SPEAKERS CONTENTS INSERTS
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??–???
2001
[H.A.S.C. No. 107–4]
HEARINGS
ON
NATIONAL DEFENSE AUTHORIZATION ACT
FOR FISCAL YEAR 2002—H.R. 2586
AND
OVERSIGHT OF PREVIOUSLY AUTHORIZED PROGRAMS
BEFORE THE
COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED SEVENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
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MILITARY RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT SUBCOMMITTEE HEARINGS
ON
TITLE II—RESEARCH, DEVELOPMENT, TEST, AND EVALUATION
HEARING HELD
JUNE 20, 2001
For sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office
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Mail: Stop SSOP, Washington, DC 20402-0001
MILITARY PROCUREMENT SUBCOMMITTEE
FLOYD D. SPENCE, South Carolina, Chairman
JAMES V. HANSEN, Utah
JOEL HEFLEY, Colorado
TERRY EVERETT, Alabama
HOWARD P. ''BUCK'' McKEON, California
J.C. WATTS, Jr., Oklahoma
MAC THORNBERRY, Texas
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LINDSEY GRAHAM, South Carolina
JIM RYUN, Kansas
JIM GIBBONS, Nevada
DON SHERWOOD, Pennsylvania
HEATHER WILSON, New Mexico
ROB SIMMONS, Connecticut
MARK STEVEN KIRK, Illinois
JO ANN DAVIS, Virginia
GENE TAYLOR, Mississippi
IKE SKELTON, Missouri
JOHN SPRATT, South Carolina
LANE EVANS, Illinois
ROD R. BLAGOJEVICH, Illinois
THOMAS H. ALLEN, Maine
JIM TURNER, Texas
ADAM SMITH, Washington
JAMES H. MALONEY, Connecticut
MIKE McINTYRE, North Carolina
CYNTHIA A. McKINNEY, Georgia
ELLEN O. TAUSCHER, California
ROBERT A. BRADY, Pennsylvania
Jesse Tolleson, Staff Assistant
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MILITARY RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT SUBCOMMITTEE
DUNCAN HUNTER, California, Chairman
VAN HILLEARY, Tennessee
W. TODD AKIN, Missouri
CURT WELDON, Pennsylvania
JIM SAXTON, New Jersey
ROSCOE G. BARTLETT, Maryland
JOHN N. HOSTETTLER, Indiana
SAXBY CHAMBLISS, Georgia
JOE SCARBOROUGH, Florida
WALTER B. JONES, North Carolina
BOB RILEY, Alabama
ROBIN HAYES, North Carolina
KEN CALVERT, California
ANDER CRENSHAW, Florida
ED SCHROCK, Virginia
NEIL ABERCROMBIE, Hawaii
JOHN SPRATT, South Carolina
GENE TAYLOR, Mississippi
MARTY MEEHAN, Massachusetts
SILVESTRE REYES, Texas
THOMAS H. ALLEN, Maine
VIC SNYDER, Arkansas
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JIM TURNER, Texas
ADAM SMITH, Washington
LORETTA SANCHEZ, California
ROBERT E. ANDREWS, New Jersey
JOHN B. LARSON, Connecticut
JAMES R. LANGEVIN, Rhode Island
Robert Lautrup, Professional Staff Member
Katherine Gordon, Staff Assistant
(ii)
C O N T E N T S
CHRONOLOGICAL LIST OF HEARINGS
2001
HEARING:
Wednesday, June 20, 2001, Fiscal Year 2002 National Defense Authorization Act—Space Now and in the Future
APPENDIX:
Wednesday, June 20, 2001
WEDNESDAY, JUNE 20, 2001
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FISCAL YEAR 2002 NATIONAL DEFENSE AUTHORIZATION ACT—SPACE NOW AND IN THE FUTURE
STATEMENTS PRESENTED BY MEMBERS OF CONGRESS
Hunter, Hon. Duncan, a Representative from California, Chairman, Military Research and Development Subcommittee
Meehan, Hon. Martin, a Representative from Massachusetts, Ranking Member, Military Research and Development Subcommittee
WITNESSES
Anderson, Lt. Gen. Edward G., III, Deputy Commander in Chief, United States Space Command, U.S. Army
APPENDIX
PREPARED STATEMENTS:
Anderson, Lt. Gen. Edward G., III
Hunter, Hon. Duncan
Meehan, Hon. Martin
DOCUMENTS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD:
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[There were no Documents Submitted for the Record.]
QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD:
[The Questions and Answers are pending.]
(iii)
FISCAL YEAR 2002 NATIONAL DEFENSE AUTHORIZATION ACT—SPACE NOW AND IN THE FUTURE
House of Representatives, Committee on Armed Services, Military Procurement Subcommittee, Meeting Jointly with Military Research and Development Subcommittee, Washington, DC, Wednesday, June 20, 2001.
The subcommittees met, pursuant to call, at 2:55 p.m., in room 2118, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Duncan Hunter (chairman of the Military Research and Development subcommittee) presiding.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. DUNCAN HUNTER, A REPRESENTATIVE FROM CALIFORNIA, CHAIRMAN, MILITARY RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT SUBCOMMITTEE
Mr. HUNTER. The hearing will come to order.
This afternoon, the Military Research and Development Subcommittee, along with the Procurement Subcommittee, will receive testimony from Lieutenant General Anderson, deputy commander in chief of the U.S. Space Command. General Anderson will review for the subcommittees the various types and functions of systems in space, and give us a real basic picture of what we have in terms of assets in space and help us understand the path to the increased space capability that is so important to national defense.
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Space is growing today in both significance and numbers of satellites. As we open our hearing today, there are about 700 operational satellites operated by 32 nations, including roughly 300 U.S. satellites. We depend on these systems as never before.
And while we have great space capabilities, I am sure General Anderson will tell us that much needs to be done to develop and field urgently needed systems and capabilities. To date, development has been hampered by management fragmentation and lack of coordination of our space programs.
Space development demands our attention. Each of us has our own ideas about how we should proceed to keep our space capabilities, on which the defense of our nation is so dependent, as is the rest of the world. A strong research and development program, based on a commitment to robust funding and guided by a well-structured management team, is fundamental to our success. And hopefully, General Anderson will help us to clearly understand the challenges in space and the technologies required to develop an even better space capability.
