In a June 18, 2018 speech to the National Space Council, President Trump stated, “I’m hereby directing the Department of Defense and the Pentagon to immediately begin the process necessary to establish a Space Force as the sixth branch of the armed forces . . . separate but equal from the Air Force. That’s a big statement.” Then he asked Gen. Joseph Dunford, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, “Got it?” General Dunford replied, “We got it.”
I previously referred to this exchange and many anticipated associated difficulties in achieving Trump’s aspiration in my June 26th and July 10th High Frontier messages. (Click here and here.) In the latter I referred to David Ignatius’ excellent related June 26th Washington Post OpEd. (Click here.) We need such a capability to counter the growing threat to our space systems from Russia, China and others — click here for Bill Gertz’s recent discussion of these issues by Defense Undersecretary for Policy John Rood.
While the Defense Department is contemplating how to meet this challenge and is finalizing various reports to congress, including an overdue Missile Defense Review Report, Congress has been continuing its related work from past year.
Congress is finalizing the National Defense Authorization Act for 2019 (NDAA-2019), which passed the “Big Four” conference and was approved by the House before leaving town from the month of August and campaigning for the November election. The Senate is expected to follow suit today, and if so, sections pertinent to President Trump’s directive will become the “law of the land” once President Trump signs it. Click here for the NDAA-19 being finalized.
Now some who have studied the NDAA-2019 claim that it ignores the President’s mandate for a Space Force. Not so fast!
Click here for my NewsMax article, repeated in its entirety below, that spells out how the NDAA-2019, if it becomes the “law of the land,” extends last year’s NDAA-2018 and sets the stage for President Trump’s Space Force — which after all was launched only six weeks ago. Any unbiased review would conclude that Congress is helping to meet the President’s goal.
US May Soon Build Space-Based Defense System
By Henry F. Cooper /Newsmax Friday, 27 July 2018
Thanks to the John S. McCain National Defense Authorization Act for 2019 (NDAA-2019), the Secretary of Defense is now directed to give Congress a plan for building space-based interceptors (SBIs).
While it is primarily intended to build a space based ballistic missile defense (BMD) system, this initiative also would help counter the top priority hypersonic threats posed by Russia and China, such as illustrated below.
A precursor to this directive was successfully proposed last year by then Arizona Representative Trent Franks (former Chair of the House Missile Defense Caucus), but the NDAA-2018 directive was contingent on recommendations from the Missile Defense Review, which is still underway.
Thanks to Senator Ted Cruz as previously discussed, it is now supported by both the House and Senate and removes that NDAA-2018 contingency. Assuming the Senate approves the “Big Four” Conference report next Tuesday, planning to build a SBI system will become the law of the land!
Moreover, lest the current planners and critics forget, we knew how to build such a system 30 years ago as a primary effort in President Ronald Reagan’s Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI). And we should be able to repeat that effort quickly and with today’s technology for a lot less money.
As I wrote last May 11, the first four directors of what is now the Missile Defense Agency thought we knew how to build such a cost-effective SBI system 30 years ago. Moreover, the SBI system, “Brilliant Pebbles,” became the first product of President Ronald Reagan’s SDI to enter a formal Demonstration and Validation (DemVal) program, approved in 1990 by the Pentagon’s top acquisition executive.
The independent cost-estimate associated with the two competing DemVal contractors was that it would cost $10 billion in 1988 dollars (inflated to $20 billion today) to develop, deploy, and operate for 20 years a constellation of 1,000 “Brilliant Pebbles.” That system could defend America and our overseas troops, friends, and allies against a substantial threat — much larger than can be defeated by today’s less-capable BMD systems that have cost many times that amount.
With today’s technology, the cost of “Brilliant Pebbles” would be less — and the resulting global defense would be far more effective than what the current BMD programs will produce. And it could help counter the growing hypersonic threat.
Three of us former SDI Directors (the fourth was deceased) and the Program Manager of the “Brilliant Pebbles” Task Force that led that important effort wrote on November 29, 2016, that President Trump could revive “Brilliant Pebbles” to fulfill President Reagan’s SDI Vision. Hear! Hear!
Indeed, had Congress permitted “Brilliant Pebbles” to continue during my watch and in the Democrat and Republican administrations after my watch as SDI Director (ending on January 20, 1993), we would long ago have demonstrated the viability of a much more capable missile defense capability than all that we have today, and for much less money than we have spent on our ground-based homeland defense alone.
