So this is a huge mend for the United States of America, for the Nation, as we look forward to meeting the challenges I described earlier; and that is developing space situational awareness and being in a position to defend our assets in space.

Q: Roeder: Are you making any further divestiture in the Front Range area? Are you pulling out any more troops to improve our situational awareness?

A: No. In fact, in other areas I see some potential growth, with the RAIDRS (Rapid Attack Identification Detection and Reporting System) mission coming in, and some of our space experimentation squadron working at Schriever. But that's growth -- minor growth in those areas. In the end what we need to do is do what's right for the country, and I think this is exactly what's right for the country. I know that's why the folks here in town support us. I tell you, we have the best support here in this area for the military. I can say that from going back to having been here in 1972 to 1976 as a cadet at the Air Force Academy, and having come back through here since. Being here now, visiting with General Mixon (Army Maj. Gen. Robert W. Mixon, commanding general) down at Fort Carson, and General Regni now (U.S. Air Force Academy Superintendent Lt. Gen. John F. Regni). Colorado Springs is a marvelous place when it comes to supporting the military mission here, and I know the folks here understand that we wouldn't do this lightly.

Q: Robert Weller, Associated Press: NORAD (North American Defense Command) said 600 space command people would be staying at NORAD.

A: I couldn't give you exact numbers. I can tell you that the 1st Space Control Squadron has about 140 people. One of the areas I think some folks get confused (about) in the whole discussion has to do with what NORAD/NORTHCOM (Northern Command) is doing in Cheyenne Mountain and what we're doing in Cheyenne Mountain. We have a lot of Airmen in Cheyenne Mountain who wear this uniform who work for NORAD/NORTHCOM. And that's probably where the confusion is.

There's a subset, a small subset, who do not work for NORAD/NORTHCOM, who work for Air Force Space Command and actually work for General Shelton, and that's the 1st Space Control Squadron, about a hundred and forty people. That's what we're talking about adjusting out of the mountain. It's really a separate and distinct issue from (Navy Admiral Timothy J. Keating's) adjusting where he has the majority of his staff support for -- whether it's going to be operating in the mountain or up here at Peterson Air Force Base. Two completely different issues.

Q: Weller: Speaking of the road (Admiral Keating's) heading down ... the reason that we went into the mountain was for security because we had a two-story block house here that could have been taken out by a bazooka. Lt. Gen. (E.A) Findley (Canadian Forces, deputy commander of NORAD) was in Denver a couple of weeks ago, and I asked him, can you guarantee the safety of Peterson Air Force Base? He said, no, there are force protection issues that have to be resolved. We are in a position, right next to the Colorado Springs airport ... (General Findley) said over the next 18 months, his issues would be resolved, but are we in a position to guarantee the safety of NORTHCOM and NORAD and Peterson and everything else in the middle of a town? It just raises all sorts of questions.

A: I'm not sure (as Air Force Space Command) that we are in a position to secure that. Admiral Keating knows what needs to be done, and when they tell you it's going to take some time to make sure the adjustment's right, they understand, I'm sure, exactly what needs to be done to make pertinent decisions in this area. I don't want to speak for Admiral Keating -- we've talked about this issue -- they're going to take prudent actions along the way and take the right course of action. From what I've heard from the discussions, it's the right thing to be doing.

Q: Scott: Up at Buckley Air Force Base (Colo.), there are some pretty critical assets, too. (Paraphrasing) What measures are you taking for force protection up there, asset protection?

A: (Repeats the question) What have we done at Buckley with regard to force protection? You know, I hesitate to go (into) what we're doing with regard to force protection anywhere. I will say in general we have increased (it) in this command, before I got on the watch, and our focus on force protection and protection of our assets, particularly our ground-based assets. I take regular reviews on the status of how we're doing in those areas, around the world. So we're focused on that element for sure. Because, I mean, that's something that's certainly within our power to pay attention to. And General Lord, before I came on board, had already started that program. Now it's become part of our routine.

Q: Dick Foster, Rocky Mountain News: What's your time frame for moving the 1st Space Control Squadron out of the mountain?

