the business 

model, if you make the case. 

And don’t misunderstand me. These folks are patriots, too. Not 

every patriot wears uniforms. They are trying to do what they can 

to support the national security needs of the Nation and have for 

many, many years. 

But they are frustrated by their inability to deal over the long 

term. They are having to make business decisions, talk to shareholders and make financial commitments and yet they don’t have 

certainty as to the long-term character of DOD’s relationship. 

And those things need to be addressed and can be to create the 

kind of system we want, a national security space enterprise that, 

as I said in my testimony, that essentially redefines what national 

security space looks like. It isn’t just the NRO. It isn’t just the 

DOD. 

It is the commercial sector, and not just the communications, as 

important as that is, but now the imagery and the like that can 

come from those resources. And that has the potential to be a much 

more reliable and resilient system. And so we need to move and 

improve in that situation. 

Mr. FRANKS. Well, I might, Dr. Hamre, let me, if I could, expand 

the question a little bit and then pass it over to you. Given what 

I am hearing from Admiral Ellis, that we don’t have all of those 

things figured out just yet as far as what we can use and cannot 

use, what are the most time-sensitive reforms we have to implement in order to be prepared for a conflict that either begins or 

spreads into space? And what is your understanding of our ability 

to use some of those private resources? 

Dr. HAMRE. Well, sir, what I wanted to bring to the committee’s 

attention, we do this right now in aviation. We have something 

called the Civil Reserve Air Fleet. 

We pay commercial airlines money to put features into commercial aircraft so that they are useful for us for military purposes. We 

give them a subsidy every year for carrying around that dead 

weight because it is important to us. 

When they are mobilized, we indemnify those aircraft. We use 

them in wartime. We have a model that we could use for space, 
16 

probably have to be adapted in some ways, but we have a model. 

And it exists. It is legal. It has been proven out in our system. 

So this is something we can do. And I really would think it would 

be an important contribution for your committee to develop the architecture for that. 

Mr. FRANKS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. ROGERS. Thank the gentleman. 

The Chair now recognizes the gentleman from California, Mr. 

Aguilar, for 5 minutes. 

Mr. AGUILAR. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Admiral Ellis, in your 

testimony you pointed to one of GAO’s proposals, the creation of a 

defense space agency as the one to clearly define responsibilities, 

leadership, and authorities for the oversight of military space. 

In your opinion and if some of the other witnesses could also 

comment, what are some of the risks you foresee if the defense 

space agency were to be created? 

Admiral ELLIS. I am sorry. For clarification, sir, you want the 

risks, the downsides of that? 

Mr. AGUILAR. Correct. Correct. 

Admiral ELLIS. Well, as you may recall, in a proposal that I endorsed for that, it was primarily focused on the procurement and 

not on the operational side. But I think some would view it as a 

negative that it didn’t include all national security space. 

In other words, the way I see it, because of the capabilities and 

the efficiencies and the better performance we have seen in the 

NRO, I did not believe and do not believe that homogenizing that 

by bringing it and all its capabilities under the Department of Defense is a thing to do. So it would not in that sense oversee all of 

the national security space. 

It would require some legislative relief. That is not necessarily 

a problem, but it could be and that is certainly your area of expertise and not mine. And it does have, as do all changes that are proposed or addressed by the GAO other than the do-nothing option, 

has the potential for some level of disruption. 

But, you know, we have given this opportunity for change two 

decades now. And we have seen some here in the last couple of 

years, particularly within the Air Force, certainly a focus from the 

Office of the Secretary of Defense on this. 

The question is is this making a difference? Is this enough? Is 

this kind of an incremental approach that isn’t yet delivering on 

the potential and the needs to improve the process? 

So again, I am not a big favor of dramatic increases in bureaucracy. I am not a big fan of precipitous and unthoughtful action, but 

we have got to do something different than we have been doing to 

get a different outcome. 

And so that is the reason that I believe that raising this to the 

Under Secretary of Defense level, the accountability for space, and 

as I said in my opening remarks, being accountable for outcomes 

and not aspirations is hugely important. But with that have to 

come the authorities and the responsibilities that enable that be 

happening, to happen, so—— 

Mr. AGUILAR. Others on risks? 

Dr. HAMRE. I would say I think the downside in my view of this 

is that we will look at this as a military hardware-only solution. 
17 

You create an organization that is designed to build military hardware, that is all they are going to do. 

And I think the architecture of survival and resilience going forward is going to be far more dependent on commercial platforms 

and diversification of our capacities than it is about buying military 

stuff. We are really good at building reconnaissance satellites— 

really good. But we can only afford to buy one or two of them. 

You know, we need to find a totally different way where we are 

putting much more of our focus on what the private sector can give 

us and how we would use that. And we have put a provocative 

thought in front of you but, you know, I think the average number 

of airmen it takes to maintain a satellite’s constellation is like 700. 

But the average number of people you would find in a commercial satellite operation running a satellite network is 10, okay? And 

there is just a different world here, and we have got to start thinking about how do we tap into the private sector and the capabilities 

that they can give us that we could use? 

And I think the only reason—I am not arguing with Jim’s recommendation, Admiral Ellis’ recommendation, but it would again 

lock us into thinking we have to have military answers to this 

problem. I would like us to have commercial things. 

Mr. AGUILAR. Sure. 

Mr. Faga. 

Mr. FAGA. Many advantages which the NRO enjoys, almost all 

of them are externally granted, so this isn’t something that came 

from within. There is an organization in DOD that is similar, Missile Defense Agency [MDA]. 

In fact, it is fascinating. I was amazed, in fact, in a study not 

too long ago, to look at the charter and the authorities of the director of MDA, a charter written around 2002 or so. It reads like the 

1961 charter of the NRO. It is absolutely amazing. And frankly, 

dealing with a very, very difficult problem, I think they have 

worked wonders. 

So we do have examples inside of DOD that I think are instructive. 

Mr. AGUILAR. Thank you. I yield back, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. ROGERS. I thank the gentleman. 

The Chair now recognizes the gentleman from Colorado, Mr. 

Lamborn, for 5 minutes. 

Mr. LAMBORN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for having this important hearing. And I want to thank each of the panelists for your 

presentation. In 10 years this is one of the best presentations I 

have ever been witness to, so thank you. 

You have all referred to snippets of what the problem is and I 

want to ask each of you to define as concisely as possible what it 

is we need to solve. I have heard you quote Admiral Rickover ‘‘If 

everyone has responsibility no one has responsibility.’’ General 

Hyten was quoted to the effect that resilience has only now recently become a priority. 

It takes too long to bring assets online and there are too many 

layers of reporting and review. But what is it that we need to 

solve? Could you each state that for the help of myself and the rest 

of the committee? 
18 

Admiral ELLIS. Well, sir, and it can sound overly simplistic, and 

I don’t mean it this way. You have touched on a number of the dimensions. And this is a multifaceted problem. There isn’t just one 

single element. 

But in the end, it always comes down to leadership. It always 

comes down to a commitment on the part of those that are responsible for this that they believe passionately and that they have the 

authorities they need to do it. They have the accountability and 

that they are comfortable with, and they go out and get it done. 

Now, that sounds simplistic, and I don’t mean it that way. There 

is a lot of detail underneath all of that. Organizational? Yes. Technical? Certainly. Resiliency I talked about in my statement. 

All those things are the kinds of things that the leader needs to 

bring into focus. But it needs to be done, and it can’t just be talked 

about. It just can’t be reviewed. We don’t need another study and 

the like. 

We know, I think in our hearts, what needs to be accomplished. 

We just need to have the courage to go out and do it. 

Dr. HAMRE. Sir, I would say we are coming up on a new administration. If I was in your position, what I would demand is that the 

Secretary and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs do a stress test of 

all of our war plans on what happens with plausible space denial 

action by opponents. 

We will know where we are if you do a real stress—— 

Mr. LAMBORN. Which I think is what JICSpOC is supposed to 

help resolve? 

Dr. HAMRE. Well, the Secretary needs to do this and the Chairman needs to do this. 

Mr. LAMBORN. Okay. 

Dr. HAMRE. This has to be at the very top in my personal view. 

Mr. LAMBORN. Okay. 

Dr. HAMRE. And then the second thing that needs to be done immediately is a cyber evaluation. I personally believe the easiest 

way for the opponents to get in is through cyber. And I personally 

believe they are probably already there. We cannot afford to find 

that out in the start of a war. We need to figure out where we are 

for reliability now. 

And then the longer term is how are we going to get greater diversity and use of private sector assets? We buy it, we pay for it, 

you know, we rent it, whatever, so we are not entirely dependent 

on these great big expensive, small number of platforms that are 

easy to attack. 

Mr. LAMBORN. Mr. Faga. 

Mr. FAGA. So who is in charge of military air? Who is the one 

person in charge of military air? All four services do it. There is 

no one person in charge. And the reason for that is it is very complex. All the services are engaged, OSD [Office of the Secretary of 

Defense] engaged. It is a fundamental capability. 

I don’t mean that the stewardship of it isn’t good. I think it is 

because it is well-developed. It is well-established. This is all new 

for the space community. That is why my view is just looking for 

the right person to attach all of those spaghetti lines to is not the 

answer. 
19 

Everybody has got work to do here. People want to make the acquisition process faster. I certainly do. In fact, in my early years 

in the NRO as an engineer, our standard planning number for a 

new system was 42 months to delivery, and we routinely met it. 

But there are policy issues. There is the education of the combatant commands who all say they need it but don’t fully understand 

its significance. 

There are jobs for everybody to do and it takes leadership, just 

as it takes leadership in the services to run their air assets, which 

in the Navy is only one of several major assets. 

I would want to look at the multifaceted problem that we have 

here more than look for, who was that person that I can put in 

charge of everything? 

Mr. LAMBORN. Thank you all. 

I yield back, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. ROGERS. I thank the gentleman. 

The Chair now recognizes the gentleman from Oklahoma, Mr. 

Bridenstine, for 5 minutes. 

Mr. BRIDENSTINE. Well, I appreciate that, Mr. Chairman. It is an 

honor to be here with you gentlemen. The folks that work in our 

space industry today stand on the shoulders of giants, and you are 

those giants. And it is great to have you before this committee. 

I would like to start by saying I have read a number of the, 

maybe not recommendations, but the different options that have 

been presented by the three of you. 

One that I think is of particular interest is the idea of the reestablishment of a U.S. Space Command, not just Air Force Space 

Command, but a U.S. Space Command. 

In other words, a functional combatant command similar, you 

mentioned, Dr. Hamre, similar to what we see with SOCOM, where 

in effect you have a functional combatant command, but it also has 

some responsibility to do the man, train, and equip mission. Is that 

kind of what you were thinking when you said that? 

Dr. HAMRE. Yes, sir. I think, as I mentioned, there are three circles of leadership which we have to have in the Department. You 

have to have the organizational title 10. You are bringing together 

the resources, buying things, training people, et cetera. 

You have to have—— 

Mr. BRIDENSTINE. But that would normally fall under one of the 

four services, the service—— 

Dr. HAMRE. Yes, sir, although we do have things like the Missile 

Defense Agency, which stands outside. 

Mr. BRIDENSTINE. Okay. 

Dr. HAMRE. SOCOM has unique acquisition authorities we gave 

it when we created SOCOM. So you could create special acquisition 

authorities and give it to the Space Command. I think they would 

be wise to use the fairly considerable infrastructure that already 

exists but have leadership capacities at the Space Command. 

Then you have to have operational responsibility. That is what 

they do every day at Space Command, but it needs to be for everybody. We need to make this a joint thing. And then you have to 

have strategic leadership, and that is where you need to have, as 

Admiral Ellis said, you need to have a focus in the Pentagon, somebody in the Pentagon. 
20 

SOCOM has the Assistant Secretary for Special Operations. He 

has a counterpart in the Pentagon. We have to have a leadership 

counterpart in the Pentagon. I think that is what you are hearing 

from this group. 

