Washington DC – May 21, 1998 – Space. The possibilities are endless – but there are dangers there. As we explore the fullest promise of space, we must also get ready to protect our interests and freedom there.
When President Kennedy made his famous pledge to put a man on the moon, we
had no idea how far space would take us. Today, we are exploring the outer
planets and building an international space station, while hundreds of
satellites circle the globe.
Nearly half of those 600-plus satellites are American. They represent an
investment of more than $100 billion. U.S. News and World Report estimates we
will spend more than $250 billion in space by the year 2000, and that another
1,800 satellites will be on-orbit by the end of the next decade. This
“skyrocketing” investment must be protected — from natural and man-made
threats, accidental and intentional threats.
Beyond economics, we in uniform came to fully appreciate the value of
space during the Gulf War. We used Global Positioning System (GPS) satellites
to guide precision weapons and navigate in an unfamiliar, often featureless,
land. Satellites with infrared telescopes saw the faint heat of SCUD missiles
from more than 22,000 miles away, so we could warn our troops and allies.
Weather, communications, and intelligence satellites contributed in many,
invaluable ways to the success of our operations halfway around the world.
Satellites do far more today than just help us defend American interests.
Commercial communications satellites keep our financial institutions connected
… and beam the Super Bowl into our homes. Weather satellites tell us when
violent storms threaten our homes and loved ones … and when to plan the
family picnic. Imagery satellites monitor climate changes and help farmers
best use their land to grow food for our tables. The same GPS satellites that
tell our military forces exactly where they are anywhere in the world also
keep airliners on course and map out directions for drivers on our highways.
Space provides us with so many services that we are now reliant on it.
Simply put, space is becoming a vital national interest — in the information
age we are entering, no less important than oil is to our world today. And
just as availability of oil was used against this country during the oil
embargo of the 70’s, this new source of national strength also could become a
vulnerability.
Any threat to our use of space is a threat to our nation’s security.
Here’s where the United States military must play an important role: as we
have protected national and economic security on land, sea and air for more
than 200 years, we must be prepared to defend our interests in space tomorrow.
We need to develop ways to protect our investment in space from rapidly
developing threats. From computer hackers tampering with satellites, to
electronic jamming of satellite signals, to actual anti-satellite weapons —
man-made methods already exist to challenge America in space.
Our satellites also face a different threat — space debris. There are
more than 8,000 objects orbiting the Earth at 17,000 m.p.h. Ninety percent of
it is junk. Today we can see and track objects about the size of a softball
or larger. As the number of satellites grows, costly damage from collisions
between expensive, working satellites and worthless space junk is inevitable.
The first step in protecting our satellites must be to improve our ability
to see what’s happening in space. We need to detect and monitor objects less
than half the size of what we can see now. Our satellites need to be designed
to survive collisions with the debris we can’t see — and maneuver out of the
path of debris we can see. Today, the first indication we would get that a
satellite has been damaged would be when it quits working. We need to build
in sensors that can tell us if satellites have been damaged by solar flares,
debris, or someone on Earth.
For us to protect our space assets and ensure we receive the bounty of
space, the military, civil, commercial, and international space communities
must work together. We’ve all tasted the fruit of space systems and we have
developed a voracious appetite for them. But none of us has a checking account
big enough to pay the bill alone.
With the military, other government agencies, the business world, and our
allies working together as partners, we can leverage each others’ investments
to reduce the cost of space for everyone. This will allow all of us to do far
more than any of us could do alone.
We must, and we will, continue to explore and develop space — bringing
the benefits home to help us here on Earth. But while we do so, we shouldn’t
forget to allocate some limited resources — not unlike buying an insurance
policy — into protecting our investment.
General Howell M. Estes III is the commander in chief of the North
American Aerospace Defense Command and the United States Space Command and is
the commander of Air Force Space Command headquartered at Peterson Air Force
Base, Colo. He authored this article at the invitation of Mission HOME
(Harvesting Opportunity for Mother Earth), a national initiative to rekindle
enthusiasm for U.S. space endeavors.