And my good friend, Chairman Floyd Spence, is co-hosting this hearing. And, Floyd, thank you for partnering up with me on this. We definitely appreciate it.
Mr. Meehan is here. I want to now turn to my fellow Research and Development (R&D) Subcommittee member, the distinguished gentleman, Mr. Meehan, for any remarks that he might want to make.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Hunter can be found in the Appendix.]
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STATEMENT OF HON. MARTIN MEEHAN, A REPRESENTATIVE FROM MASSACHUSETTS, RANKING MEMBER, MILITARY RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT SUBCOMMITTEE
Mr. MEEHAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you for calling this hearing. I apologize for being detained on the floor talking to a colleague on a future vote. But let me join you in welcoming General Anderson and provide a few brief opening remarks.
Mr. Chairman, let me first associate myself with your statement and in particular with your comments about the growing importance of satellites. Over the past few decades, their number has increased. There can be no mistake, our nation's present reliance upon satellites is abundantly clear in both the commercial and defense communities.
I am also in agreement with your statement that the development of the United States space assets have been hampered management fragmentation and a lack of coordination in related space programs. Indeed, a most familiar criticism of the intelligence community, an excellent microcosm of the larger trend affecting the entire space community is that assets, programs and capabilities are stovepiped or incohesive.
To be sure, much of the same can be said for the space community itself. Yet management fragmentation and a lack of coordination are not, in my view, the most significant obstacles to maintaining an effective and efficient space capability. In my estimation, a lack of vision is the most serious of all impediments.
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Now, it may well be that the government's interagency process is inadequate to manage the complexity of today's space issues. It may well be that the inherent tensions exist between the interests of the commercial sector on the one hand and the defense and intelligence sectors on the other, particularly in the area of funding or the control of assets. And maybe the various scientific knowledge and space investment initiatives are not optimally coordinated and leveraged in a satisfactory and appropriate manner. And it may also be that the interest of government and the interest of the commercial sector too often run afoul of one another and undermine efficiency and coordination efforts.
But despite such daunting challenges and conflicts to improve our capabilities in this area and to quote from the recent Rumsfeld Commission on Space, ''The critical need is national leadership to elevate space on the national security agenda. Such an achievement takes vision.''
We are all here today to receive an open session from General Anderson. This is an excellent opportunity to hear first-hand a military perspective on the benefits of the use of space. While this may not be the time or place to discuss possible management reforms, program funding, government industry relationships or competing strategic concepts, such as the weaponization or arming of this medium, this is certainly an excellent opportunity to discuss, in broad terms, the space community's capability in support of the military commanders.
So I welcome the general's comments, and I am pleased to be here.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Meehan can be found in the Appendix.]
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Mr. HUNTER. I thank the gentleman, and I want to also recognize Mr. Taylor and acknowledge Mr. Taylor as one of our leaders of the subcommittee who is hosting this committee. Thank you, Gene, for being with us on this.
And, General Anderson, any prepared remarks that you have will be entered into the record, without objection. And thank you for being with us today, and we look forward to you laying out some very basic facts for us.
As you know, we are jacks of all trades and masters of none, and our time is fragmented during the day, we are running back and forth to different things, so we look forward to a real basic layout of what we have in space, what the vulnerabilities are, where we need to spend some time and some money. And thank you for being with us today. The floor is yours.
STATEMENT OF LT. GEN. EDWARD G. ANDERSON III, DEPUTY COMMANDER IN CHIEF, UNITED STATES SPACE COMMAND, U.S. ARMY
General ANDERSON. Sir, thank you very much.
Chairman Hunter, Chairman Spence, Mr. Meehan, Mr. Taylor, distinguished members of the subcommittee, on behalf of General Ed Eberhart, who is the commander in chief of North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD), as well as the commander in chief of U.S. Space Command, we thank you for this opportunity to testify before you.
As you indicated, sir, we have prepared a written statement, and thank you for allowing us to make it a part of the record. I have prepared some opening remarks. I have done that in the form of a briefing, and with your permission, sir, I would like to present that. I understand that my purpose here is to answer your questions, and if in fact you find that I am not answering questions or is it not helpful, then if you will please tell me, I will stop.
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Mr. HUNTER. Okay. And as we go through the briefing, let me just tell my colleagues, we will just run this thing informally. If you need the general to expand on a point, just bring it up with him as we go through this.
General ANDERSON. Okay, sir. Thank you. And we have provided you copies of the briefing at your places. We are also projecting here on the screen, and I think you will see that it is interactive or it is an active briefing. Next slide, please.
Let me begin with the bottom line up front, sir. In our view, it is a great time to be in the space business for a number of different reasons, and if I had the ability, I would buy stock in U.S. Space Command. The Space Commission, as you know, has called for a national commitment to space, and we certainly endorse that. And we are working hard to implement the recommendations that have been brought about by the National Commission on Space. And we and U.S. Space Command are moving forward to implement the SecDef's decision, which will meet the space challenges of the 21st century.
What I would like to do in the remaining slides of the briefing is to provide you a sense of why space is important to us as a nation as well as to us in the military, and then we can go from there. Next slide, please.
In U.S. Space Command, using our space surveillance network, we track and catalog over 8,300 space objects all the time. The space objects range in size from that of the size of a pen to that to be two times the size of a Greyhound bus. It is a very big job, obviously, just by virtue of the number, but it is also a very important job for us, because it is important that we know what the environment that we are going to have to operate in.
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As you can see, the plane of it has been rotated there. That graphic shows all 8,300 objects. The blue ball in the middle represents the Earth, and as you can see, the vast majority of our satellites are all around the Earth. But you also see this ring out here is our geo-stationary or synchronous orbit, and I will talk to you a little bit more about that, as well as the other elements of orbits that we use. Next slide, please.
First, if I may, just a few facts about space. Some would argue that space in fact has become the economic center of gravity due to our emerging dependence on space in so very many business areas. In the international community, there are over 1,000 active satellites, over 300 of those are United States or U.S. satellites, and the projections are that there will be, in the next ten years, 600 to 1,000 additional satellites to be launched. In terms of dollars, $500 billion invested between 1996 and 2000.