Mr. BRIDENSTINE. Okay. And the reason that intrigues me is because one of the questions that the chairman asked was, what does 

it require from Congress? 

And creating a combatant command, my understanding is the 

Secretary of Defense has the authority to disestablish a combatant 

command or establish a combatant command, which means it really wouldn’t require anything from us other than the strategic guidance that Congress wants to see a unified command responsible for 

this kind of capability, which I believe is critically important. 

One of the things that concerns me is we have to make sure that 

we are keeping separate the idea of a combatant command from 

the man, train, and equip mission. I understand there is overlap. 

There has to be overlap. 

One of the other things that intrigued me about what you wrote 

was that—and I think, Admiral Ellis, you mentioned a similar 

thing, creating a service within the Air Force much like maybe the 

Army Air Service was to the Army, much like the Marine Corps is 

today to the Navy, where you have got different officer progressions, you have got different budgets, but you report to the same, 

ultimately the same service secretary. 

It doesn’t seem like having a space combatant command would 

necessarily be separate from having a space service within the Air 

Force that might have a different organizational structure. 

Not going as far as to be disruptive in creating a separate service, but within the Air Force having a service that is dedicated specifically to that, is that, the two are not mutually exclusive. Is that 

correct? That is really my question. 

Dr. HAMRE. Well, I should rely on Admiral Ellis, because he is 

the military officer here. I think that you need his judgment on 

this question more than mine. 

Mr. BRIDENSTINE. Yes. 

Admiral ELLIS. Well, as some of you may be aware, I was in command of the United States Strategic Command when U.S. Space 

Command was merged with it. And it was done not because space 

was unimportant, but because space was so important that it needed to be brought in even closer alignment with the warfighter. 

And, as you may recall, we completed the first nuclear posture 

review and determined that we are redefining the term ‘‘strategic.’’ 

Strategic used to be and used to mean nuclear. 

Mr. BRIDENSTINE. Right. 

Admiral ELLIS. And then it was expanded to include all capabilities with strategic impact. 

Mr. BRIDENSTINE. Right. 

Admiral ELLIS. And they included everything, I mean, global 

strike, missile defense, that hated acronym C4ISR [command, control, communications, computers, intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance] and all of those things, all of which relied so heavily 

on space assets. The intent was to bring those more closely in 

alignment and use that reduction to improve and enhance the creation and oversight of those capabilities. 
21 

But to your point, sir, if you were to create a new strategic command or a space command, you would be using the same elements 

that already exist, and—— 

Mr. BRIDENSTINE. Okay. 

Admiral ELLIS [continuing]. And you would create a headquarters, because everything is operated through component structures 

as you are well aware from—— 

Mr. BRIDENSTINE. Sure. 

Admiral ELLIS [continuing]. From your military background. But, 

it would also draw from the pool of space experts that exist within 

the services and departments for its manning and staffing. 

So I would argue that, again, I am not necessarily a big fan of 

an organizational change just to do that, because I really don’t 

think that the operational piece is as much the issue. 

The issue, as we focused on a lot here, is procurement—— 

Mr. BRIDENSTINE. Right. 

Admiral ELLIS [continuing]. Of the tools and the systems that 

our space warfighters need, and quite frankly, that is not the role 

of a combatant command. They can provide requirements, but they 

don’t buy or oversee those kinds of processes. That is an organize, 

train, and equip function. 

Mr. BRIDENSTINE. I am out of time, but I want to make this one 

last—in 2001, there was a report that came out from a commission 

on organization and management of national security space chaired 

by Donald Rumsfeld before he was Secretary of Defense. 

And that commission explicitly stated what you said, which is 

within the Air Force, you have got the people that generate the requirements. Those are the operators. And then you have got the 

people who do the purchasing. And those are not the same people. 

And that creates a disconnect. 

And in the commission report, it actually specified the NRO as 

the agency that actually does it right, where the operators are directly involved in the acquisition. And because of that, when there 

is an anomaly in a space system, the operators know the difference 

between an anomaly and an attack. And that is a very important 

thing. 

So I think when we think about acquisitions as it comes to space, 

we need to think about it differently than when we buy a tank or 

something else. 

So with that, Mr. Chairman, I will yield back. 

Mr. ROGERS. I thank the gentleman. 

I recognize myself for the next series of questions. Mr. 

Bridenstine just made the observation about the NRO, which we 

have talked about. They do it right. I mean they do it much better. 

And when you look at the director of the NRO, they have direct 

report to the Secretary of Defense—or not the Secretary of Defense, 

the Under Secretary for Intelligence and then the DNI. And then 

the rest of military space is this. I mean, it just seems like we have 

got to find something comparable if we are going to get the sort of 

efficacy that we see at the NRO. 

One of the options that the GAO report offered was the PDSA, 

the Principal DOD Space Advisor. And some of the departments 

say that, you know, taking the Secretary of the Air Force and 
22 

changing the title from executive agent to PDSA is the solution, 

and we are in the first year of that. 

My problem with that is the A, advisor. If the Secretary of the 

Air Force is an advisor, who is in charge? So tell me what I am 

missing? It seems to me that we have changed the title, and we 

have moved the deck chairs around on the ship, but we haven’t 

changed the direction of the ship. Somebody tell me why I am 

wrong. 

Mr. Faga. 

Dr. HAMRE. Sir, I don’t think you are wrong. I mean, it is—again, 

I don’t personally believe the Secretary can alienate his responsibility for bringing focus to what we are doing as a department. And 

it is very hard to assign that to a subordinate entity and have everybody else take that person seriously. 

Mr. ROGERS. Perfect question, does the Secretary of the Air Force 

him- or herself have time to do this? Are they just going to delegate 

it to somebody? 

Dr. HAMRE. You know, 30 years ago when I think it worked well, 

it was actually the Under Secretary of the Air Force whose job it 

was to run space. But that was because it was the Secretary’s priority, and the Secretary backed that individual up, and everybody 

in the building knew that was the Secretary’s person. 

I just don’t hear that when I talk to people in the Department 

right now that there is a clarity of who is responsible and who is 

actually running things for space. 

Mr. ROGERS. Should the Secretary of the Air Force be in charge 

of all DOD space? 

Dr. HAMRE. Well, you have to empower the secretary to have the 

Secretary’s authority. I mean the only way that works is when the 

Secretary of Defense says, that person will decide for me, and I 

haven’t heard that. 

Mr. ROGERS. So are you saying it should be an OSD joint command? 

Dr. HAMRE. No, sir. 

Mr. ROGERS. Or joint responsibility, rather? 

Dr. HAMRE. Again, my personal view is things really function— 

you know, the Department has a balance between line organizations and staff organizations. Line organizations are those that 

really run things, the service chiefs. They run these military departments. We have some defense agencies that are line organizations. 

Everything in OSD, and to include the Secretary of the Air Force 

is line responsible, but only for things in the Air Force. 

Mr. ROGERS. Right. 

Dr. HAMRE. Nobody in the Navy is going to think that they are 

going to take an order from the Secretary of the Air Force. 

Mr. ROGERS. So by virtue of what you are just saying, it should 

be an OSD responsibility? 

Dr. HAMRE. Sir, I think it needs to be a combination of OSD 

oversight and military line responsibility and how you get that— 

you can do it through a defense agency. You can do it through a 

unified command. But you need to have somebody who is going to 

work every day, that is their job. They are not simply advising the 

Secretary in what they think that person should do. 
23 

Mr. ROGERS. Mr. Faga. 

Mr. FAGA. I want to talk about your point about advisor by pointing out the secretary in her Air Force Secretary role is doing 90 

percent of military space in terms of acquisition. Ninety percent of 

it is in the Air Force. 

The Navy program is tiny and that is about it. Army program 

is mostly support equipment. So she has already got most of it. 

Now, the significance of being the principal advisor means she can 

go direct to the SECDEF [Secretary of Defense]. In the big bureaucracy of the Pentagon and as senior as she is, that is a big 

deal. It is a privilege I enjoyed when I was the director of the NRO. 

And once in a while, someone somewhere else in the bureaucracy 

would decide to take me on. We went to the Secretary. They lost. 

That was that. 

I think she has the same opportunities, so I am not as ready to 

give up on it as others may be. We will see. We will see. 

It is also the case that Secretary James is pretty engaged and 

energetic. I think she is having some success. Because in examining all of these questions, I come back to who is in charge of military air or many other functions that exist within the Department? 

So I think she is pretty well-situated. She is the third ranking 

official in the Department, pretty well-situated. 

Mr. ROGERS. Yes, I would say, first of all, this has got nothing 

to do with Secretary James particularly. It has more to do with the 

position. Now, she is an extraordinarily competent lady. 

This is about the Secretary of the Air Force being charged with 

this advisor role when I don’t see it being given the decision-making authority and control of the money to implement decisions and 

then the responsibility for success. 

And also, I frankly don’t see this as being the Air Force’s primary 

mission. I think it has been my experience in the last few years 

that it seems that space is always going to take a back seat in the 

Air Force, and that bothers me. That may be an erroneous observation on my part, but it is one that concerns me. 

Yes, sir, Dr. Hamre. 

Dr. HAMRE. Mr. Chairman—and I don’t want to pick a fight with 

my two colleagues, who are far more expert on this than I am, but, 

you know, we have war plans that depend on space today, and they 

will fail if space is attacked. 

Mr. ROGERS. Right. 

Dr. HAMRE. Well, I don’t see the Secretary of the Air Force solving that problem. I mean, this has got to be the Chairman of the 

Joint Chiefs that is doing a stress test of all of his war plans with 

his commanders. The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs does not report 

to the Secretary of the Air Force. 

Mr. ROGERS. That is the whole reason why this has taken such 

a priority for this committee. If we are going to fight a war successfully, we have to have space control, and the attributes that it 

brings. And if, those are vulnerable now. It is just the facts. So this 

has to be addressed. 

All right, I will stop there and turn over to the ranking member 

for his additional questions. 

Mr. COOPER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. This has been a very 

productive discussion. I was wondering if we need to have a similar 
24 

hearing, though, on establishing some sort of enhanced cyber command? 

Dr. Hamre mentioned that perhaps our greatest vulnerability 

with satellites is through cyber. But each of these domains seem 

to be requiring greater attention and more flexibility from the bureaucracy so that we can live up to our full potential. So would you 

gentleman each suggest that we have a similar discussion regarding cyber the way we are doing space today? 

Admiral ELLIS. Yeah, I certainly think that dialogue is essential, 

sir. I think there are some real parallels here. We have challenges 

in the cyber domain with attribution, knowing who actually did the 

act that we now discover is being, you know, performed against us. 

Same thing can be true in space. Is it debris when your satellite 

fails or was it a nefarious act on the part of another actor? And 

you know, there are some parallels, and I think that kind of oversight and understanding, but it also highlights a lot of the same 

complexities in all of this. 

If you create a standalone cyber command, what is the impact of 

that drawing expertise from the services that may be in short supply to stand up that command? And what are the implications of 

moving cyber both offense and defense into the warfighting domain 

of the combatant commanders, which was the intent? 

I mean it is as Dr. Hamre said, and as I said in my prepared 

testimony, every organizational alignment is sub-optimized for 

something. You just have to decide what your priorities are. 

Is it what is most important or is what you do the most? The two 

are not necessarily the same. And so how you structure that, there 

are going to be some pluses and minuses in every structure. And 

I think you are hearing that from my colleagues here, and all of 

them with good inputs. 

Mr. COOPER. There is general agreement on that? 

Mr. FAGA. Yeah. 

Admiral ELLIS. Yeah. 

Mr. COOPER. To sell a new space command or some sort of an 

enhanced space capability to the American people and perhaps to 

our own colleagues, it is going to be very important that they understand the significance of satellites. 

And I noted in Mr. Faga’s testimony he quoted General Formica 

as saying that ‘‘Every company commander depends on space and 

they all take it for granted.’’ You know? 