A: As we move down, there are some technical issues that we're working through, but I would see us starting to transition in '07, and I would like to see the transition completed by next summer.

Q: Foster: And do you anticipate any sort of resistance from the people like the Congressional delegation who seem to respond to every sort of movement here in Colorado Springs with opposition?

A: Dick, I've had great conversations with both our state senators here as well as Congressman (Joel) Hefley, and the mayor (Lionel Rivera). I've advised them of what we're doing. Again, this gets back to the relationship issue that is so wonderful here. We can have open conversations and we don't hide things. We've made sure that we've had open discussions with them on where we're headed. I think we've got to put this in context. We're talking about 140 people moving out, one squadron, in a time period when we're starting to grow Fort Carson by 10,000 people. I'll leave it to you to assess what challenges that will bring to the community -- to grow. But, you know, we love Colorado Springs. This isn't about doing something to Colorado Springs. This is about doing something for the country. And I know we'll get the support from the community for that.

Q: Rich Tuttle, Aviation Week: You mentioned you want to put more emphasis on space situational awareness. Do you see your budget changing on the Hill as you submit budgets in coming years to emphasize that sort of thing more?

A: Do we see budgets changing on the Hill? A couple points. One, that's how you get things done, it takes money. That's my job as the commander - to organize, train and equip. So, as I put focus on this area, we will work internally as a staff and work internally with the Air Force process to make sure we get the right focus and the right resources put toward accomplishing this goal. And I think it's the right thing to do, and that's where I'm going to put my time and energy.

The interesting thing is it doesn't really take a lot of money, I don't think. I think we just need to focus early on in the right areas and make the investments. I think we can accomplish a lot by some focused investments in technology, some focused investments in -- or focused looks at -- what do we have out there today and how can we better utilize it and get it together to provide the information that the commander needs out at the 14th? So you're right, we'll have to work hard to make sure we adjust (prior) on our investments.

Q: Tuttle: And you mentioned - well, I don't think you mentioned it, but a special projects office standing up at SMC. What is the status of that? What are they doing a special office for? I think the idea is to focus acquisitions a little better ...

A: (Follow-up information provided after the fact: SMC's Development Plans Directorate focuses on future developments of space and is currently led by Col. James Painter.)

When you come into an organization, any organization, (some) of the first things you ask (are), A. what's my job? and B. what are everybody else's jobs? As we're starting to downsize -- we're going to see 40,000 fewer people (in the Air Force) in the next three to four years -- one of the immediate things you ask is, okay, who's doing somebody else's job besides their own? What are the lanes in the roads, and where do we need to be? We can't afford to be inefficient in the way we do our business. This is true of anybody coming into an organization.

These are some of the questions I'm asking early on. Let's make sure we all understand what our jobs are. Let's make sure we're focused on those. Let's make sure we're trying to help each other out and accomplish our jobs. It's not just about doing your job, it's about getting a mission done for the command, but where are the redundancies and overlaps? When it comes to developing (space) requirements, that is a leadership role for this command headquarters. But we can't do it alone, because we have tremendous expertise out at SMC in Los Angeles. They have a group out there that looks at the current architectures and how we might evolve current architectures based on technological advancements. This is the office you're talking about, and what I've asked is that we tighten up the linkages between that office and our requirements writers here at Air Force Space Command, and make sure that we're operating in sync with each other. I think when we do that, or as we do that better -- I'm not saying that we weren't doing it in the past -- but as we do that better, we'll sharpen our focus on exactly what we need and what the right technologies are to move out on, right architectures to move out on, to support the customer.

Q: Tuttle: Another quick point - That war with Hezbollah - that sort of thing - it wasn't clear to me whether we could help them from space - help the Israelis see slow rockets being fired. Are there any requirements coming out of that whole thing that affect Air Force Space Command? Are you involved in any way?

A: I haven't seen any flow down, no.

Q: Roeder: Back to space situational awareness. You catalog the stuff up there, but you don't know what's up there. In the 1980s, when the Russians launched anything, you tracked the launch, you saw the launch bloom, you'd track it going up, you'd take pictures of them, and you'd say it was a (certain type) of satellite, or whatever it might be. What has come apart from the mid-1980s when we did that, and now when you say, "We have catalogs that say there's an object up there, but we don't know what it does."