For example, in the year 2000 alone, in the Global Positioning System (GPS) industry, $8 billion invested. In the year 2000, for Direct TV and Dish Network TV and Direct Broadcast Systems, $31.5 billion in the year 2000. A recent study by the Satellite Industry Association and the Futron Corporation indicated that the total 2001 revenue is expected to reach nearly $100 billion, with over one million employees in 20,000 companies around the world, with a forecast of 15 percent annual growth in space investments.
There is, however, one alarming statistic that is buried in that, and that is in the United States, in the year 2000, there was an 11 percent decline in satellite manufacturing revenues. And, in fact, European satellite manufacturers have pulled ahead of us as world leaders, with 55 percent of the market share.
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You can see how down at the bottom here some examples of how space capability has been intricately woven into every facet of our lives. The one graphic you see there that is titled ''Resource Management,'' to explain what that is, that is Mount St. Helens back in 1980 just after it has erupted, and it shows the damage that was done in the area using satellite imagery. Next slide, please.
The chairman mentioned who is in space. In fact, 32 nations, as he said, own satellites in space. Some of those, as you look at this list, may surprise you. The spectrum ranges from countries that have one satellite, such as Chile or Portugal, to others, such as the United Kingdom or India, who have 21 satellites, or Japan, who has 67 satellites. Now some of these are active, not necessarily all of them.
In addition, but what you don't see on this chart, is the fact that the growth in consortia that have satellites as well as the number in those international consortia. There are 17 consortia right now that control satellites, and it ranges from everything from the European Space Agency, which has 29 satellites to Asia's satellite, which has three. Next slide, please.
But what happens if one of these satellites fails?
You may recall back in May of 1998, some of you may even have been here, when one satellite, Galaxy 4, had a problem with its attitude control system, which precluded it pointing the antennas at the Earth. And the consequences of that are, as you see here, 80 to 90 percent of the pagers were immobilized, to include the Congressional Paging System. Banking transactions were affected, and pay-at-the-pump services were also affected just by that one satellite.
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Now, fortunately, it did not affect national security, but it did very clearly show how much we are dependent and what we take for granted in terms of space capabilities.
Now what I would like to do is narrow my discussion to the military application of space. Next slide, please. Since Desert Shield and Desert Storm, combatant commanders have come to understand the importance of space capabilities in combat, in peacekeeping or in peace enforcement operations. The fact is assured—and I emphasize the word ''assured''—space capabilities are critical to military operations. We, in the military, have also become very reliant on space.
Next slide, please.
Let me talk a little bit about where we operate in space. First of all, we have approximately 140 military satellites that we operate. And this slide gives you an idea of where they are. And if you would like to put this in a perspective, if you take a standard sized basketball, I will relate to how those orbits relate to the basketball.
But, first, let me begin with air-breathing aircraft. You can see the F–18 there, of course. They go up to about 20 miles. If you were to put that on a basketball, it would be at about 1/50 of an inch above that basketball is where the airplanes fly relative to the Earth. If you go then into the low Earth orbit, which is an area defined as to one to 500 miles where we have the space shuttle operates as well as weather satellites, that, as I say, is low Earth orbit. And if you relate that to the basketball again, it relates to about 3/16 to a 1/2 of an inch off of that basketball.
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The next area is the medium Earth orbit, and that is where we have our navigational satellites, in this particular case, GPS. That is about 14 inches off of that basketball. And then if you go to our geo-stationary orbit, which is about 22,000 miles away, that relates to being about 28 inches off that basketball. And as you can see, what we have operating in that area is Defense Support Program (DSP). Those are our warning satellites, as well as some of our communication satellites.
What I would like to do on the next few slides is show you what this looks like on the ground. Next slide, please. And I will begin with the Low Earth Orbit (LEO). The format for the next four slides will be the same in that on the left you will see the satellite rotating around the Earth as the Earth rotates, and simultaneously you will see its ground traits on this flat Earth in the case of each orbit. What you see there in the yellow represents daylight and in red represents night.
And so beginning with the low Earth orbit, as you see here, and as I indicated, about 100 to 500 miles off the Earth's surface, the kinds of things we see there, as I mentioned, the space shuttle weather satellites, the International Space Station is in a LEO orbit. And some of our remote sensing satellites, such as Landsat is also in a LEO orbit. And then many of your commercial communication systems, such is Iridium or Globalstar, are also found in the low Earth orbit. Next slide, please.
Next, we will move to the medium Earth orbit. What you see here is a GPS that is orbiting the Earth. This, again, is 11,000 miles out. GPS, as you know, a Global Positioning System, is a 24-satellite constellation, which is necessary in order to provide 100 percent coverage on the Earth 24 hours a day. This orbit is also sometimes referred to as a semi-synchronous orbit. What that means is, is that it orbits the Earth twice in 24 hours. Next slide, please.
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This orbit is called the HEO, the highly elliptical orbit. It was originally created, interestingly enough, by the Soviet Union to support their communication satellites. And I was very purposeful in saying the Soviet Union. It is, and was, referred to as the Molniya orbit. It comes to 200 miles at its closest point to the Earth, and then up at the farthest, it goes out to 22,000 miles.
And as you can see from the trace here, the reason for that orbit it was designed to maximize its time over the Northern Hemisphere, which for the Soviet Union, during the Cold War, that was obviously very important to them. There are other uses for the HEO orbit as well, today, in addition to what the Russian satellites do. Next slide, please.
And then the last orbit is what is referred to as the geo-stationary orbit, synchronous orbit, GEO. The white orbit that you see there is rotating around the Earth at the Equator, and it takes the same time for a rotation as it does for the Earth to rotate; in other words, 24 hours. And the purpose of that is so that it can stay over one spot on the Earth.
The other one that you see, the kind of purple rotation there, is tilted or slightly inclined. And what that does is that provides this figure eight kind of a configuration over the Earth. And many of our commercial communication satellites, as well as our military communication satellites, as well as some DST and Direct Broadcast TV, use that.
So for each of these orbits, there are different characteristics, obviously, which are best suited for the different capabilities and which are important in terms of the design and certainly the launch of the systems. Next slide, please.