[Laughter.] 

You know, if every captain is dependent that means everybody 

who wears a uniform is dependent on it. And I know in the private 

sector I know some people who can’t play golf without relying on 

a satellite. 

[Laughter.] 

But some people can’t play anyway, but—— 

[Laughter.] 

And it is a hard sport. But it almost makes me think of having 

a satellite-free day to enhance the awareness of the importance of 

satellites except for the fact that satellites are already so critical 

that that would devastate the economy in probably every nation in 

the world if we were to try to go without the timing functions and 
25 

other functions that are hidden deep in the background of every 

ATM or every machine we depend on. 

So we are already beyond the point at which we could deprive 

ourselves voluntarily of this capability, but that is exactly probably 

what the enemy is thinking about doing to us in the event of an 

attack to bind us before we even knew we were attacked and then 

to probably disguise that as a debris strike and have us in a quandary for a while before we knew who to blame. 

Mr. Faga. 

Mr. FAGA. Sir, the military plays this as a war game in what 

they call Schriever Games. I would strongly recommend that you 

get their classified briefing on some of the their recent games on 

exactly the point you have just raised, Mr. Cooper. 

You would find it revealing. 

Mr. COOPER. Finally let me end with the point that if we want 

to live up to our full military potential and do the right thing then, 

A, we would fully fund our troops, which we haven’t been doing for 

about 15 years now, using devices like OCO [overseas contingency 

operations] funding and things like that in which we basically are 

asking for the Chinese and other international creditors to help pay 

our bills. 

B, we would clear up some of these bureaucratic oversight lines 

ourselves. I think the Department of Homeland Security reports to 

some 60 congressional committees or subcommittees; the satellite 

area is probably almost as confusing. And my colleague Mr. Bridenstine’s excellent point having the operator and the acquirer be 

more the same people then they know what is going on. 

Well, we have, of course have this ancient divide between authorizing committees here and appropriators and only the appropriators really matter. 

[Laughter.] 

Yeah, that is right. So we have a lot of housecleaning to do here 

on this side of the dais. But I thank you, gentlemen, for your excellent testimony. It has been very thought-provoking. 

Mr. ROGERS. I thank the gentleman. 

The Chair now recognizes the gentleman from Colorado, Mr. 

Lamborn, for a second 5 minutes. 

Mr. LAMBORN. Thank you. I would like to drill down with each 

of you on the slow acquisition process. That is one of the major facets of the problem we are trying to deal with. And I would like to 

mention that I recently met with a commercial SATCOM provider 

who can order a new satellite from Lockheed Martin and have it 

built and launched within 24 months. 

And yet Lockheed also provides to DOD but not on a 24-month 

schedule, and so I don’t think it is Lockheed. What is it, why do 

we have such slow acquisition schedules? 

Mr. Faga. 

Mr. FAGA. Because it takes a very long time to decide what it is 

we are going to build, even if the decision after a couple of years 

of effort is we are going to build exactly what we have already got. 

When a SATCOM operator goes to Lockheed, first of all they are 

saying we want to use the standard bus. 

You know, I want array of transponders that looks roughly like 

this. There isn’t very much design work. There is no new engineer-
26 

ing. It is really just building something pretty close to what you 

sold me last time and due in 24 months. 

It is also interesting their approach to how to maintain their constellation. Even at NRO we used to go through these great design 

life studies and calculations and recalculations. 

What SATCOM operators tend to say is I have got a 50-some satellite constellation. I have got three satellites on orbit that are 

spares, and I have got two or three of them on the ground ready 

for launch. 

Getting to launch can be really slow. It can take months. I might 

mention in that regard that I once had the opportunity to visit the 

Arianespace launch facility in Kourou in French Guiana. And their 

system was all designed from the ground up pretty much in the 

1980s. 

The whole system is integrated. They can fly different sizes of 

their satellites off the same pad. Platform heights are the same. 

Electrical plug-ins are the same all the way up and down. 

With that kind of modern infrastructure, they can launch very 

quickly. We don’t have that capacity in the United States. 

Mr. LAMBORN. Admiral Ellis. 

Admiral ELLIS. Yes, sir. It is a great question, and in fairness 

there are differences that we levy on national security assets. Now, 

you can ask a fair question and I think you have. How much of 

that should be done in the exquisite designs that we custom-tailor, 

as the Brits would say bespoke creation for national security purposes. 

Sometimes they are legitimate requirements. EMP [electromagnetic pulse] hardening against high-altitude nuclear detonation, 

encryption that requires a great deal of onboard computing power, 

protective devices for optics and things that aren’t necessarily a 

part of the commercial sector. And sometimes there is some reason 

for that. 

But we also need to understand, as Mr. Faga has indicated, and 

as the chairman has noted, and I think Dr. Hamre mentioned as 

well, there is robustness and resilience in having a lot of nodes, a 

lot of perhaps less capable assets. 

And so there has—we are beginning to see a cultural change on 

the DOD side where they are understanding that that last ounce 

of weight doesn’t necessarily need to go to one more diopter of capability. Maybe it needs to go to bolting on the little sensor that 

we all have outside our garage that turns the light on when somebody approaches so that we know when another satellite comes 

within—comes within our area. And, you know, and again, that is 

very simplistic, and believe me, I am not a satellite designer, but 

it shows you the kind of trades we need to make. 

Maybe we take a little less capability and a lot more resilience 

as we move forward and at the same time draw much more heavily 

on the capabilities that are resonant in the commercial sector. 

Mr. LAMBORN. Like so CubeSats [miniaturized satellites], for instance? 

Admiral ELLIS. Right. 

Dr. HAMRE. Sir, a friend of mine once said, you know, a candle 

maker will never invent electricity. And so we have done such a 
27 

brilliant job building satellites in the military we don’t think anybody else knows how to do that. 

You know, I doubt anybody inside the military DOD environment 

would figure out how to land a rocket booster tail-first back on the 

launch pad, you know? But the private sector did. 

Now, it just seems to me we need to break out of the tyranny 

of thinking we are the only people that know what we are doing. 

There is a heck of a lot of people in the private sector now building 

sophisticated platforms and we don’t pay attention to what they 

are doing. I mean, they are launching satellites where 10 people 

can maintain that satellite. 

Mr. LAMBORN. I had one provider, private outfit say that they 

could put up CubeSats, very rudimentary but effective, not for six 

figures or seven figures, but for five figures. 

Dr. HAMRE. Yes. 

Mr. LAMBORN. I yield back. 

Mr. ROGERS. I thank the gentleman. 

The Chair now recognizes the gentleman from Nebraska, Mr. 

Ashford, for 5 minutes. 

Mr. ASHFORD. Thank you. It is good to see you again. Admiral 

Ellis is—still remains a legend in Omaha and thanks for all—certainly your service in commanding the strategic forces, but also in 

your leadership in the community in so many things that you did 

during your years there. So thank you. 

And I also thank the rest of you for your service as well. It— 

serving in Omaha is just a special—— 

[Laughter.] 

Mr. ROGERS. It is a hardship. 

Mr. ASHFORD. But it is a hardship, though. 

[Laughter.] 

Don’t anybody repeat. But anyway—— 

[Laughter.] 

I was going to follow on just a bit with Congressman Lamborn’s 

questions, and I think it was we have had other discussions about 

other challenges and the need to—that perfection is the enemy of 

good and that we need to find a quicker way to get to market or 

get to the line with what we are doing. And I think Senator 

Lamborn pretty well asked that question. 

I have sort of a general question, though of Admiral Ellis, if I 

could? When you were at strategic force, when you were the commander at that time, it was a time of great change. I mean, there 

were things happening very quickly. There was operational change 

going on and you were—oversaw that and admirably so. 

Looking at today 10 years, 12 years later, where it’s different 

challenges, different threats, but how would you compare the two? 

Over the last 12 years’ times—we need the change we are talking 

about here, but what are those differences that make this so critical at this time? 

Admiral ELLIS. Well, as we have discussed all along, Mr. Ashford, and you know this very well, what has unfolded over the last 

decade and a half is truly remarkable in the national security environment and you gentlemen and ladies live that every day and so 

you know what I am about to say. 
28 

You know, the levels of threat that we have had to deal with, 

and not whipsawing but moving from the focus on classic Cold 

War-level adversarial relationships to the counterterrorism fight. It 

has changed the complexion and the context of the conversation in 

this Nation. 

I was telling John before we convened, my son, believe it or not, 

is in the U.S. Army, graduated from West Point of all things, and 

he has done 19 deployments to Afghanistan in his career. And so 

my point here is this Nation has been fundamentally redirected 

and now the pendulum seems to be coming back. 

We are seeing once again, you know, recidivist Russia and a 

China that is still trying to decide what it wants to be in terms of 

relationships as a great power. 

And so there have been, in fairness, a lot of changes that have 

unfolded in the national security environment since I was privileged to wear the cloths of the Nation in Omaha up until 2004. 

And that doesn’t mean that I have got all the answers, that anyone does, but well, I think we need to be reminded by all of this 

that you can’t design a perfect solution. That we need to design 

forces and capabilities in the context of this hearing that can serve 

all dimensions of national security. 

And as I said in my prepared remarks, national security space 

is now redefined, as the ranking member indicated, to include the 

commercial elements and the economic. I mean, your cellphones 

won’t work without out that timing signal. 

It is not just your, the GPS on your golf cart. It is fundamental 

banking and other services. And so this is a new environment. We 

could have seen it coming. I believe that some people did see it 

coming looking at the reports of a decade and a half ago of commissions and panels. 

But we are where we are, and the question is what do we do 

going forward and what kind of changes will be most effective and 

efficient in accomplishing what this Nation needs? 

Mr. ASHFORD. Thank you, and it seems to me that that—and the 

changes are happening so much quicker now that designing the 

system to address it, it has to be flexible enough to, to Dr. Hamre’s 

point, where we find private-public partnerships if, for lack of a 

better term, to get to that solution. So I don’t know, Doctor, would 

you like to comment on that? Maybe it is not necessary, but if 

you—— 

Dr. HAMRE. Yes, sir. The private sector cannot afford to take 5 

years or 8 years to develop a satellite. I mean, it—especially if you 

don’t need to. So but we have, you know, in the Department, I 

mean, first of all, labor is a free good. Well, no wonder we have 700 

people maintaining satellites. You don’t pay for them. 

But the private sector has to pay for every one of them and they 

cost money and so they have as few as they can. So they design 

reliability into the satellite. 

I mean, we think about it in a different way in the private sector 

than—we have to start thinking differently. Candle makers have to 

start thinking in a different way. 

Mr. ASHFORD. Thank you. 

I yield back. Thanks, Mr. Chair. 

Mr. ROGERS. Thank the gentleman. 
29 

The Chair now recognizes the gentleman from Oklahoma, Mr. 

Bridenstine, for 5 minutes. 

Mr. BRIDENSTINE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I just wanted to 

quickly address I think a very intelligent question from Ranking 

Member Cooper. Dr. Hamre, I think you mentioned it as well, 

which is the cyber piece. 

When you think about what satellites do, fundamentally they collect data. In some cases they create their own data. They transmit 

data. In some cases they process their own data onboard. So they 

are in essence just a component of the global network. 

And so really you cannot separate space from cyberspace. They 

are one and the same and have to be thought about in that way. 

So I just wanted to make sure that I got that out there. 

As I thought more about one of your suggestions, Dr. Hamre, regarding creating a U.S. Space Command, when you think about 

what the Department of Defense does in space it is my assessment, 

you know, we focus a lot on space support, which is launch and the 

satellite control network, those kind of activities. 

We do space enhancements where we provide data to the warfighter, whether it is communications or remote sensing, GPS signals. Those are all enhancements to the warfighter and/or for the 

Air Force for air dominance. 

And then when you take it a step further, we are just now getting to the point where we as a country do space defense or space 

control, which I know in this town sometimes gets a reaction from 

people. 