A: First of all, I think, Tom, you may be overestimating what our capabilities were back then, to be able to truly determine what it was and what its intent was and what its capability was. And I would say that, again, we had a pretty specific and unique focus and a limited threat base on which to focus. That's broadened today. The battlefield is broadened.

Q: Roeder: Is it a hardware solution, or is it an intelligence solution?

A: I believe it's both, Tom. I believe it's both. There's no single silver bullet to solve this issue or to advance the technology. You need to increase the intelligence focus, which means you need the kind of folks with the skills to be able to take information in from the space environment, analyze it and make an assessment. The knowledge base you need to do that is different than the knowledge base you need for air-breathing intelligence, land intelligence or naval intelligence.

We had a large number of people doing that before the Cold War ended. And, as I said, I think, rightfully so, we downsized when that threat went away. If you just look at the sheer numbers of people focused on space intelligence today, you could say it's time to start building up that expertise.

In the technological areas, again I think a lot of it has to do with us taking a good hard look at what we have and how we knit it together and how we bring that information forward to the commander. A key element in my mind is time. If it takes us six months to figure out what it is and what its capability is, okay, well we can do that. My vision is (to know) within one revolution. So it comes off the pad and goes around the Earth one time. Now I can ask General Shelton, "What was that, what are its capabilities and what can it do?" That's what you call a "stretch goal" to be able to do it that fast. That's the kind of responsiveness that you need. And that doesn't happen just by being surprised by a launch. You have to be watching for it, your intelligence has got to be building up toward it, you've got to have a certain set of knowledge and data before the launch even happens. Then once it gets up there are certain key questions you've got to answer. Is it just one payload? Did multiple payloads come off? Were there riders on it? Is it doing what we think it was supposed to do? Is it maneuvering? If it maneuvered, why did it maneuver? How long did it take us to figure out that it maneuvered -- three days, four days probably?

So speed to me is important on bringing that information to the commander. How quickly we can bring that information to him? Then, how can we display it to him? Today a lot of the way we do business the fusion machine is in the commander's head. We have technology to do better than that. You walk in to an air operations center today, and what do you see on the wall? Giant videos of what is up in the airspace -- good guy, bad guy, friendly, unknown, where they're headed, what speed, and at what altitude. You don't have that today in the space environment because we just haven't been able to infuse the technology.

Q: Scott: I was here for a briefing several years ago, and I was told that you (AFSPC) were developing space lasers and equipment like that so that if you needed to, you could take another satellite out, or if someone was trying to take ours out, you could respond. Where do we stand on that? And I don't know if that violated international treaty, but you were actively working at being able to do that. Is that still on?

A: Well, first of all, let me talk about what is in the treaty and what is not in the treaty. The only treaty that the United States has signed to my knowledge is the one that we signed with the Soviet Union with regard to space in which we said we would not put nuclear weapons in space. It's a good treaty. I don't think we've signed anything else. So that's the limit of our treaty obligations right now.

I think you're correct. Back in the days of the '80s -- it was called Star Wars at the time - the construct up here we were looking at, as a nation, was space-based laser capabilities. It's a big technological challenge and we're not doing that now. I mean, we're not actively looking to deploy something like that or anything, because I think there are huge technological challenges up there before you do that.

"Crossing the Rubicon" into offensive capabilities into space is an interesting discussion. I think in some respects it's kind of moot. A couple of areas to think about: people talk about, well, we're against militarization of space. What do you mean by that? Does that mean you don't want military communication satellites up there? Does that mean you don't want satellites up there looking down at the planet to tell the United States of America that somebody's launched a rocket at us? You don't want that? I don't think that's the answer. I think we want that. We don't want GPS? Okay. The military put GPS up there. The military sustains GPS up there. So, I mean, this discussion on militarization of space is kind of an interesting one.