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Now, what I would like to do is move into a description of some of the force enhancement that these capabilities provide for our war-fighters from the space systems. Obviously, you are familiar with the Global Positioning System and that it provides the navigation as well as timing, which is very, very important to us, particularly in many cases for our precision-guided weapons systems. In addition, of course, in communications, it provides—
Mr. HUNTER. And, General, how many of those are there? You mentioned one that I think struck us all, is you mentioned that when one satellite went out, with respect to the commercial activities, it impacted all types of pay-at-the-pump, banking, et cetera.
General ANDERSON. Yes, sir.
Mr. HUNTER. As you go through these species of satellite applications, could you tell us how many satellites we have dedicated, roughly, to each function?
General ANDERSON. In the case of navigation, sir, and timing, the Global Positioning System, that is 24. There are more than 24 up there. Some of them are there for redundancy and that kind of thing, but 24 is necessary to provide full coverage. I do not know off the top of my head how many communications satellites we have, sir, although we can get that for you and provide that for the record.
The communications capability that we provide, however, runs from the spectrum from low data rate, which provides highly secure communications, to high data rate communications, which is not secure and is widely used, both in the military as well as in the communications side of the house.
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In the case of weather satellites, we have, I believe, four DMSP satellites, Defense Meteorological Support Program satellites, up there at the moment. Those satellites are important not just for the weather here on Earth, terrestrial weather, which obviously is very important to our war-fighters in defining the operational environment. It is also very important to us in terms of space weather, and space weather has a great effect on many things down here on Earth, to include our communications systems.
Of course, we have many signals and intelligence satellites. The number of those is classified, and so I prefer not to get into that. We do have missile warning satellites. That is currently performed by the Defense Support Program, the DSP satellite constellation, and that number is classified. However, as you can imagine, the missile warning function that is performed using the DSP satellite is NORAD's number one priority.
Today, we rely on that satellite system, which is over 30 years old, and we are eager for the launch and development of the Space Based Infrared Radar System (SBIRS) satellite, which we feel we need very badly. Next slide, please.
In U.S. Space Command, when we talk about space, it is not just about what is up in space. Space to us is more than just satellites. Here you can see some examples of that. Obviously, what we need to do is we need to be able to get our satellites into space, and so we do that through operating on two ranges: one at Patrick Air Force Base, Florida, and the other, of course, at Vandenberg Air Force Base, California.
In addition to that, we operate the Satellite Operations Network for a couple of purposes. One is to ensure that the satellites in fact do what they are supposed to be doing up there. And the other, as trivial as this may seem, is to make sure that they don't run into something else or something else runs into them; in other words, we drive them. And so we do all of that within U.S. Space Command.
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And not shown here on the chart but equally as important in terms of completing the space equation are the terminals that are terrestrially bound, whether they be in the air, on the sea or on the ground. Next slide, please.
Now, in our five decades that we have been in the Space Age, I think it is obvious that most of our attention, and rightfully so, has been put on force enhancement capabilities; providing the information to the war-fighters in near real-time so that they can do the missions that they have been expected to do. But what we have also done is we have created a set of weakly-defended targets that, if destroyed or damaged, could significantly affect our ability to do military operations as well as, I would submit, could significantly affect the economy of the nation.
We believe that our ability to access space is critical for our national security as well as the economic well-being of this nation. Today, our ability to ensure access to space is limited, and we believe that it is time for us to shift some of our emphasis and some of our resources from force enhancement to space control.
Space control, in our definition, does not mean that we are going to dominate space. What space control means to us is ensuring our use of space when we want it and denying to others if required and only for as long as is necessary for us to accomplish the operation.
So space control we define using four elements. Obviously space surveillance is the key. We have to know the operational environment. We have to achieve what we refer to as space situational awareness.
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If we don't, then we will not be able to do the other three elements, which consist of protection, protection from hostile acts as well as environmental hazards, prevention from unauthorized access to our systems, and ultimately, if required, negation. So our capabilities, we believe, must be improved so that we can effectively control space, and we must start now. Next slide, please.
The other part of space, of course, is what we refer to as force application but what is simply referred to weapons in space. Obviously, as you well know, currently there are no weapons in space. However, the Unified Command Plan, signed by the president, has tasked us and U.S. Space Command to plan for force application from space, and we are doing just that, as we look at future advanced technologies, some of which you saw in that graphic, as well as operational concepts for future capabilities. We must start today if we are going to have the capability tomorrow. Next slide, please.
Sir, in conclusion, I would hope that you could see, that I have been able to show you, that our nation, both on the civil as well as the commercial, as well as the military have become reliant on space systems. And if we are to maintain space superiority, then what we must do is we must prepare now to ensure our continued access to space, and that requires sustained investment in procurement of systems as well as in science and technology if we are to do that. And, obviously, sir, we will need your help.
I hope that this has helped, and I am prepared to answer any of your questions, sir. Thank you very much.
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[The prepared statement of General Anderson can be found in the Appendix.]
Mr. HUNTER. Thank you, General. And that was, I think, a real good laydown of the basics here. I think maybe one of the first questions that comes to mind is if you want to destroy another country's capabilities in space and the resultant operations that are connected to it, how is the easiest way to do that?
General ANDERSON. Well, sir, now the ways that are available to us are constituted in a number of ways. And, again, I must go back to the fact that space is—
Mr. HUNTER. Pull your mike a little closer there, General.
General ANDERSON. Yes, sir. I go back to the point that space is defined as not just satellites but, in fact, ground. And so a way is to go at them with a kinetic attack on any of their ground stations, wherever they may be. That is easier said than done, obviously, because as you would expect, those ground stations are located in such a way that they are not subject to something such as that.
There are other ways to do it: electronically, by jamming various signals. And I can't get into much more detail than that, sir, at the moment, due to some of the classified nature.
Mr. HUNTER. Well, let me put it this way: On a scale of one to ten, one being extreme vulnerability and ten being where you would like us to be and where you think we are capable of being in terms of defending our assets, where do you think we are right now?
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General ANDERSON. Sir, I would say we are at about 3.
Mr. HUNTER. So do you think there are a lot of areas where we could help you with the resources to get up in the area of six or seven?