But ultimately, if we are going to be successful in fighting and 

winning in space we have to be able to use space and to deny our 

enemies from using space, which means we have to have some level 

of space control, which we as a nation have not even been thinking 

about until just recently. 

So standing up, in my opinion, a U.S. Space Command when we 

are only now starting to think about space control, let alone delivering effects from space—when I am talking about effects I am 

talking about kinetic effects from space. Space is not at this point 

a deliverer of power projection. 

That being the case, I think it might be premature to suggest 

that we need a U.S. Space Command kind of organization. It goes 

right back to what Admiral Ellis said. The challenge we have is in 

acquisition. And so I think it is important that when we think 

about that we focus on the defense space agency. 

I think Dr. Hamre, you suggested it, and Admiral Ellis. Going 

back to the commercial, I had a NASA, former NASA Administrator Griffin in my office not too long ago, and he made a, I think, 

a very important point, which is right along the lines of what you 

are talking about, Dr. Hamre, which is he said the Department of 

the Navy is entirely dependent on fuel for ships, for airplanes. We 

need fuel. 

But the Department of the Navy does not operate any drilling 

rigs. We don’t do any refining of fuel. We actually buy fuel from 

the commercial sector. 

When it comes to space and when it comes to communications, 

when it comes to remote sensing, we are moving in a direction 

where it is a commodity provided by the private sector. 
30 

So even the elements where we as a nation use space for fighting 

wars, space support, space enhancements, even those particular 

items are now being commercialized in ways that we haven’t seen 

before, which means the Department of Defense needs to start focusing where it only can focus, which, of course, is in space control 

and eventually space warfare. 

With that, Mr. Chairman, I will yield back. 

Mr. ROGERS. I thank the gentleman. 

I thank all the witnesses. We have been called for votes otherwise there would be a third round. But we have got 6 minutes to 

get over to the Capitol. I can’t overstate how much I appreciate you 

and your thoughtfulness, your contributions to this dialogue. And 

I can’t oveemphasize this is the beginning of the discussion that 

this committee is going to be having, not the end. And I thank you. 

And with that we are adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 4:29 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.] 
A P P E N D I X 

SEPTEMBER 27, 2016 

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DOCUMENTS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD 

SEPTEMBER 27, 2016 

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QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MEMBERS POST HEARING 

SEPTEMBER 27, 2016 

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QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MR. ROGERS 

Mr. ROGERS. The NRO is a defense agency; however it is not statutorily defined 

as a combat support agency (CSA). In contrast, the Defense Intelligence Agency, National Security Agency, and National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency are all combat 

support agencies. As we prepare for a war to extend into space, is it time we think 

of the NRO as a combat support agency? 

Dr. HAMRE. I am not an expert here, but I suspect that the NRO status was set 

year back when it was jointly supervised by the Defense Department and the Director of Central Intelligence, the predecessor to the Director for National Intelligence. 

I would need to check with expert friends, but I know that the NRO functions as 

a combat support agency. The NRO also has important non-defense intelligence missions, and I don’t know if the designation would complicate any of that. From a defense standpoint, it would be a good thing to have them also included as a combat 

support agency. But I would need to defer to others to know if that would prove 

to be a problem for their other national missions. 

Mr. ROGERS. GAO stated that there was a 10-year gap between the delivery of 

GPS satellites and user equipment. There have been similar issues with other space 

programs, such as Space-Based Infrared Systems (SBIRS) and its ground station, 

the Advanced Extremely High Frequency (AEHF) Satellite and its ground terminals. Why do these acquisition problems, regarding the poor synchronization of delivery of satellite, ground, and user terminals, keep reoccurring? 

Dr. HAMRE. We have tended to split the various components of a space program 

into different program offices under different services. Because the GPS signal 

needs to be incorporated into hundreds of combat systems and platforms, it wasn’t 

possible to give the task of ground based user equipment to the GPS program office. 

This tends to reflect a general problem we have in the Department for systems that 

have broad application that cross service lines. The only way to solve that is for the 

Office of the Secretary of Defense to do a better job insisting there is integration 

and coordination for such complex systems with such broad applicability within the 

Department. 

Mr. ROGERS. Are you seeing innovation and long-term research and development 

planning in national security space programs? Why or why not? 

Dr. HAMRE. We still have a very dynamic laboratory environment, in both the private sector and in government laboratories. What is lacking is the capacity to move 

innovative new ideas from laboratories into actual procurement programs. My personal view is that this difficulty in introducing innovative new ideas is the byproduct of the Packard Commission recommendations, which made the mechanics of acquisition more important than technology innovation. The Director for Defense Research and Engineering used to be the third most powerful position in the Department of Defense, and always drew exceptionally talented individuals with broad experience. We diminished this position with the Packard Commission implementation 

and made the mechanics of acquisition more important. We are now suffering from 

this unintended development. The 2017 NDAA makes a good step at fixing this, but 

there is much more that needs to be done. 

Mr. ROGERS. What are your views on the Joint Interagency Combined Operations 

Center (JICSpOC)? What should the future of it be, and how should it compare with 

the Joint Space Operations Center (JSpOC)? Should we have two operations centers 

serving different functions? 

Dr. HAMRE. I think it is good to have an interagency joint operations center, and 

it should be integrated with the Joint Space Operations Center. Often other departments or bureaus of the government fear being brought into DOD operations centers 

because they are afraid of the mass and momentum you see in DOD organizations. 

They feel they will be coopted by being a part of a DOD operations center. It may 

be that the JICSpOC is a compromise so that we could get interagency participation. The most important thing is to make sure they are working seamlessly together. 

Mr. ROGERS. What arrangements should be in place between the DOD and the 

IC and various commercial companies regarding the U.S. Government’s ability to 

task and use commercial satellites in crisis or wartime? 
74 

Dr. HAMRE. I would direct the Committee’s attention to something called the Civil 

Reserve Air Fleet, or CRAF. CRAF has been in place for 40 years. In essence, U.S. 

commercial airline companies join the CRAF program. If an emergency comes up, 

we can call on those aircraft in the CRAF to change their schedules and start flying 

missions for the Department of Defense. We pay them for this, of course, but more 

importantly, the U.S. Government indemnifies the aircraft when they are on government missions. We have a similar arrangement for cellular communications during 

a national emergency. This is the formula for emergency mobilization of commercial 

space assets. More importantly, I think we should start placing regular work (communications, some reconnaissance, etc) with commercial satellite companies in 

peacetime. We need to broaden the network we use so that potential adversaries do 

not have a limited set of government satellites to attack. We want to force them 

to attack a broad range of capabilities in a very public way as part of our deterrent 

strategy. 

Mr. ROGERS. The NRO is a defense agency; however it is not statutorily defined 

as a combat support agency (CSA). In contrast, the Defense Intelligence Agency, National Security Agency, and National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency are all combat 

support agencies. As we prepare for a war to extend into space, is it time we think 

of the NRO as a combat support agency? 

Admiral ELLIS. As you know, the NRO is not an intelligence agency. It designs, 

builds, and operates the reconnaissance satellites of the United States government, 

and provides satellite intelligence to several government agencies, particularly signals intelligence (SIGINT) to the NSA, imagery intelligence (IMINT) to the NGA, 

and measurement and signature intelligence (MASINT) to the DIA. 

The intelligence it provides is essential to enabling other agencies to successfully 

meet all of our national security needs, including combat support. While, in that 

sense, the NRO provides indirect combat support, that contribution is already fully 

understood and appreciated. Unless such a designation would significantly enhance 

the NRO’s already high effectiveness, I do not see it as an urgent need. 

Mr. ROGERS. GAO stated that there was a 10-year gap between the delivery of 

GPS satellites and user equipment. There have been similar issues with other space 

programs, such as Space-Based Infrared Systems (SBIRS) and its ground station, 

the Advanced Extremely High Frequency (AEHF) Satellite and its ground terminals. Why do these acquisition problems, regarding the poor synchronization of delivery of satellite, ground, and user terminals, keep reoccurring? 

Admiral ELLIS. While I do not have specific current knowledge of each of the systems described, such delays are often a result of procurement processes that separate the procurement of the ground system from the on-orbit segment, attempt to 

capture efficiencies by using a common ground system for more than one satellite 

constellation, or, in order to reduce program costs, attempt to use existing ground 

systems for new satellites, only to find that they later have to replace aging ground 

segments in order to fully employ the new systems. 

All of the above are well-recognized challenges for which there are existing programmatic management, resourcing and leadership solutions. 

Mr. ROGERS. Are you seeing innovation and long-term research and development 

planning in national security space programs? Why or why not? 

Admiral ELLIS. I am seeing such efforts in both the government and the private 

sector but I am concerned that the level of investment is insufficient to recapture 

lost ground as our overall investment in critical national security research and development has declined in recent years. 

As I noted in my prepared remarks, we have been surprised by the rate of technological change in national security space, both in terms of our increased reliance on 

it and, even more critically, by the dramatic increase in the ability of potential adversaries to threaten it. 

Finally, while R&D investment is essential, so is the ability to know where the 

need is largest and the potential positive impact the greatest. We need more effective tools for system-wide analysis to ensure we are focusing on what is most important. 

Mr. ROGERS. What are your views on the Joint Interagency Combined Operations 

Center (JICSpOC)? What should the future of it be, and how should it compare with 

the Joint Space Operations Center (JSpOC)? Should we have two operations centers 

serving different functions? 

Admiral ELLIS. The answer, as with many things, is ‘‘it depends.’’ The stated purpose of the newly-created JICSPOC is for the military, Intelligence Community (IC), 

and commercial partners to craft concepts of operation and clarify who does what 

and how in the event of attacks on U.S. satellites. In my view, that describes a place 

where a much-needed series of simulations and exercises can take place to enhance 

understanding of the national security space interrelationships, define overlapping 
75 

capabilities and, most importantly, identify gaps in the structure, authority, and accountability. I fully support such immediate interagency and commercial outreach 

efforts; they are long overdue. 

On the other hand, I believe strongly in unity of command, authority and accountability. As I note often, collaboration is not the same as consensus; someone has to 

be in charge. This is particularly true in the national security space domain where 

challenges can manifest themselves quickly, sometimes at the speed of light. 

I support the experimental character of the JICSPOC but agree that the lessons 

from its tests need to move quickly to a single command center, appropriately 

staffed by all stakeholders, with a clearly defined chain of command. They are not 

lessons learned just because we write them down; we actually have to learn them 

and things need to change as a result. 

Mr. ROGERS. Does the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO), which is a part of 

the DOD, have the same acquisition and decision-making challenges the military 

space program does? Why or why not? 

Admiral ELLIS. The NRO is a much smaller and streamlined organization and, 

while the acquisition and decision-making challenges it faces are the same as the 

military space program, the speed with which the NRO can respond to them is 

much greater, the access to key decision makers is much easier, and the oversight 

regulations and restrictions are far fewer. All of this equates to a more effective procurement process, more technological agility, and clearer lines of responsibility and 

accountability. 

Mr. ROGERS. Has the DOD and DNI been able to maintain oversight of the NRO, 

while still empowering the Director? Why are the NRO acquisitions more streamlined than the military space programs? 

Admiral ELLIS. The organizational relationships among the DOD, the DNI and 

the NRO remain strong and the NRO continues to effectively and efficiently support 

both agencies. There have been some candid discussions about operational control 

of NRO satellites in the context of achieving consistent policies and clear, responsive 

decision-making in time of potential crisis. This has resulted in the creation of the 

JICSPOC to simulate and evaluate potential challenges and solutions. 

As in the answer to the question above, the NRO is physically a much smaller 

and streamlined organization and, while the acquisition and decision-making challenges it faces are the same as the military space program, the speed with which 

the NRO can respond to them is much greater, the access to key decision makers 

is much easier, and the oversight regulations and restrictions are far fewer. All of 

this equates to a more effective procurement process, more technological agility, and 

clearer lines of responsibility and accountability. 

