Obama Administration experts wrestling with development of a new U.S. space policy are divided into four camps according to SAIC’s Dr. Peter Hays. Dr. Hays supports the National Security Space Office at the Department of Defense (DOD) and spoke to a seminar on space security on January 21.

He described the four camps as those who believe that not much has changed since the 2006 National Space Policy was released and therefore no change in policy is needed; those who acknowledge that things have changed and believe we need to do better; those who argue for more international cooperation, partnering, development of Transparency and Confidence Building Measures (TCBMs), and leveraging commercial space capabilities; and those who want to increase DOD’s “less benign” capabilities.

The current deadline for releasing the new space policy is summer 2010, he said, while cautioning that the disparate points of view make meeting that deadline a challenge. As he noted, it took four years (2002-2006) for President George W. Bush’s national space policy to emerge. He also predicted that a “non-prescriptive” version of the congressionally required Space Posture Review would be released along with the FY2011 budget request to meet the congressional deadline (which actually has passed already – it was December 1, 2009), with the “bulk of the work” merged into a national space strategy that would be released after the new national space policy.

A SpacePolicyOnline.com summary of the seminar, including more of Dr. Hays’ comments, is available on the left menu of our home page (see Our Meeting Summaries) or by clicking here. The other speakers were Cesar Jaramillo of Canada’s Project Ploughshares, which spearheads production of the Space Security Index – the main topic of the seminar; Clay Mowry from Arianespace, Inc.; and Marcia Smith of SpacePolicyOnline.com.

A SpacePolicyOnline.com summary of the January 21, 2010 seminar on “Space Security Index 2009: The Status of and Future Trends in Space Security” is now available on our left menu under “Our Meeting Summaries” or simply by clicking here. Participants in the seminar were:

• Cesar Jaramillo, Project Ploughshares
• Clay Mowry, Arianespace, Inc.
• Marcia Smith, SpacePolicyOnline.com
• Peter Hays, SAIC and National Security Space Office

Dana Johnson, Senior Advisor in the Bureau of Verification, Compliance and Implementation at the State Department, outlined measures for addressing challenges to U. S. space security in the “global commons” in a speech to the Air Education and Training Command (AETC) last week.

Dr. Johnson is a veteran space and national security analyst who recently moved to the State Department from Northrop Grumman’s Analysis Center. Previously she was at the RAND Corporation. In her new capacity, she will be working on space, missile defense, and START verification issues.

In her AETC talk, she quoted Undersecretary of Defense Michele Flourney as defining global commons as parts of the world “beyond the control of any state…that constitute the fabric or connective tissue of the international system.”

Noting that the Obama Administraton has a review of U.S. national space policy underway, Dr. Johnson said that a key element of the review is how to protect “critical government and commercial space infrastructures against ‘all hazards'” natural and intentional. Other aspects of the review are “more effective space acquisition” and the “roles of sectoral and national-level strategies in advancing U.S. national interests in space,” she said.

She listed four policy approaches to address challenges to U.S. space security in the global commons:

• “continued adherence to long-standing space policy principles,
• improved protection of critical government and commercial space infrastructures,
• expanded international space cooperation, and
• improved space situational awareness through increased transparency and confidence-building measures”

Marcia S. Smith’s presentation today to the seminar on “Space Security Index 2009: The Status of and Future Trends in Space Security” is available on SpacePolicyOnline.com under “Marcia S. Smith’s Biography and Recent Publications” on our left menu or by clicking here. Links to the other presentations at the seminar will be available once they are posted on the Web.

The Department of Defense (DOD) reportedly will be as much as a year late delivering the Space Posture Review (SPR) required by Congress in DOD’s FY2009 authorization bill. It was supposed to be submitted to Congress by December 1, 2009. Defense News says that even though the SPR and its siblings, a Nuclear Posture Review (NPR) and Ballistic Missile Defense Review, were intended to inform DOD’s Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR), neither the SPR nor NPR are ready. The publication says that the QDR nevertheless will be released along with the FY2011 President’s budget request, scheduled for February 1.