General ANDERSON. Yes, sir, very definitely.
Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Taylor.
Mr. TAYLOR. General, thank you for being here. The gentleman from Maryland, Mr. Bartlett, has made all of us pretty much aware of the threat posed by electromagnetic pulse. In addition to that, what other threats does our network of satellites face?
General ANDERSON. Sir, at the moment, there are not many space threats to our satellites. However, we expect that there are nations who are designing and developing capability that could consist of kinetic kills; in other words, actually attacking a satellite. Or jamming satellites is another means by which they would affect our satellites. Or they could use lasers to blind our satellites. These are all common ways that can be used to degrade the capabilities of our assets.
Mr. TAYLOR. What do you do to counter those threats? Or what is being done or do you wait till it happens?
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General ANDERSON. Sir, for the moment, we have developed what we call a space control capstone requirement document which lays out for each of those various elements what we see to be necessary to be done.
There are some activities that are underway, which I cannot discuss in this environment here. But at the same time, part of our effort is directed, obviously, at intelligence so that we can try to learn what it is that various elements are trying to do so that we can defend and develop the capability to defend against those specific threats.
Mr. TAYLOR. And of the three, what is the most likely to occur in the next decade?
General ANDERSON. Oh, I think the most likely to occur, and could occur today, is jamming. And as you know, with the Global Positioning System, for example, we are making efforts in our modernization of that system to enhance our capability over time, and it would be over the next decade to be able to resist that kind of an effort.
Mr. TAYLOR. Aircraft has an onboard inertia system to give you a backup to GPS. And there was some talk as to whether or not LORAN would be fully done away with it. Long Range Aid to Navigation, LORAN, is a tower-based navigational system, the predecessor to GPS, which is satellites.
General ANDERSON. Yes, sir.
Mr. TAYLOR. With the threat of EMP or lasers or whatever threatening the satellites, what has been the Department of Defense's (DOD's) position on doing away with the LORAN System?
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General ANDERSON. Sir, I must confess to you that I am not that familiar with LORAN, and I would have to provide that for the record.
Mr. TAYLOR. Mr. Chairman, thank you.
Mr. HUNTER. Again, on our scale of one to ten, if jamming is a threat, where do you think we are in terms of being able to defend against it?
General ANDERSON. In our satellite capability, probably two for a couple of reasons, sir. Number one, jamming technology is becoming more widely available on the world market. And it is pretty localized.
Now, for some—let me make sure I don't misrepresent this to you, sir—because for somebody to jam a satellite it takes a lot of power. And over some period of time, we should be able to identify the fact that that is happening, and in some cases, get an idea of where it is happening so that we could take action. But that is reaction, not proactive. So if we were to be jammed with some of these systems, then we would have to work our way through it initially, and then try to find the source and eliminate it.
Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Spence.
Mr. SPENCE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I don't know if this is in the classified area or not, but do we have a procurement request coming up for anything in your area?
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General ANDERSON. Well, sir, our number one priority for new programs is the SBIRS satellite, Space-Based Infrared System, which is the replacement for DSP.
Mr. SPENCE. That is R&D, I guess.
General ANDERSON. The first one is to be launched in fiscal year 2005; that is the SBIRS High. And then followed shortly thereafter by SBIRS Low in 2006. I am not sure if we have procurement dollars associated with that system at the moment or not, sir.
Mr. SPENCE. That is all right.
Mr. HUNTER. Ms. Sanchez.
Ms. SANCHEZ. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I just had a couple of questions, and forgive me, because I haven't been on the Select Intelligence Committee yet. So what would be the nations with the capabilities or what are the nations that we believe are working on some sort of interference situation, either jamming or laser or what have you, to take out some of our capabilities of our satellites?
General ANDERSON. Well, Russia has been acknowledged over time. That is not a new data point. They have had, even from the times they were the Soviet Union, some forms of capability to interfere with our satellites. And the Chinese have openly said that they recognize our dependence on space, and so therefore consider it to be a vulnerability to us. And so we can only assume that they must be undertaking some activity as well in that area.
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Ms. SANCHEZ. So those would be what you think have the types of resources and acknowledgment of working on—not any of these rogue, sort of, nations, like North Korea or what about Iran, for example? No.
General ANDERSON. No.
Ms. SANCHEZ. They are just more into—
General ANDERSON. That is correct, yes, ma'am.
Ms. SANCHEZ.—locking in bombs or something of the sort.
General ANDERSON. Well, that is correct. However, I would point out, as well, that as you well know better than I, Russia and China are very active on the arms technology market. Let me just put it that way. There is no evidence—I don't want to misrepresent that either—to suggest that there is; that any of that kind of technology is being transferred to any of those countries, but three is a precedent for other technologies.
Ms. SANCHEZ. Okay. Second question I have for you, obviously, in southern California, we have a lot of the Black Box Programs, and I have been to see some of them. I know that in space we can find a star that is millions of light years away. When we put something into space, let's say a new satellite that is top secret, what is the availability of China or Russia to know what we have put up and to know what the capabilities of that piece of work are?
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General ANDERSON. Very limited for a couple of reasons. One is, as you would expect, that we are very careful to not advertise what our classified payloads are. And then the second reason is that our signals to and from our satellites are encrypted. And so it would be difficult. They may be able to conclude if it is a communications satellite or something such as that, at best, but I would not expect that they would be able to do much more than that.
Ms. SANCHEZ. So they know where it is, because they will probably track when we send it up. They may not know exactly what we do with it, but where is the jump from that to knowing how to jam or how to effectively take it out if they believe that it is something that is a comprehensive plan to our military's strength strategy?
General ANDERSON. You mean how would they do that or—I mean knowing the location, of course—and, you are right, I mean they have, I would imagine—and, again, I don't know for a fact—very limited capabilities, so they would have to be very specific as they prioritize to take out whatever capability. Some of it, I think, would just have to be guesswork.
Ms. SANCHEZ. Okay. And, last, you talked a bit about a realignment of resources that you believe that that needs to happen into a space program.
General ANDERSON. Yes, ma'am.
Ms. SANCHEZ. There aren't enough funds to do everything that we want to do. So if you are advocating some, sort of, realignment of resources, where would you take those resources from?