Mr. ROGERS. Your National Academies report talked about the need to clarify 

operational authorities for space. Can you expand on that? What is your view of 

unity of command versus unity of effort? 

Admiral ELLIS. There have recently been some candid discussions about operational control of all national security satellites, including the NRO assets and those 

commercial communications satellites used for national security purposes, in the 

context of achieving consistent policies and clear, responsive decision-making in 

time of potential crisis. This is understandably, a complex technology, policy, and 

authority issue. In fairness, the discussion has arisen as a result of our appropriately re-defining the scope of ‘‘national security space’’ to include all of the spaceborne resources we employ and those on which we rely as a nation and with our 

global partners. It should not and must not be viewed as a ‘‘power grab’’ but rather 

as an acknowledgement of newly appreciated realities of the nature, capabilities, 

and speed of potential threats. 

This has resulted in the creation of the JICSPOC to simulate and evaluate potential challenges and solutions and to craft concepts of operation and clarify who does 

what and how in the event of attacks on U.S. satellites. In my view, that describes 

a place where a much-needed series of simulations and exercises can take place to 

enhance understanding of the national security space interrelationships, define 

overlapping capabilities and, most importantly, identify gaps in the structure, authority, and accountability. I fully support such immediate interagency efforts; they 

are long overdue. 

I support the experimental character of the JICSPOC but agree that the lessons 

from its tests need to move quickly to a single command center, appropriately 

staffed by all stakeholders, with a clearly defined chain of command. They are not 

lessons learned just because we write them down; we actually have to learn them 

and things need to change as a result. 

On the other hand, I believe strongly in unity of command, authority and accountability. As I note often, collaboration is not the same as consensus; someone has to 
76 

be in charge. This is particularly true in the national security space domain where 

challenges can manifest themselves quickly, sometimes at the speed of light. 

Mr. ROGERS. You took control of U.S. Strategic Command when U.S. Space Command was merged with it. Can you give us your perspectives of that decision, why 

it happened, and what has changed since then? 

Admiral ELLIS. The combining of United States Strategic Command and United 

States Space Command took place in the context of redefining the term ‘‘strategic’’ 

in support of national security. Rather than ‘‘strategic’’ referring, as it had for decades, to nuclear and nuclear-related systems, the meaning was more broadly and 

classically expanded to mean anything having global, national, and high-level influence or impact. Clearly, all space systems were a critical part of those capabilities 

and essential enablers to each leg of the newly-defined ‘‘New Triad.’’ To meet the 

nation’s defense goals in the 21st century, the first leg of the New Triad, the offensive strike leg, went beyond the Cold War triad of intercontinental ballistic missiles 

(ICBMs), submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs), and long-range nucleararmed bombers. ICBMs, SLBMs, bombers and nuclear weapons would, of course, 

continue to play a vital role. However, they would be just part of the first leg of 

the New Triad, integrated with new non-nuclear strategic capabilities that strengthened the credibility of our offensive deterrence. The second leg of the New Triad required development and deployment of both active and passive defenses—a recognition that offensive capabilities alone may not deter aggression in the new security 

environment of the 21st century. Active and passive defenses will not be perfect. 

However, by denying or reducing the effectiveness of limited attacks, defenses can 

discourage attacks, provide new capabilities for managing crises, and provide insurance against the failure of traditional deterrence. The new domain of cyberspace 

was also included in the new STRATCOM responsibilities. The third leg of the New 

Triad was a responsive defense infrastructure. Since the end of the Cold War, the 

U.S. defense infrastructure has contracted and our nuclear infrastructure has atrophied. New approaches to development and procurement of new capabilities were 

intended to ensure that it would not take 20 years or more to field new generations 

of weapon systems.. The effectiveness of this New Triad depended upon command 

and control, intelligence, and adaptive planning. ‘‘Exquisite’’ intelligence on the intentions and capabilities of adversaries can permit timely adjustments to the force 

and improve the precision with which it can strike and defend. The ability to plan 

the employment of the strike and defense forces flexibly and rapidly will provide the 

U.S. with a significant advantage in managing crises, deterring attack and conducting military operations. Much of this capability is resident in or enhanced by 

our space systems. In my view, the consolidation was entirely appropriate and was 

implemented with the full collaboration and cooperation of U.S. Space Command. 

It reflected the reality that the space systems are not a stand-alone capability but 

have significant value if shaped by, supportive of, and integrated with the 

warfighting combatant commands through the efforts of U.S. Strategic Command. 

The many and varied national security challenges since the combination have reinforced the value of the ‘‘strategic’’ systems resident in a single command with clear 

authority and accountability. 

Mr. ROGERS. What arrangements should be in place between the DOD and the 

IC and various commercial companies regarding the U.S. Government’s ability to 

task and use commercial satellites in crisis or wartime? 

Admiral ELLIS. The stated purpose of the newly-created JICSPOC is for the military, Intelligence Community (IC), and commercial partners to craft concepts of operation and clarify who does what and how in the event of attacks on U.S. satellites. 

In my view, that describes a place where a much-needed series of simulations and 

exercises can take place to enhance understanding of the national security space 

interrelationships, define overlapping capabilities and, most importantly, identify 

gaps in the structure, authority, and accountability. I fully support such immediate 

interagency and commercial outreach efforts; they are long overdue. 

On the other hand, I believe strongly in unity of command, authority and accountability. As I note often, collaboration is not the same as consensus; someone has to 

be in charge. This is particularly true in the national security space domain where 

challenges can manifest themselves quickly, sometimes at the speed of light. 

I support the experimental character of the JICSPOC but agree that the lessons 

from its tests need to move quickly to a single command center, appropriately 

staffed by all stakeholders, with a clearly defined chain of command. They are not 

lessons learned just because we write them down; we actually have to learn them 

and things need to change as a result. 

Mr. ROGERS. The NRO is a defense agency; however it is not statutorily defined 

as a combat support agency (CSA). In contrast, the Defense Intelligence Agency, National Security Agency, and National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency are all combat 
77 

support agencies. As we prepare for a war to extend into space, is it time we think 

of the NRO as a combat support agency? 

Mr. FAGA. I don’ think there is a need or value to designate NRO as a Combat 

Support Agency. Unlike DIA, NSA, NGA, NRO is a combined agency of the DOD 

and DNI. It receives its tasking direction from the functional managers who are acting on behalf of the DNI in that capacity. Further, NRO is something like a Military 

Service in that it develops, acquires and operates reconnaissance satellites but it 

makes no decisions about how those assets will be deployed. Accordingly, it is not 

in a position to take direct military tasking, but responds to tasking, including military tasking, through already established mechanisms which operate through the 

DNI. 

Mr. ROGERS. GAO stated that there was a 10-year gap between the delivery of 

GPS satellites and user equipment. There have been similar issues with other space 

programs, such as Space-Based Infrared Systems (SBIRS) and its ground station, 

the Advanced Extremely High Frequency (AEHF) Satellite and its ground terminals. Why do these acquisition problems, regarding the poor synchronization of delivery of satellite, ground, and user terminals, keep reoccurring? 

Mr. FAGA. Commonly, space systems and their ground or user equipment have 

been treated as separate activities, with separate budgeting and separate development organizations. For example, the Air Force develops the space segment at SMC/ 

Los Angeles and the ground segment or user equipment at Electronic Systems Command/Boston. SMC is a part of AF Space Command and ESC now renamed as a 

part of the AF Life Cycle Management Center, is a part of Materiel Command. l 

Budgeting for the two is separate and largely independent. It is easy for space and 

ground to get badly out of sync and often did. 

Mr. ROGERS. Are you seeing innovation and long-term research and development 

planning in national security space programs? Why or why not? 

Mr. FAGA. Yes, and especially so since the concern for resiliency has arisen in the 

last couple of years. This concern has forced consideration of changes in architectures and in individual satellites as well as serious consideration of the best role 

for commercial offerings. 

That said, during interviews held by the National Research Council team that 

produced NRC’s report of Space Defense and Protection, space system contractors 

told us that NRO was more interested in innovations and AF more likely to buy 

more of the same. One consequence of that, the contractors reported, is that it is 

hard to develop good staff skills and experience if innovation isn’t introduced regularly, to say nothing of the performance advantages typically obtained. 

Mr. ROGERS. What are your views on the Joint Interagency Combined Operations 

Center (JICSpOC)? What should the future of it be, and how should it compare with 

the Joint Space Operations Center (JSpOC)? Should we have two operations centers 

serving different functions? 

Mr. FAGA. I am not familiar in any detail with the JICSpOC but I believe the 

idea is that initially it will serve as a center to develop the systems and techniques 

to perform Space Situational Awareness at the pace necessary in a contested environment. Lt. Gen. Raymond, while service as Commander of 14th AF, explained 

that the JSpOC performs its tasks over periods of hours to days while future operations will have to do so in minutes, even seconds. The AF is learning how to do 

that at JICSpOC. Eventually, I believe that JICSpOC will take over the mission 

operationally and there will be one, vastly more capable center. It will take several 

years to achieve this. 

Mr. ROGERS. Does the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO), which is a part of 

the DOD, have the same acquisition and decision-making challenges the military 

space program does? Why or why not? 

Mr. FAGA. The NRO isn’t simply ‘‘a part of the DOD’’ but is a joint activity of 

the DNI and the DOD. This is an important distinction because the NRO budget 

is largely controlled by the DNI as is operational tasking. DOD elements like NGA 

and NSA especially, play large roles in both but they do so in their capacity of support to the DNI. All of this means that the NRO carries out a relatively narrow mission, albeit important and expensive, for a limited user group with which it can 

interact intimately. Thus getting to decision is generally far easier than within 

DOD. 

An additional factor affecting NRO is that it must follow the Federal Acquisition 

Regulations but not all of the Defense supplements which are voluminous. This long 

standing practice reflects the fact that the experience level of contracting personnel 

in NRO tends to be higher than in DOD and the greater flexibility granted by the 

FAR is appropriate when in the hands of a highly experienced contracts officer. 
78 

Mr. ROGERS. Has the DOD and DNI been able to maintain oversight of the NRO, 

while still empowering the Director? Why are the NRO acquisitions more streamlined than the military space programs? 

Mr. FAGA. Yes. While DOD and DNI oversight is far more extensive than in earlier decades, the Director remains empowered. This is largely because she can interact at very senior levels with the DOD and ODNI and can make her case directly 

and receive direction and decisions quickly. Excessive analysis and the time taken 

to perform it and slow decision processes are the biggest problems for a program 

manager at any level trying to maintain cost, schedule and performance. 

Mr. ROGERS. Your National Academies report talked about the need to clarify 

operational authorities for space. Can you expand on that? What is your view of 

unity of command versus unity of effort? 

Mr. FAGA. Our concern was the delegation of authority to take action which is 

granted by the President to operational commanders. In the case of space, these delegations and rules of engagement are not well developed largely because such actions haven’t been seriously contemplated until recently. While I think the most 

likely attacks would be cyber, jamming or laser, it is relevant to note that a direct 

ascent attack on a low orbit satellite requires only 13 minutes. A decision process 

that takes longer than that won’t get the job done. 

A related ongoing debate is whether the Commander of Stratcom should be empowered to direct the response of NRO satellites to attack or threat of it. I believe 

that even in time of conflict, that the DNI mechanisms for tasking and control of 

NRO assets should remain in place, albeit in tight coordination with the Stratcom 

Commander including appropriate participation in the JICSPOC. I lived a version 

of this problem while serving as DNRO during the First Gulf War. Control of certain assets was transferred from the multi-agency group that performed it for the 

DCI to DIA which wasn’t trained in carrying it out. The result was a large drop 

in performance. Fortunately, there was time before combat operations began for DIA 

to get up to speed and perform well. Here, where timelines may be only minutes, 

changes from normal operating methods is likely to turn out badly. 