But the Democrat-controlled congress vetoed our approved DemVal program that within another couple of years could have proven the viability of “Brilliant Pebbles” — consistent with President Reagan’s SDI vision.
The Clinton administration completely scuttled essentially all cutting-edge SDI technology programs. Then Defense Secretary Les Aspin memorably said he “took the stars out of Star Wars.”
Indeed he did, and no administration since has revived such an effort. Now with congressional prodding, President Trump can “Go back to the future!”
Furthermore, we set the stage for demonstrating the technology to do this in 1992.
After anticipating the then continuing congressional resistance even if President Bush were reelected, we initiated the “Clementine” mission that returned to the Moon for the first time in a quarter century, mapped its surface, and then executed a “sling-shot” return back by Earth into deep space and to be “lost and gone forever.” It was thus named after that ballad, “Oh My Darling, Clementine.”
With NASA cooperation, especially from then NASA Administrator Dan Goldin (who led the TRW “Brilliant Pebbles” DemVal effort), the Clementine payload was launched into space and it exceeded my hopes in “space-qualifying” all key “Brilliant Pebbles” sensor and operating command systems — and recording about 1.5 million frames of data in 13 spectral bands.
At a cost of about $80 million, Clementine achieved more information on the Moon’s surface than the entire Apollo program and discovered water in its polar regions. The small Clementine team received awards from NASA and the National Academy of Sciences, and a replica hangs in the Smithsonian next to NASA’s Lunar Lander.
Most importantly, it demonstrated the technology for a viable SBI system a quarter century ago.
A follow-on mission was supported by Congress, but President Clinton vetoed that legislation because of its exploitation of SDI technology, as a senior member of the president’s staff told the press. Such was the abiding hostility to Ronald Reagan’s key initiative that among other things is credited with a major role in “ending the Cold War without firing a shot.”
There should be no question that with today’s technology we can meet the NDAA-2019 challenge. We also should be beyond political inhibitions, but they will no doubt continue, including in congress. Such resistance is exacerbated because so few remember the lessons from 30 years ago.
On the other hand, Defense Undersecretary for Research and Engineering, Mike Griffin, is an accomplished aerospace engineer and a former NASA Administrator. He also was my first SDI Deputy for Technology, after serving under SDI’s first two directors and leading some of SDI’s early space experiments that made “Brilliant Pebbles” possible. Now Mike’s announced top priority is countering hypersonic threats; and a modern “Brilliant Pebbles” can help meet that challenge!
Stay tuned for the Pentagon’s Missile Defense Review, due shortly!
To understand the extent and specificity of this pertinent directive, consider the provisions spelled out by melding Senator Cruz’s (R-TX) amendment with last year’s NDAA-18 language drafted by former Representative Trent Franks (R-AZ):
Based on the SDI efforts 30 years ago, we know that a cost-effective space-based missile defense system is possible — and it is long past time to develop that capability.
As emerging technology thirty years ago made Brilliant Pebbles possible, today’s far more advanced technology can enable a much more capable missile defense capability. And that capability should be even more capable for less money than the $20 billion anticipated 30 years ago to develop, deploy and operate for 20 years 1000 space based interceptors to provide a global defense for Americans at home and our troops, friends and allies abroad.
Moreover, under streamlined management, which is well understood by Defense Undersecretary for Research and Engineering Mike Griffin, this capability could be operational in five years — sooner than called for in NDAA-2019.
In addition to providing a needed global ballistic missile defense, it should also be able to counter the hypersonic threat that Dr. Griffin has said is his top priority.
Bottom Lines.
Working toward such an operational capability under this congressional directive also would help “kick start” President Trump’s Space Force — and by the end of his second term help dominate space as is his stated objective.
Doubters and hostile opponents from Russia, China, etc. — and even naysayers in our policy and scientific community can be expected, just as they opposed President Ronald Reagan’s SDI efforts, especially his top priority space based defenses. He was right then, and we need that capability urgently today. Click here for an example of today’s opposition.
Click here for a discussion last April of a Pentagon report promised by next month on plans a Space Force. Then there’s the Missile Defense Review Report to Congress that already should have been delivered to congress — and now it should include a plan for meeting the demands of the NDAA-2019 that is the law of the land, including for space based defenses.
Whatever, the NDAA-2019 helps set the stage for the Space Force. Over to you, General Dunford!
What can you do?
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