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General ANDERSON. Oh, boy. That is a very good question, and I have not looked at the entire Department of Defense budget and tried to determine where that money would come from. However, I would offer if there are excesses in the government in the budget, the national budget, not the DOD budget, if there are extra funds available, then we would suggest that this is a place where those extra funds could be applied in the Department of Defense. It is not just space, ma'am, but it is space control—
Ms. SANCHEZ. Right.
General ANDERSON.—is the area that I want to be very specific on.
Ms. SANCHEZ. But, General, you didn't hear about the tax cut and the fact that we don't have any extra money sitting around now?
General ANDERSON. If there are no extra monies, then—
Ms. SANCHEZ. So where would you take them? You talked about a realignment. You didn't say, ''I think you should cut education or I think you should cut Head Start or I think you should cut God knows what else we do.'' You said, ''Within the department''—I didn't take down your exact words—''a realignment of resources.''
General ANDERSON. When the Office of the Secretary of Defense complete their strategy reviews and we see what comes from those strategy reviews and whatever implications are of that, and I do not honestly know so I cannot be specific. I am not trying to be vague. If monies then are freed by virtue of that effort, then we would recommend this is an appropriate place to put those monies.
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Ms. SANCHEZ. Okay. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
General ANDERSON. Sir, If I may provide an answer to one question you asked earlier about military communications satellites. The unclassified figure is 34 military communications satellites.
Mr. HUNTER. Okay. Thank you.
Mr. Hefley.
Mr. HEFLEY. Thank you, General. And you are my constituent, and—
General ANDERSON. Yes, sir; it is a pleasure to be here.
Mr. HEFLEY.—we are delighted to have you here. I have appreciated the briefing. We have the U.S. Space Command, the Air Force Space Command, the Army Space Command, the Navy Space Command. Is there duplication there? How would you assess the coordination and cooperation? Does the U.S. Space Command have enough authority and umbrella authority over the Space Program to be able to pull everybody onto the same page? How would you assess that?
General ANDERSON. Well, sir, it is a very good question, and we talked about this a little bit earlier. If I could, to try to answer that, relate to you how our current chain of command exists and then how I see it being affected by the Space Commission.
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Currently, as you know—you know, particularly, sir—is that General Eberhart wears three hats. He is the commander of U.S. Space Command, as I indicated, as well as the Commander in Charge (CINC) of NORAD. But he is also the commander of Air Force Space Command.
And so in each one of those capacities he answers to a different boss, basically. As the commander in chief of NORAD, he answers to the national command authorities of both Canada and the United States. As the commander in chief of U.S. Space Command, he answers to our national command authorities. And as the commander of Air Force Space Command, he answer to the chief of staff of the Air Force.
Now, the Space Commission is, of course, taking away one of those hats and specifically taking away the commander of Air Force Space Command and forming a separate Four Star that will occupy that position. So as the CINC, General Eberhart will then wear only two hats, as the commander in chief of NORAD and the commander in chief of U.S. Space Command. I contend that that is very good, because what that does, among other things, is it allows the CINC to focus on the war-fighting requirements associated with space and space capabilities in addition to the other missions that we have there.
As for Army Space Command, Navy Space Command, as well as Space Air Force, or the Air Force component of U.S. Space Command, as you know, with every commander in chief, they have a component of each service who is responsible to them. And the answer to your question, sir, is, yes, I do believe we have the authorities to be able to exercise whatever control is necessary for us to fulfill our mission as stated in the UCP.
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Mr. HEFLEY. Do you think that we need all of these space commands?
General ANDERSON. Oh, absolutely; yes, sir.
Mr. HEFLEY. Each individual one?
General ANDERSON. Yes, sir.
Mr. HEFLEY. Could you talk to that a little bit? Why do we need each one?
General ANDERSON. Sir, each one of them brings a different piece to the table, if you will. Army Space Command, obviously, because of the nature of their business being ground-oriented and land-oriented. They focus on space as it contributes to those specific elements that they have. The same thing applies to the Navy for the sea, and the same thing applies to the Air Force space, or Space AF, as we refer to them.
So it is the combination of all of those capabilities and the synergy that you develop from having the three for the CINC to be able to draw on, to be able to fulfill whatever mission he has been given by the national command authority. He has to have that ability.
The services are, as you know, sir, by Title 10, are the providers. By law, they are the ones who develop the systems and provide the systems. And so for us to get at the Army systems or the Navy systems or the Air Force systems, we do it through our components.
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Mr. HEFLEY. Well, if I might, one more question. Developing a space campus out there at Peterson Air Force Base now, there was a lot of argument of whether the Army Space Command should go there or on an Army post, and it was decided that there was a lot of synergy and so forth to having the Army Space Command on the campus with Air Force Space Command and U.S. Space Command and a small element of Navy Space Command.
Would it make sense, eventually, and I don't mean today or tomorrow, but eventually for Navy Space Command to be there as well so that the whole campus was there?
General ANDERSON. Absolutely, sir; it does. And I think the Navy accepts that, but there are other forces at work, as you know, that have influenced their decision about retaining Navy Space Command in Dahlgren, as it currently is. But I think ultimately that is the solution. When I was the commander at SMDC, that is when we came up with the notion of the space center that we now see. And it was a very overwhelming argument for the Army, because you are right, the Army was very, very concerned about whether to put it at Fort Carson or whether to put it at Peterson.
But we felt as though the synergy that we expected we would develop from having it located as it has now turned out was overwhelmingly pushed us in the direction of doing that. And we think, ultimately, that Navy Space Command will move that way as well. They are making changes within the Navy. Not to suggest that they are thinking about moving out there. That is not one of the changes.
Mr. HEFLEY. Is there any part of the Navy we could take from San Diego and bring to Colorado Springs?
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Mr. HUNTER. And now for those other dark sinister forces at work that the general mentioned.
Mr. Reyes.
Mr. REYES. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I have just got a couple of questions dealing with, I guess, decommissioning of satellites. As you mentioned, you can blind them with a laser or some other device that puts them out of commission. Is there the possibility to slave the satellites? In other words, somebody could reprogram them with a given signal or something where we would still think that they would be operational, and they would, in actuality, be feeding us wrong information?