Mr. ROGERS. Generally speaking, what authorities does the Director of the NRO 

have in terms of overall direction, budgeting, architecture development, operational 

direction, research and development, and acquisition approval? Is there any counterpart, in the military space program, that has the same authorities as the Director 

of the NRO? Would the military benefit from having someone with similar authorities? 

Mr. FAGA. The DNRO has a substantial role in most of these areas but never complete. I’ll answer individually to explain: 

– The DNRO works for the SecDef and the DNI and exercises overall direction 

subject to their direction or approval. As a practical matter, direction from the 

SecDef and DNI is high level and the DNRO has substantial discretion to carry 

out that guidance within the NRO as she deems appropriate. 

– The DNRO builds an NRO budget subject to annual guidance from the DNI and 

with a final budget approved by the DNI with concurrence from the DOD. The 

key here is that the number of people involved is relatively small compared to 

programs in DOD and the DNRO and her staff can interact with all of them. 

– The DNRO is largely responsible for developing and maintaining a national reconnaissance architecture subject to the concurrence of the DNI and the DOD. 

She has considerable discretion here but not total control. 

– The DNRO has little authority for operational control. The NRO launches and 

provides the ground station operating crew, maintains health of the satellite, 

etc. but all tasking comes through DNI mechanisms. Other than for engineering 

test, the DNRO issues no direction on the operational use of the NRO satellites. 

– The Director has great discretion in the application of R&D funds. Typical of 

most companies, generally a % of the program is devoted to R&D with almost 

total discretion in how the funds are applied. 

– Acquisition approval comes from the DNI with DOD concurrence (or the inverse 

for MIP funded activities). Once granted, the Director has substantial discretion 

in management of the program to its completion. 

The person closest in authorities to the DNRO is the Commander, AF Space Command who has acquisition and also has operational authorities which the DNRO 

does not. He has a budgeting role but not one as strong as the DNRO. The Secretary 

of the Air Force has budgeting authority for about 90% of military space so these 

two executives have very significant roles. 

Regarding establishing a ‘‘DNRO-like’’ person in DOD, I would note that, as described above, the DNRO has a powerful position but draws authorities and approvals from a range of seniors. The benefit she has is the ability to interact with relatively few people at senior levels and considerable discretion inside the NRO which 
79 

is not typical in DOD. This speaks to my point in oral testimony about empowering 

the Program Manager where, in this case, the Program Manager is the DNRO. I 

think that is more important than a single person inserted in DOD somewhere to 

replicate the DNRO. 

Mr. ROGERS. When you were the Director of the NRO, you also served as an Assistant Secretary of the Air Force. What are your thoughts on the importance of that 

the connection with the military and intelligence programs? What is the role of 

Principal DOD Space Advisor with regard to the NRO? 

Mr. FAGA. It was helpful as it gave me a role within the AF that was useful, especially as the NRO hadn’t been declassified and wasn’t acknowledged. Perhaps more 

important was that I was a Presidential appointee, confirmed by the Senate. That 

increased standing in the Pentagon substantially. That said, I played a role in military space and NRO but didn’t serve as a coordinator between them to any great 

extent. 

I think the current arrangement, with the DNRO serving only in that capacity 

is the better arrangement as it is certainly a full time job. 

I don’t know the role of the PDSA in any detail, but believe that the role with 

regard to NRO is modest, one of achieving coordination and certainly cooperation 

but not direction. 

Mr. ROGERS. What arrangements should be in place between the DOD and the 

IC and various commercial companies regarding the U.S. Government’s ability to 

task and use commercial satellites in crisis or wartime? 

Mr. FAGA. The DOD and IC do use commercial space companies extensively in 

peace, crisis and war. As long ago as the first Gulf War, at least half of satellite 

communications into theatre was provided by commercial providers. In more recent 

times, commercial imagery has also been used extensively in crisis and wartime situations. 

I think that one thrust of your question is what can be expected of commercial 

providers in crisis and war. This is largely a matter of the contractual arrangement 

between the government and the provider. When I joined several company boards 

after service in government and a nonprofit, I quickly learned that risk is always 

monetized. So, if commercial service in conflict brings extra risk, it can be monetized 

through contract payments, provision of extra services and capabilities in the satellites, agreement by the government to provide certain protections, insurance and 

other means. The key is to anticipate and work out the expectations and contractual 

mechanisms in advance. 

QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MR. COOPER 

Mr. COOPER. This committee has focused on acquisition reform over the past two 

national defense authorization bills. Generally, how is acquisition within the space 

enterprise unique from the rest of DOD acquisition? More specifically, what areas 

of space acquisition require the most attention and are likely to require reforms specific to them? 

Dr. HAMRE. Acquisition of space assets is not inherently different. But there are 

unique qualities to space that do impact acquisition. These are exceptionally expensive assets and we buy them in very limited numbers. This is more analogous to 

buying aircraft carriers than trucks. The long lead time and high expense requires 

a different oversight structure. But space acquisition is not inherently different from 

normal government acquisition. The broader question is could we use more commercial modalities to get space capabilities. Currently we focus on government-only 

spacecraft and these become exceptionally expensive and have very long development cycles. The commercial sector has much shorter cycles, which means cheaper 

satellites that are replaced more often as advanced technology becomes available. 

I believe we need to look at very different models for buying space-based capabilities. 

Mr. COOPER. You noted that existing and emerging commercial capabilities represent opportunities for improving capacity and resilience, and that commercial 

space operations are particularly efficient. Could you elaborate on how using commercial capabilities, for example for imagery or space situational awareness, will 

help improve national security capability and capacity? And what lessons on efficiency can be learned and applied to enhance national security space operations? 

Dr. HAMRE. There are a new generation of commercial satellite companies that 

are producing lower fidelity systems in great number. These are sometimes called 

cube-sats or micro-sats. The resolution will always be inferior because these are 

very small satellites (5 inch square and 20 inches long, for example) compared to 

current reconnaissance satellites that are enormous. So the images from these 
80 

lower-fidelity satellites will not be useful for important intelligence missions. But 

they could be perfectly adequate for many military applications. The advantage of 

these small satellite constellations is that they are constantly improving the technology on the satellite, and can introduce these improvements every 6 months. 

Giant reconnaissance satellites freeze technology (remarkable technology, to be sure) 

for a 15 year period. Micro-sats are no substitute for our sophisticated satellites, but 

they are a very important potential complement, and could take on a much larger 

range of missions, especially for the Defense Department. 

Mr. COOPER. This committee has focused on acquisition reform over the past two 

national defense authorization bills. Generally, how is acquisition within the space 

enterprise unique from the rest of DOD acquisition? More specifically, what areas 

of space acquisition require the most attention and are likely to require reforms specific to them? 

Admiral ELLIS. There are many similarities between procurement of space systems and the acquisition of other DOD capabilities. There are also reasons why 

some of the policies, regulations and oversight are applicable to both. 

There are some differences that should be considered, however. The first is the 

capability focus of our space systems. Past policies have focused on designing and 

building ‘‘exquisite’’ space systems where every ounce of capability and reliability 

has been designed in and little attention has been paid to resilience or robustness. 

This must change. 

A second area is the long lifetime for which our on-orbit systems are designed. 

This has led to a post-launch technological status quo. Perhaps consideration of 

lower cost and shorter lifetimes is appropriate to allow technological refreshment at 

a faster rate. A second lifetime consideration could explore the possibility of modular 

on-orbit upgrades and refueling to provide the best of both worlds. 

A third area for consideration is consistency of purpose and the sharing of best 

acquisition practices across the DOD, IC and commercial stove-pipes. There is an 

opportunity, without giving all space acquisition authority to a single entity, to more 

effectively share among all those contributing so much to national security space. 

Much good work is being done but it is not widely shared and its broader use has 

not been widely encouraged. 

Mr. COOPER. This committee has focused on acquisition reform over the past two 

national defense authorization bills. Generally, how is acquisition within the space 

enterprise unique from the rest of DOD acquisition? More specifically, what areas 

of space acquisition require the most attention and are likely to require reforms specific to them? 

Mr. FAGA. There are many similarities but the space enterprise tends to change 

at a higher pace. Planes, ships and tanks tend to have service lives of 20–40 years 

and more. While individual satellites may typically last 10–15 years, new requirements and technology tend to drive revised designs every few years. To do this well, 

all of the processes involved need to move faster than they do. Taking several years 

just to get to a decision of what to buy is way too long. 

Space systems are largely information systems and much closer to terrestrial IT 

than to planes, ships and tanks. We need to recognize that most systems won’t be 

built in large numbers or for long periods of time so don’t need all of the ‘‘ilities’’ 

treatments that major defense systems receive. Like terrestrial IT, we need to think 

of services more than systems and provided by commercial providers under service 

contracts or with government-purchased satellites as appropriate. In either case, we 

need to think about the service we are obtaining rather than the platform and contract model we are using. 

QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MR. LAMBORN 

Mr. LAMBORN. Admiral Ellis’ testimony was particularly strong in making the 

point that strategy must come first. What should our strategic vision for national 

security space be, and how can we ensure our strategy will function across the spectrum of conflict? 

Dr. HAMRE. Our strategic vision for space must be integrated with our broad strategic vision for national security. Space needs to be able to make its contribution 

to our military success on earth. We must take steps to insure that we can reliably 

function through the spectrum of conflict conditions to support terrestrial military 

operations. Space will continue to be a critical capability, but we need reliability and 

resilience. Adversaries are now threatening our assured use of space, so we need 

to adapt our plans to insure that we can accomplish all our missions successfully. 

In some instances, this will place less dependence on space. It also means we need 

to change the way we approach space from a public standpoint. We are now able 
81 

to draw on a much richer range of commercial assets, to include foreign commercial 

assets, for critical space functions. Drawing on a much wider range of assets will 

enhance deterrence and increase dissuasion of potential hostile actions. 

Mr. LAMBORN. Please describe the importance of budget authority in DOD, and 

compare the budget authority that the Commander of Air Force Space Command 

has, in comparison to the Director of the NRO. 

Dr. HAMRE. I need to make sure I properly understand this question. The Commander of the Air Force Space Command has budget authority for some things, 

such as operating his ground-based installations. But I assume that you are talking 

about the ability to buy satellites. I think there are three authorities that need to 

be balanced—the authority to establish requirements, the authority to buy things, 

and the authority to operate things. The NRO has the authority to buy things and 

operate things. The USAF Space Command largely has authority to set requirements and to operate things, but not to buy things. There is no easy answer on how 

to balance these three authorities. Organizations that establish requirements but 

don’t have accountability for buying or operating things tends to lead to gold-plating 

of requirements and systems, for example. I would need to map out all the various 

authorities in order to properly answer your question. 

Mr. LAMBORN. A review of the budget documents shows that the unclassified 

space RDT&E budgets are at a 30-year low. Why do you think that is? 

Dr. HAMRE. I would need to study this carefully, and I have not. So my initial 

response is that we no longer need to spend so much money on unclassified space 

RDT&E because we now have such a robust private sector. 40 years ago, the Federal Government needed to invest in this, where today it can buy it from the private 

sector. And DOD continues to make significant investments in classified space 

RDT&E. But I do suspect that overall R&D spending on space by the federal government is down compared to years past. The more important question is how can 

we tap into the vitality I see in the private sector on space? That is the challenge 

of today. 

Mr. LAMBORN. What should the future mission of the JICSpOC be? How does that 

compare to the current and future mission of the JSPOC? 

Dr. HAMRE. Again, I don’t know this to be the case, but I suspect that the 

JICSpOC is separate from JSPOC because non-defense agencies are wary of being 

sucked into a DOD-dominated environment. It is easier to get coordination if they 

are given a somewhat autonomous space separate from DOD. But I would need to 

study this problem more in order to give you a better answer. 

Mr. LAMBORN. Admiral Ellis’ testimony was particularly strong in making the 

point that strategy must come first. What should our strategic vision for national 

security space be, and how can we ensure our strategy will function across the spectrum of conflict? 