As we reported earlier, the SPR is one of three recent high-level reviews of U.S. space policy initiated by Congress or the White House. The White House ordered the other two: the Review of Human Space Flight Plans, also known as the Augustine Committee, released in October; and the National Security Council-led review of U.S. space policy required by Presidential Study Directive-3, which has not been released. President Obama also has ordered a review of U.S. export control policy, which could have an impact on commercial space activities in particular.

It is not about the space program per se, but Thomas Friedman had an interesting op-ed in the New York Times yesterday with some great quotes about the impact of Sputnik on the United States — like this one:

“‘Our response to Sputnik made us better educated, more productive, more technologically advanced and more ingenious,’ said the Johns Hopkins foreign policy expert Michael Mandelbaum. ‘Our investments in science and education spread throughout American society, producing the Internet, more students studying math and people genuinely wanting to build the nation.'”

Friedman’s theme is that the United States should really think about what its long term plan is, that it can’t just be about racing China, fighting terrorists, or political infighting.

“And what does the war on terror give us? Better drones, body scanners and a lot of desultory T.S.A. security jobs at airports. ‘Sputnik spurred us to build a highway to the future,’ added Mandelbaum. ‘The war on terror is prompting us to build bridges to nowhere.’

We just keep thinking we can do it all – be focused, frightened and frivolous. We can’t. We don’t have the money. We don’t have the time.”

As NASA considers increasing reliance on the commercial launch sector, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) recently found that in at least one case, it did not work out so well for the Department of Defense (DOD).

In a briefing to the defense subcommittee of the House Appropriations Committee on how DOD’s space acquisition could benefit from adopting commercial practices, GAO cited the Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle (EELV) program as one area where it did not work. “Commercial demand did not materialize” and “The government had to bear most of the cost burden and total program costs nearly doubled (increased by about 96 percent) from first to latest cost baseline.”

Wideband global satellite communications was another failed attempt. Once again the commercial demand did not materialize and “initial operational capability took twice as long as planned due largely to manufacturing problems.”

More generally, GAO noted that there often are distinct requirements differences between DOD and the commercial sector, and commercial companies prefer to use only mature technologies while DOD often must develop the technologies it needs. However, GAO found that DOD could benefit from adopting some commercial practices to improve cost, schedule and performance outcomes: “… there is a clear need to adopt practices that emphasize attaining knowledge up front, minimize requirements changes late in programs, and provide the right support and accountability for both program managers and contractors.”

A symposium on “Space Security Index 2009: The Status of and Future Trends in Space Security” will be held at the Canadian Embassy in Washington, DC on January 21, 2010 from 10:00 am -12:00 pm. Sponsored by the Secure World Foundation, the Space Security Index, and the Embassy of Canada, the meeting will highlight the most recent edition of the annual Space Security Index, prepared by Canada’s Project Ploughshares. The meeting is open to the public, but an RSVP is required. Details are provided in the announcement.

General Lew Allen, Jr., who was Director of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) from 1982-1990, passed away on Monday, according to a JPL news release. He was 84. A nuclear physicist, Allen came to JPL from a distinguished career in the military, including stints as head of the National Security Agency and as Chief of Staff of the Air Force. JPL is a federally funded research and development center operated for NASA by the California Institute of Technology. It is best known for the many planetary exploration spacecraft it has developed and operated.

India’s Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) wants to develop antisatellite (ASAT) capabilities. Domain-b.com, an Indian online business magazine, quotes DRDO director general V.K. Saraswat today as saying that “We have the building blocks…What is needed is technology to track the movements of enemy satellites, for instance before making a kinetic kill.” But he added that what India needs is a deterrent capability and “many of these technologies may never be used.”

Saraswat’s comments reportedly were made at the ongoing Indian Science Congress (ISC 2010) in Thiruvananthapuram.

Saraswat’s comments are somewhat surprising, especially since kinetic kill ASATs are out of vogue because of the debris created when the interceptor impacts the target. China has been extensively criticized by the world’s spacefaring countries for the kinetic kill ASAT test it conducted in 2007. In his October statement to the U.N. First Committee, Garold Larson said that the debris from the Chinese ASAT test represents 25% of all catalogued objects in low Earth orbit.