General ANDERSON. That is possible. I wouldn't rule anything out as not being possible. That obviously, sir, as you are aware, enters more into the cyber-side of the house where some nations may have some cyber-warfare capabilities where they have the ability to interfere. I would tell you, though, sir, I don't think that is possible with the military satellites. I think we are sufficiently protected, both in the context of our cyber-systems that support those. However, it might be a different story in the commercial satellites.
Mr. REYES. With—and I forget what the system is now—but that satellite that some of the commercial stations use to show our P–3 in China—
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General ANDERSON. Oh, yes, sir. IKONOS?
Mr. REYES. Yes. How far are we in the distant future from that being even more refined, in the context of—not controllable by us but perhaps by somebody else—being able to provide that kind of satellite time or opportunity on the world market that would give it even a more refined ability to target us?
General ANDERSON. Sir, as you know, again, the IKONOS satellite is available on the world market, the images are. And we are close to having even a better capability than the IKONOS; we being the United States. There are some commercial firms out there who are working at sub-meter accuracy.
However, I would also point out, sir, that we had expected at this particular point in time that we would have more imagery capability up there, both in terms of accuracy as well as quantity. But that commercial market doesn't seem to have materialized, for whatever reason, and so there are not quite as many up there as there had been projected maybe as recently as five years ago.
The answer to your question is that is being worked, and it will not be too much longer before we will see something up there.
Mr. REYES. And the last question I have deals with the capability of those that we target here having the ability to purchase on the marketplace the times that even our military satellites will be over their positions, the ability to try to mask their operations while we are in a position to observe them. Is that a concern, and is that something that will become even more pronounced in the immediate future?
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General ANDERSON. It is a very, very good point. As a matter of fact, that is exactly what we saw in Serbia is denial and deception, what we call in military terms, and when they know that the satellites are going to be over, then they hide, whether they hide the equipment or go into hiding themselves. So it is not a new technique; it is a very old technique and a very successful technique, and that is driven, in part, by the availability of information as to the specific location of various satellites.
Mr. REYES. All right. Those are all the questions I have, Mr. Chairman. Thank you.
Mr. HUNTER. I thank the gentleman.
Mr. Thornberry.
Mr. THORNBERRY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
General, it seems to me that you did a good job of making the most important point, and that is how dependent we are now on space, not only the military but the economy as a whole. And as that dependency grows, the vulnerabilities that come with that dependency will also grow.
If you had to estimate, if you took all of the time, effort and money we spend related to space-related things right now, what percentage of that is related to support ground and air operations, and what percentage of it goes to space control now?
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General ANDERSON. I would say, at best, 20 percent goes to space control; 80 percent goes to force enhancement.
Mr. THORNBERRY. You are more generous, I think, than most people would estimate. I am sure you probably don't have these figures with you, but do you have an idea of what percentage of the R&D budget, for example, goes to space now?
General ANDERSON. Sir, about $8.2 billion, all the services combined, goes to S&T for space. And that represents about two to three percent of each of the services.
Mr. THORNBERRY. It seems to me that if something—
General ANDERSON. Sir, obviously the Air Force spends much, much more of their S&T. They spend about 50 percent of their S&T budget on space. It is the other services that provide two to three percent.
Mr. THORNBERRY. It seems to me that if we are as dependent upon space as we are and have the vulnerabilities we have, that our resources don't seem to match up too well, particularly on the issues of space protection and surveillance, as you talked about.
You know, you talked about what happened when Galaxy 4 went out. One of these days it may be difficult for us to know why a satellite has difficulties. Isn't that true?
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General ANDERSON. Very definitely, sir.
Mr. THORNBERRY. In other words, one way to get at the United States may be to cause a difficulty with one of these commercial satellites.
General ANDERSON. Absolutely.
Mr. THORNBERRY. And so what we have to think about is not just protecting the military satellites, but as in the past, we have had to protect sea lanes for commercial traffic. The government has some responsibility to protect the space lanes for commercial traffic. Do you agree?
General ANDERSON. Definitely, sir.
Mr. THORNBERRY. You told Mr. Hunter that out of a scale of one to 10, we were about a three in defending our assets. Is that a three in defending our military assets, a three in defending our commercial assets or all together?
General ANDERSON. I would say it is a three defending our military assets. Sir, I would tell you one thing, if I may. Can I go back to the protection issue with this commercial part?
Mr. THORNBERRY. Sure.
General ANDERSON. That has to be a joint venture, first of all. I mean industry has to participate in that, and they have to sign up for it. Now, we have talked to industry about this, about putting protection on their own satellites so as to be prepared whatever activity may occur. But as you might expect at this particular time and place, industry, number one, doesn't see the threat in place.
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And, number two, they—and I am not an industry guy, so I am kind of speaking, perhaps, out of line for industry—but they see it as a business issue. In other words, if they put some package on for protection, that means they are going to have to take something else off because they are weight-limited, which could impact the amount of money they make. And so that is, kind of, the environment from an industry perspective that we are working under right now.
But if we are going to do this protection, we need to do it jointly: the military, Department of Defense, as well as the civilian industry.
Mr. THORNBERRY. Well, there are some Chinese military writings that maybe together we might share with them that might capture their attention a little bit. I think in addition to that, though, they have to see a seriousness on the part of the U.S. government in order to have a feeling they will be met halfway.
Let me ask you, briefly, you say that over the next year the top priority is SBIRS. It seems to me if something is a top priority, that the deployment dates, which you have outlined, are not reflective of something being a top priority. Is it money, technology or something else that is pushing deployments: 2006 for SBIRS Low, I think, and I forgot what high was? What is the cause?
General ANDERSON. Sir, one of the major challenge is the technology. I think this is, in fact—I don't know, I hate to use the term ''rocket science,'' but it is pretty darn close to it in terms of what it is that we are trying to accomplish with those systems. And so the contractor is working very, very diligently and is now on track for an fiscal year 2005 launch. We are in the midst, as we speak, of the IOT&E, the initial operational test and evaluation, of increment one, which is the ground piece, as you know, sir, which will be located in Buckley.
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And so the initial operational capability of that system should be realized by November of this year. We have seen nothing in the testing that consists of a show stopper that would cause that to shift in any way. Followed by the increment two, which is the high, and then increment three, which is the low.