Admiral ELLIS. As noted in the National Academy report provided to the Subcommittee, given the country’s broad dependence on space for both civil and military 

activities, U.S. interests would appear to be served by a strategy focused on creating 

an environment in which there exist no means to unilaterally attack U.S. space systems without attribution and effective counters, or a future where space systems 

offer sufficient resiliency that such unilateral attacks are not effective in negating 

a space capability. However, given the dependence of potential adversaries on space 

systems in time of conflict, the interests of the United States may also be served 

by having the means to disable adversary space systems in time of crisis or conflict. 

Moreover, a number of means to attack space systems have been demonstrated or 

are postulated, and failure to protect against the use of such systems would put the 

United States at a significant disadvantage. While the United States may decide 

what space future it prefers, the United States is not the sole determiner of that 

future. U.S. actions will be constrained by what our potential adversaries—and even 

our friends—decide to do. Furthermore, frenetic innovation in the commercial space 

sector has the potential to be the main driver of change in the space domain. Put 

somewhat differently, the United States faces a short-term operational problem that 

needs to be addressed with urgency and it also faces a more complex, long-term 

strategic problem. In the short term, what should the United States do to counter 

the emerging, multi-faceted threat to U.S. national security space assets? Potential 

measures include hardening systems against known and predicted means of attack; 

establishing capabilities to mitigate the effects of successful attacks on U.S. space 

systems; expanding systems to detect attacks in progress, including confidently distinguishing attacks from other sources of failures; and reacting to them, implementing political-military means designed to deter attacks, and developing and deploying retaliatory systems and other means to hold adversaries’ assets at risk. This 

is not just a matter of developing hardware; organizations, policies, doctrine, and 

operational concepts need to be modified or created in parallel. Policy issues include 
82 

declaratory policies with regard to attacks on the national security space architecture, including commercial space systems that provide national security functions, 

as well as appropriate responses to attacks on significant commercial systems. Addressing this problem requires a clear understanding of the threat and the diverging 

time lines associated both with threat evolution and timely deployment of solutions. 

Mr. LAMBORN. Your recent National Academies report talked about the need to 

clarify operational authorities for space. Can you please expand on that? What is 

your view of unity of command versus unity of effort? Who—if anyone—is responsible for disseminating information regarding warning and/or insight into adversarial operations across the defense and intelligence communities? 

Admiral ELLIS. There have recently been some candid discussions about operational control of all national security satellites, including the NRO assets and those 

commercial communications satellites used for national security purposes, in the 

context of achieving consistent policies and clear, responsive decision-making in 

time of potential crisis. This is understandably, a complex technology, policy, and 

authority issue. In fairness, the discussion has arisen as a result of our appropriately re-defining the scope of ‘‘national security space’’ to include all of the spaceborne resources we employ and those on which we rely as a nation and with our 

global partners. It should not and must not be viewed as a ‘‘power grab’’ but rather 

as an acknowledgement of newly appreciated realities of the nature, capabilities, 

and speed of potential threats. 

This has resulted in the creation of the JICSPOC to simulate and evaluate potential challenges and solutions and to craft concepts of operation and clarify who does 

what and how in the event of attacks on U.S. satellites. In my view, that describes 

a place where a much-needed series of simulations and exercises can take place to 

enhance understanding of the national security space interrelationships, define 

overlapping capabilities and, most importantly, identify gaps in the structure, authority, and accountability. I fully support such immediate interagency efforts; they 

are long overdue. 

On the other hand, I believe strongly in unity of command, authority and accountability. As I note often, collaboration is not the same as consensus; someone has to 

be in charge. This is particularly true in the national security space domain where 

challenges can manifest themselves quickly, sometimes at the speed of light. The 

precise organizational and authority structure should be left to the agencies involved and not imposed by fiat or decree from external entities. 

I support the experimental character of the JICSPOC but agree that the lessons 

from its tests need to move quickly to a single command center, appropriately 

staffed by all stakeholders, with a clearly defined chain of command. They are not 

lessons learned just because we write them down; we actually have to learn them 

and things need to change as a result. 

Mr. LAMBORN. Please describe the importance of budget authority in DOD, and 

compare the budget authority that the Commander of Air Force Space Command 

has, in comparison to the Director of the NRO. 

Admiral ELLIS. As the Subcommittee is well aware, budget authority is the final 

arbiter of influence in the DOD, just as it is in any organization. From a procurement perspective, Air Force Space Command executes much of its authority through 

the Space and Missile Systems Center (SMC) at Los Angeles AFB, California, which 

designs and acquires all Air Force and most Department of Defense space systems. 

As with all DOD procurement, these processes are subject to procurement regulations and policies that may not be specifically designed to support the unique character of the space enterprise. 

I cannot compare the NRO’s budget authority but sense that it is adequate to 

their needs and that they operate under a much more streamlined and tightly-coupled process. 

Mr. LAMBORN. A review of the budget documents shows that the unclassified 

space RDT&E budgets are at a 30-year low. Why do you think that is? 

Admiral ELLIS. In my opinion, the decline in Federal space R&D spending is simply a result of the budget pressures on discretionary spending forcing choices between development and procurement. 

From a private sector perspective, many worthy research projects are risky, with 

uncertain prospects for success or future utility, and may require a long-term commitment of resources and infrastructure. These qualities of the science enterprise 

lead to underinvestment by private industry, which in general is more focused on 

lower-risk research and product development with the promise of short-term results. 

This is why industry spends 80 cents of every R&D dollar on development, and only 

20 cents on basic and applied research (for civilian science agencies, the ratio is reversed). 
83 

Mr. LAMBORN. What should the future mission of the JICSpOC be? How does that 

compare to the current and future mission of the JSPOC? 

Admiral ELLIS. The stated purpose of the newly-created JICSPOC is for the military, Intelligence Community (IC), and commercial partners to craft concepts of operation and clarify who does what and how in the event of attacks on U.S. satellites. 

In my view, that describes a place where a much-needed series of simulations and 

exercises can take place to enhance understanding of the national security space 

interrelationships, define overlapping capabilities and, most importantly, identify 

gaps in the structure, authority, and accountability. I fully support such immediate 

interagency and commercial outreach efforts; they are long overdue. 

On the other hand, I believe strongly in unity of command, authority and accountability. As I note often, collaboration is not the same as consensus; someone has to 

be in charge. This is particularly true in the national security space domain where 

challenges can manifest themselves quickly, sometimes at the speed of light. 

I support the experimental character of the JICSPOC but agree that the lessons 

from its tests need to move quickly to a single command center, appropriately 

staffed by all stakeholders, with a clearly defined chain of command. They are not 

lessons learned just because we write them down; we actually have to learn them 

and things need to change as a result. 

Mr. LAMBORN. Admiral Ellis’ testimony was particularly strong in making the 

point that strategy must come first. What should our strategic vision for national 

security space be, and how can we ensure our strategy will function across the spectrum of conflict? 

Mr. FAGA. Strategy is the first and topmost of the steps leading to actions. It sets 

the overall goals and plans. The trouble with most strategies is that they are aspirational, not realistic and fail to become true guides for action. The strategy challenge 

for space now is the need to shift from information satellites living in a benign environment to systems that have to survive in conflict. The strategy begins with laying 

out what the expectations of commanders are as well as an understanding from providers of what can realistically be achieved. Strategies that simply state, ‘‘systems 

will be made resilient’’ are not useful statements. 

Mr. LAMBORN. Your recent National Academies report talked about the need to 

clarify operational authorities for space. Can you please expand on that? What is 

your view of unity of command versus unity of effort? Who—if anyone—is responsible for disseminating information regarding warning and/or insight into adversarial operations across the defense and intelligence communities? 

Mr. FAGA. In partial response, please see my answer to question 21. Unity of command vs unity of effort in this context refers to whether DOD controls NRO satellites, at least for purposes of protection, in time of crisis or war. I recommend the 

unity of effort approach where the NRO continues to respond to DNI direction in 

the use of its satellites. One of the lessons to me while serving as DNRO during 

the first Gulf War was that DOD is not the only user of satellite reconnaissance 

during the fight. The NSC, State and others had pressing needs which were largely 

adjudicated by the DCI and now the DNI. Even regarding protection, I can envision 

a situation where DOD says you need to move or you’ll be killed in a few minutes, 

and the DNI saying the info being gained at this moment is so important that it’s 

worth that price. Moreover, I think this is an issue debated over the least likely 

threat-direct attack. Cyber, jamming and laser threats are far more likely in my estimation. 

Regarding the dissemination of warning and insight, both the IC and DOD communities do this. Typically, the IC is collecting longer term and more detailed information like ‘‘what are the specific capabilities of this threat’’ while the DOD is providing warning near the moment of attack. 

Mr. LAMBORN. Please describe the importance of budget authority in DOD, and 

compare the budget authority that the Commander of Air Force Space Command 

has, in comparison to the Director of the NRO. 

Mr. FAGA. I believe that their budget authority is similar but their ability to influence what budget authority they receive is quite different. Regarding similar authority, both must receive their budgets pursuant to a budget submission by the 

President and Congressional Authorization and Appropriation. Both receive funds 

subject to the limitations of the Program Elements used and to reprogramming 

rules and thresholds. However, the reporting chain of the DNRO is far shorter and 

she has the ability to directly engage the Principals who decide her budget. Both 

the DNRO and Commander AFSPC are subject to the effects of budget drills that 

suddenly move significant money from their program to another. However, the entire National Intel Program is 10% of the size of the Defense budget and the likelihood of an event of which affects the NRO of which the DNRO is unaware, is far 

smaller than for the Commander AFSPC. 
84 

Mr. LAMBORN. A review of the budget documents shows that the unclassified 

space RDT&E budgets are at a 30-year low. Why do you think that is? 

Mr. FAGA. I think there are two elements to this decline: reduced spending for 

research on new technologies or systems and reduced spending on new starts. Regarding the first, the temptation in tight budget times is to push off the future to 

maintain present capability. Similarly, the desire for continued service from legacy 

systems tends to push out spending for new starts. Existing systems have many 

supporters among current users; new ideas have few supporters and are consequently very hard to get funded in the President’s Budget. 

Congressional interest in this matter is particularly important, because it is often 

the Congress that pushes the Administration to take on new things. In intelligence, 

it is important to keep developing new capabilities that adversaries will be unaware 

of for some period of time. Those are the most valuable capabilities. 

Mr. LAMBORN. What should the future mission of the JICSpOC be? How does that 

compare to the current and future mission of the JSPOC? 

Mr. FAGA. The JICSpOC should become the ops center for the era we are entering 

where space systems are subject to interference or attack. I see it subsuming and 

replacing the JSPOC. The JICSpOC is learning how to operate on timelines measured in minutes while the JSPOC operates on timelines measured in hours to days. 

Lt. Gen. Raymond once described the JSPOC as largely a space cataloging operation. The JICSpOC will need to become a combat operations center. 

QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MR. COFFMAN 

Mr. COFFMAN. The current acquisition approach can take 10-plus years to deliver 

a new capability. This approach cannot keep pace with the evolving threat and advances in technology. What changes to the acquisition process will need to happen 

in order to reduce the time to deliver new capability to less than 5 years? 

Dr. HAMRE. This problem is not unique to space. In general, defense acquisition 

has evolved to take long times. The barrier to get new programs is so high that the 

Services often load up the requirements for the program, thinking that it is their 

only chance. So we postulate capabilities that technology cannot currently provide 

for some systems and develop that technology along the way. I personally would 

favor an acquisition system that allows incremental advances over time. We have 

done that in the past very successfully, for example with the F–16. But we have 

not done that with space procurement. This is largely because the number of units 

we buy is very small and over a long period of time. So we tend to load them up 

with capabilities that are very advanced and do have technical uncertainty. This is 

one of the reasons why I favor relying much more on commercially-provided capability, which is expanding. 

Mr. COFFMAN. Where are the key areas that you see commercial capability most 

effectively augmenting the national security space mission, both from a capability 

and a space resiliency perspective? 