Also, in my view, the discussion on weapons in space is kind of an interesting one. You know, I flew on the space shuttle. The space shuttle can rendezvous on things, it carries a remote manipulator arm up there that can reach out and grab things if they're cooperative. I mean, the technologies, the capabilities that are required to be able to go up to another satellite and do something to it exist in multiple countries around the world today. So, I mean, the capabilities are there. But, you know, we're not talking about doing that kind of stuff right now.

Q: Weller: The other part was defensive technologies ...

A: Right. And here's my focus. Focus is number one. You can't do anything up there if you don't have situational awareness of what's going on. That's step one. And then after you have that you can start thinking, or as you're doing that you can start thinking about how you're going to meet what is, I think, our responsibility, and that is making sure you can defend those capabilities, or make sure those capabilities are provided to us when we need it.

Q: Weller: In Satellite Magazine, I think you were quoted as being a little unhappy with the pace and cost of developing the hardware that we needed to do what's necessary to get that thing on the "first rev."

A: Well, I think I may have been misquoted there. Well, there are two things. One is, with regard to space situational awareness, I'm saying I want to increase focus on making sure we make the investments in that, which includes the intelligence side, the human capital investment as well as the investments that I've talked about earlier to provide General Shelton what he needs out there. And part of that is moving the 1st Space Control Squadron out there and upgrading their equipment. The other thing I think you're quoting is perhaps from the Army (Lt. Gen. Larry Dodgen, Commander, U.S. Army Space and Missile Defense Command/U.S. Army Forces Strategic Command and Joint Functional Component Command for Integrated Missile Defense) who said that the cost of overruns has impacted the ability to bring certain capabilities to warfighters in general, whether they be Army, Air Force or Marines. And I don't argue with that, that's why we are focused in this command on SMC, and one of our major jobs, which is bringing in new capabilities, developing those satellites that are reconstituting our constellations up there, bringing them in on time and on cost, and with the capabilities we advertise for them to have.

That's fair criticism in my view of past performance. By the way, I don't think that's strictly an Air Force problem. I think we have problems in this country in acquisition fields, whether it be Air Force or other agencies, and it's not just a space acquisition problem. We have challenges in the air-breathing world, too.

Q: Foster: General, you say you want to know what's up there and what it's doing, but is this entirely a technological solution? Don't you need human intelligence as part of that? Is that part of your agency, or is that something that the CIA or some other civilian or military intelligence agency would do? There are a lot of people launching missiles into space we know and probably have diplomatic relations with. Most of the nations who are launching into space, we have an idea of what's going on up there.

A: Not always, Dick, not always. Just because you have diplomatic relations doesn't mean you know what they're putting up on top of their rockets. We have some nice treaties around the world to talk about, and where we advise each other internationally -- those who are signed up to it -- that we're getting ready to launch something, which is nice. It kind of lowers the tension level when we see something come off the launch pad that doesn't surprise you because you knew it was coming. But there's nothing that says you have to be showing other people what it is you're putting inside the shroud on top of there.

Dick, I agree with you. This is not just about getting stuff; it's about human capitalism and the expertise in that. The Air Force is a part of it -- it's not just the Air Force ... it's the defense intelligence agencies or it's our large intelligence agency, the Department of Defense. And, again, it's about focus. And that's why I talk about these days, these times we're living in now, as kind of a turning point. We had a turning point, a tipping point, at the end of the Cold War where we saw a downturn. I think now the environment that we see today and we see as potentially coming in the future, we're at another turning point and now is the time to make those investments, both physical and capital--capital and human--just as you pointed out. You need both.

Q: Mike De Yoanna, Colorado Springs Independent: General, the Russian capabilities for tracking missile launches or declining their satellites, how does that affect the way you're looking at the situation here? We're moving into space superiority more or less and the Russians ... are using their ability to (determine) whether or not something is being launched at them. Are you worried about that situation, and do we share information?

A: Well, we do share early warning. I don't know that we do ... specifically with the Russians. I'll have to get back to you on that one. I'm a little short on that area. What I do know is the Russians, after the end of the Cold War, they had some serious financial issues. And I know some of their satellite constellations degraded. I'm not so sure they're walking away from that. I'm not so sure they're going to walk away from that as a nation, early warning. I can tell you we're not going to walk away from it, and that's really where my focus is, on our capability to provide early warning to this country if we're under attack, and beyond that, as we've learned in Desert Storm, and we have delivered since Desert Storm, our early warning to our deployed forces anywhere in the world if they have come under missile attack. And so my focus is on what we bring to the fight and to make sure that we bring that capability to not only the President and our homeland here, but to our deployed warfighters around the world.