Dr. HAMRE. Right now I think the strongest area is in communications capabilities. But I think we will increasingly see much stronger commercial capabilities for 

reconnaissance and surveillance. The fidelity will lag our government satellites, but 

commercial fidelity is getting very good. For precision navigation, it is more a case 

of using the positioning signals from satellites of other countries. We are seeing 

growing commercial capabilities for space launch, and that will continue. All together, these commercial developments give us the promise of more redundancy and 

reconstitutability. But we need to change how we think about buying space capabilities if we are going to take advantage of these trends. 

Mr. COFFMAN. The NRO has seen some real success through the application of 

autonomy and analytics capabilities into their architecture—driving down costs and 

improving the intelligence value and responsiveness of their enterprise. What other 

space-based missions (beyond intelligence), could benefit from the application of advanced analytic capabilities? 

Dr. HAMRE. I must plead insufficient knowledge to properly answer your question. 

I don’t know enough about how the NRO has accomplished this in order to postulate 

other options we might pursue. 

Mr. COFFMAN. Each space protection program is contained within its own Special 

Access Program (SAP) with a limited number of billets, creating knowledge silos. 

How should DOD and the Intelligence Community balance security concerns with 

their ability to leverage technology and capabilities across the government and industry? 

Dr. HAMRE. You have hit on a key problem. By definition, very few people know 

about the details of SAP programs, and for good reason. But this also means we 
85 

never can build on the advances of one program to make another SAP program 

more effective and less expensive. The mechanisms of coordination for SAP programs are largely administrative, rather than programmatic. It would be an interesting experiment to create a small cell reporting directly to the Deputy Secretary 

of Defense, charged with the goal of seeing where the program details of one SAP 

program might be usefully applied to another SAP program. 

Mr. COFFMAN. The current acquisition approach can take 10-plus years to deliver 

a new capability. This approach cannot keep pace with the evolving threat and advances in technology. What changes to the acquisition process will need to happen 

in order to reduce the time to deliver new capability to less than 5 years? 

Admiral ELLIS. There are some dramatically different approaches that should be 

considered as we address the rapid technological change and growing threats that 

confront us. 

The first is the capability focus of our space systems. Past policies have focused 

on designing and building ‘‘exquisite’’ space systems where every ounce of capability 

and reliability has been designed in and little attention has been paid to resilience 

or robustness. This must change. 

A second area is the long lifetime for which our on-orbit systems are designed. 

This has led to a post-launch technological status quo. Perhaps consideration of 

lower cost and shorter lifetimes is appropriate to allow technological refreshment at 

a faster rate. A second lifetime consideration could explore the possibility of modular 

on-orbit upgrades and refueling to provide the best of both worlds. 

A third area for consideration is consistency of purpose and the sharing of best 

acquisition practices across the DOD, IC and commercial stove-pipes. There is an 

opportunity, without giving all space acquisition authority to a single entity, to more 

effectively share insights among all those contributing so much to national security 

space. Much good work is being done but it is not widely shared and its broader 

use has not been widely encouraged. Here, a single DOD-level Undersecretary for 

Space would have a key role. 

Mr. COFFMAN. Where are the key areas that you see commercial capability most 

effectively augmenting the national security space mission, both from a capability 

and a space resiliency perspective? 

Admiral ELLIS. Commercial contributors are already making key contributions 

across the full spectrum of national security space. In addition to the long-standing 

contributions to our multi-frequency, space-borne communications architecture, we 

now see opportunities emerging in commercial imagery, earth-sensing using other 

sensors, and, of course, the developing launch systems. All of these can bring enhanced capability, multi-nodal redundancy, and enhanced resiliency. 

A key element of our ability to capitalize on commercial space is resisting the 

temptation to over-control and over-regulate. We are still not buying commercial 

SATCOM capacity as efficiently as we might and spectrum control and allocation 

processes are highly bureaucratic. We cannot approach the commercial sector with 

the same slow processes and restrictive regulation and expect to get a different outcome. 

Mr. COFFMAN. The NRO has seen some real success through the application of 

autonomy and analytics capabilities into their architecture—driving down costs and 

improving the intelligence value and responsiveness of their enterprise. What other 

space-based missions (beyond intelligence), could benefit from the application of advanced analytic capabilities? 

Admiral ELLIS. As I described above, while R&D investment is essential, so is the 

ability to know where the need is largest and the potential positive impact the 

greatest. This is a perfect place for real, even-handed, and dispassionate analytical 

capabilities. We need more effective tools for system-wide analysis to ensure we are 

focusing on what is most important. While allocation of funds is sometimes a valuable metric, it cannot define where resources can be most effectively employed. The 

‘‘critical infrastructure in space’’ that we have created must be carefully analyzed 

to ensure that we really understand the capability and resiliency challenges confronting us and that we are not making decisions on the basis of assumptions that 

are no longer valid as a result of dramatic changes in the technology, organizational 

structures, or the operating environment. 

Mr. COFFMAN. Each space protection program is contained within its own Special 

Access Program (SAP) with a limited number of billets, creating knowledge silos. 

How should DOD and the Intelligence Community balance security concerns with 

their ability to leverage technology and capabilities across the government and industry? 

Admiral ELLIS. Unfortunately, the plethora of national security leaks and revelations over the last five years, from Snowden to WikiLeaks, has brought reconsideration of the movement toward more information and intelligence sharing that began 
86 

in the days after 9/11. There are legitimate concerns, as we see Top Secret documents appearing in the public domain, that higher levels of classification and limited access are key elements in preserving the classified character of our most precious technologies. 

In my opinion, retaining the balance inferred in the question is appropriate but 

is getting more difficult each day. One technique is to carefully parse programs into 

distinct sub-elements, including basic technology, system integration and operational concepts, that can be appropriately shared but do not reveal the entirety of 

the program and its impact. 

A second approach is to allow DOD to develop and provide ‘‘black box’’ capabilities 

to civilian or non-DOD space programs that are bolt-on, tamper-proof and add capabilities without revealing the classified technologies or operational concepts. If we 

are to get full use of all space assets, effectively integrate them into a security network, and create a more resilient system across the DOD, IC, and commercial sectors, everyone must be included and contribute. 

Mr. COFFMAN. The current acquisition approach can take 10-plus years to deliver 

a new capability. This approach cannot keep pace with the evolving threat and advances in technology. What changes to the acquisition process will need to happen 

in order to reduce the time to deliver new capability to less than 5 years? 

Mr. FAGA. As a baseline, I noted in my testimony that several decades ago the 

standard planning number for a new satellite acquisition was 42 months. This number assumed that the technology was ready and development could begin. This target was usually met. Commercial satellite procurements today usually meet this 

timeline or do better. Acquisitions in 24–36 months are common. 

Today’s military and IC satellite systems are more complex but available technology is also more mature. The big change is the amount of time deciding and 

agreeing on what to build as well as the contracting process before real development 

work begins. This can easily consume 3 to 5 years and partially explains the 5 to 

10 year gap that you point out. 

Another delaying factor is the annual budget process that allows everyone not in 

favor of the program to have an annual opportunity to delay, underfund or even 

cancel it. These budget drills often put programs into an undesirable or even unworkable funding profile that further delays development and adds greatly to total 

cost. As these processes are much less at work in SAP programs, they tend to do 

better in terms of cost and schedule. 

One approach is to reverse the impediments described above. Another is to do 

more buying of a service or a turn-key system where the government specifies what 

it wants at the beginning and takes delivery at the end. So, in the case of commercial imagery, NGA buys imagery from Digital Globe generally independent of which 

of several satellites does the collection. However, the government could also turn to 

satellite builders for complete satellites delivered on orbit. Commercial imagery and 

satcom companies generally use this approach. 

An approach resembling this was used in the 90s and was called Total System 

Procurement Responsibility (TSPR) which largely failed. However, it didn’t fail because the concept was flawed but because it’s implementation was flawed. The approach still requires government involvement but government managers thought it 

meant ‘‘hands off.’’ There needs to be customer involvement throughout but it is 

largely not directive in nature, it serves to help with modification of requirements, 

choosing among alternatives when problems arise and other major issues. However, 

it is not involved in the minutia of the problem. 

Mr. COFFMAN. Where are the key areas that you see commercial capability most 

effectively augmenting the national security space mission, both from a capability 

and a space resiliency perspective? 

Mr. FAGA. Commercial satcom has long been a major supplier of service to national security space. The DOD CIO has recently estimated that 40% of DOD satcom 

is commercial. I recall that during the first Gulf War it was estimated at 60%. 

Nonetheless, I believe that there will likely always be a need for specialized, highly 

resilient satcom systems built for and operated by DOD. However, in many cases 

it would be possible to purchase the satellite under a commercial-like contract 

where the government specifies at the beginning and takes over the system on orbit. 

This can work for complicated satellites but only for those that can be fully specified 

at the beginning of the program. This is not practical where there is substantial development and non-recurring engineering involved. 

The national space community has used commercial satellite imagery for over 20 

years with good success. As offerings increase, this usage will surely increase as 

well. As a result, the NRO and NGA have set up a special combined office to deal 

with the blending of commercial and NRO systems that is clearly coming. 
87 

It is possible that commercial PNT, weather and space situational awareness offerings will be available in the near future. 

A particularly attractive approach to use of commercial satellites is for hosted 

payloads that are no acknowledged. The most valuable capability is one not known 

to others. Such a secret is hard to keep today but SAP programs succeed at doing 

so routinely. 

Mr. COFFMAN. The NRO has seen some real success through the application of 

autonomy and analytics capabilities into their architecture—driving down costs and 

improving the intelligence value and responsiveness of their enterprise. What other 

space-based missions (beyond intelligence), could benefit from the application of advanced analytic capabilities? 

Mr. FAGA. I am not familiar with these efforts in any detail. I know that the NRO 

has been using autonomous means to quickly review data in order to sort from a 

large volume of data to smaller amounts that analysts can quickly exploit. Other 

IC agencies are also doing this on other forms of data. Some of these efforts seek 

to exploit different sources of data at the machine level and do valuable sorting and 

combining of data before presentation to the analyst so that the material that is presented is more comprehensive and valuable. It is estimated that analysts spend 

about 60% of their time searching for and organizing data and only 40% analyzing. 

Clearly, managers want to reduce that 60% substantially and increase the time for 

value-added work. 

Another application of analytics becoming important in the development of space 

systems and others, it model based systems engineering. In this technique, a computer model of the entire system is developed which provides greater insight into 

the system than previous methods and allows for easy examination of potential 

changes to the system. Many NRO contractors are now using this technique. 

Mr. COFFMAN. Each space protection program is contained within its own Special 

Access Program (SAP) with a limited number of billets, creating knowledge silos. 

How should DOD and the Intelligence Community balance security concerns with 

their ability to leverage technology and capabilities across the government and industry? 

Mr. FAGA. SAP programs are valuable because they successfully maintain secrecy 

for very long periods such as the entire development period for a new capability. 

Often, knowledge of the very existence of a vulnerability being exploited by a SAP 

program, or knowledge of the existence of the SAP program even absent any details, 

is enough to make it worthless. In such cases, very tight security is clearly necessary. 

There are two problems with SAP programs of which I am aware: 1. Once a program is put into SAP status, the security program is developed by the Program 

Manager. This means that there is little consistency among the various SAP programs. While I am in favor of the very strict security programs used, they should 

be consistent among them. 2. The highly classified nature of SAPs and exacerbated 

by the point above, it is often very hard to provide the capability to legitimate users, 

be they intel analysts or combat commanders. In the case of the combat commander, 

for example, it is vital that the capability be understood, practiced with and accessible in a combat situation. This is often not the case. The key question is whether 

this magnificent technical capability is able to offer operational value. I have seen 

war-game situations where an important SAP capability wasn’t available to a combatant commander because the command and control link was knocked out but the 

system itself remained functional. 

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