Q: Scott: What will space-based surveillance system do for us in terms of SSA?

A: We think it will help us tremendously. It'll help us ... better see what's up at the geostationary orbit. And what is exciting to me about it is we start developing these kind of capabilities ... -- the important end of it is getting that information down and getting it into a fused environment and displaying it to the commander. And that's what we'll be able to do out at Vandenberg as we move the First Space Control Squadron out there and get them the right equipment. Because we have multiple sensors that we're using to look up at the heavens that includes radars, that includes telescopes, optical systems. We've done some work with an experimental satellite called MSX and based on the results of that satellite's ability to look up at the heavens from low earth orbit, we laid out the space-based space surveillance program. Because we saw that it provided a great benefit, this one satellite. So how do we use space-based architectures, land-based architectures, radar, telescopes, optical, to improve this space situational awareness. This is where I get back to my earlier point ... some of this is talking about how we network this all together, bring this information together and fuse it in a picture that the commander can see and understand in a timely fashion. And that's one of our big challenges. In fact, tomorrow we're going to have an internal focus day on space surveillance and what have we got out there, what are we planning to buy, what are we planning to upgrade. And have we got it right?

Q: Scott: We have the equivalent of Rivet Joint in space for instance, is that going to be a part of the SBSS or not?

A: The equivalent of Rivet Joint. I don't think it's that. I don't draw the equivalence. I think it's an optical system ...

Q: Weller: Are you concerned about what is up there now or what could be up there in the next six months?

A: Both. I want to make it clear, it's both. Because there's stuff that we know is up there, we don't know what it is, or what its intent is or what its total capability is. That's a reality.

And this gets a little bit back to why it's important to move the First Space Control Squadron and upgrade their equipment and get them integrated ... change their focus, if you will. In the Cold War, and I'd argue even almost to today, when a rocket comes out of a foreign country, the first and most important question that has to be answered by the folks who work in Cheyenne Mountain is, is this rocket ballistic or is it going to space? Is it a space launch or is it going to go up and come down someplace? That's question one. And if the answer to that question is it's going to space, today we relax, okay. If the answer is it's ballistic, the next question we've got to answer is where's it going? And then we ask, are you sure? That's (the) missile warning mission, in my view, for protecting the United States of America. And why that has to be so one-hundred-percent accurate is because if you answer yes to those three questions you're going to pick up the phone and call the President of the United States. But today when it goes to space, we relax. What I'm saying is we can't relax anymore. Now when it goes to space we ... we've got to be thinking ahead before it gets up there. When it does get up there we've got to be answering some other key questions. Where's it going? What is it? What's its capability? What's its intent? ... And once it's up there, is it maneuvering? Why? Is it a threat to our assets up there? If so, what can we do about it? That's space situational awareness.

Concluding remarks: Well, I just want to close by thanking you all for coming out. This is so important to have the opportunity to visit with you all, and I ... welcome you back, and I look forward to an open dialogue with you during my command. I think one of our big jobs in service to our country is to tell our story, tell what we do and why we're doing it, answer the questions that demystify what we do for the taxpayers of America, which I am one. I know I don't appreciate it when things are going someplace and I don't understand it. And so I want to help get the word out and answer your questions any way I can and be straightforward with you, tell you what I'm thinking when it's my opinion. I'll tell you when it's my boss's position. Which I'll tell you right now, there's no daylight between me and the Chief of Staff and where we're heading in the United States Air Force. I think our value here is to push forward our concerns. And we now -- we have today in our Air Force, and with our Chief, General Moseley, I'll tell you, he's very focused on Air Force Space Command, very focused on it. And I think it's a great time. I think he also appreciates, without putting words in his mouth, he appreciates that we're at this turning point in our history and it's time to start adjusting focus here back toward space. So thanks again. Appreciate it.

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