Mr. THORNBERRY. Let me ask one other area which has not been touched upon. If you talk to some of the commercial folks, as well as others, launch capability is an issue which continues to come up. Some people suggest, for example, that we should obtain a private contractor to run the Air Force's launch facilities.
Can you tell me how you feel about our launch capability now, and what are the biggest concerns that members of this committee ought to have as we look ahead to making sure that we have an ability to put things up in space? We may come up with great technology, but if we can't get it there, it is not going to do us any good.
General ANDERSON. Absolutely; yes, sir. A couple of things that we are doing to facilitate our launch capabilities. One is the range modernization area, which is an attempt to take what is very old technology at our launch facilities and upgrade that and provide some level of automation, which would provide quick turnaround time and could enhance the capability to launch in terms of number of vehicles.
The other, of course, is the EELV, the Expendable Launch Vehicle. We need your continued support for that program. You have been very generous in helping thus far, and we need to continue that. We do see that we will be able to achieve, as a minimum, the 25 percent objective of savings associated with the EELV. I have been out to Boeing and Lockheed Martin to take a look at their facilities. They are very enthusiastic and very energetic, and they are on track to make that happen.
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At some point in the future, reusable launch vehicles would probably be the end state that we would see that we would want to go. And that is how we describe it in our vision, in the long-range vision that we have at U.S. Space Command. So I would say, sir, those are the three components that we are working, and we would turn to you at some point for help.
Mr. THORNBERRY. What is the time frame on the expendable launch vehicle?
General ANDERSON. Sir, the first EELV launch is next year, actually. That will be the light vehicle, and then it progresses from there on throughout the next several years.
Mr. THORNBERRY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. HUNTER. I thank the gentleman, and good questions.
And, General, word is that with the Europeans taking a bigger and bigger piece of the space launch market, what does the expendable launch vehicle do? That concept?
General ANDERSON. Well, sir, its primary objective is to reduce the cost. But it also gives us the capability to put up much more in terms of what we can refer to as throw weight. So it is a combination of putting up more and, of course, you can do that and it doesn't have to mean necessarily a bigger satellite. It could be more satellites on one vehicle, as well as, as I say, reduce costs.
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Mr. HUNTER. Well, do you think it is going to make us, at least our military aspect of our launch business, much more efficient than the Europeans? In other words, is this a quantum leap forward in terms of launch capability?
General ANDERSON. No. It is not. I mean, the European launch facilities are also making the same kinds of advancement in their own launch capabilities. I could not say that it is a quantum leap. It is certainly an advancement and an evolution in the development of launch capability.
Mr. HUNTER. Give us the space commission's recommendations for changing the space bureaucracy or the space command system, if you will. Give us a fast scrub on what we have now and the primary import of the changes that they have recommended.
General ANDERSON. Well, sir, as I mentioned earlier, what we will see very vividly out there in U.S. space command is the fact that our commander in chief will no longer have the responsibility as the commander of Air Force space command. And so, therefore, his responsibilities will be focused purely on U.S. space command and North American aerospace defense command. So that is one.
But the others are more in the management organization side of the house and more specifically, back here. As you know, the U.S. Air Force has been given Title 10 responsibility for space. And so, what that means is is that they have the responsibility for providing, training and equipping the space force of the United States.
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They also have upgraded their assistant secretary of the Air Force from being an assistant to an undersecretary of the Air Force, who is also dual-hatted as the National Reconnaissance Organization Chief as well. So that is another change.
They are also going to become the milestone decision authority for space-related activities. And there will be a major force program established, not in the context of an MFP, but rather—it is in the context of MFP, but it is in a virtual MFP. In other words, those space-related R&D and procurement activities will be identified and captured in the MFP 12. But they will not be moved into an MFP 12. And that is a big difference between them.
Mr. HUNTER. You know, in a number of areas where you have overlap and where you have similar jurisdictions, we have seen at least in the procurement side, we have seen people reinvent the wheel, or services reinventing the wheel—
General ANDERSON. Yes, sir.
Mr. HUNTER.—with sometimes disparities between the product that make them not interoperable, and yet, with nice checks following and nice payments of money following each logistics tail that is created by the different systems.
You don't think we have a little bit of that problem here?
General ANDERSON. We may have. We will find out. I think that is one of the things that the MFP will provide us, sir, is that there will now be visibility on all space activities, all space-related expenditures in the R&D and acquisitions side of the house. And so those kinds of overlaps should become much more apparent. And the Air Force leadership has responsibility for overseeing that as a part of their responsibilities under the space commission recommendations.
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Mr. HUNTER. Okay. Mr. Abercrombie, did you have any questions?
Okay. I thank the gentleman.
Mr. Taylor.
Mr. TAYLOR. General, it was a pretty big shock to all of us a couple years back when the Hughes-Loral deal over in China went so sour and the amount of technology that was lost through, from what I can gather, just a 30-something page fax being sent without anybody catching it, the CIA, the FBI, the DOD. No one caught it. What are the chances of that happening again and what steps have been taken to see to it that it doesn't happen again?
General ANDERSON. Well, sir, we have learned that lesson very, very well and speaking on the military side of the house, certainly. And, of course, we in U.S. space command, we are the war-fighters; we are not the developers. That responsibility falls to Air Force space command. And so I couldn't really answer to you what specific measures have been taken on the acquisitions side of the house.
Mr. TAYLOR. Is your organization in any way made aware of potential situations like that where an American firm is trying to go offshore to launch satellites? Does your organization have any input into whether or not, you know, a veto of that or at least an opportunity to lay your thoughts to the commander in chief of the Joint Chiefs of Staff?
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General ANDERSON. Sir, as a matter of fact, you just mentioned it. It is the Joint Chiefs of Staff. They would have the responsibility. But they do consult with us as U.S. space command on any kind of an issue of that nature where it reflects some transfer of space-like technology. So we respond to the joints of staff in providing our input and our assessment in terms of its impact on war-fighting capabilities. They are the ones who are responsible for doing the interagency work and ultimately working with the national security council.
Mr. TAYLOR. Well, let's walk through this. We see another request coming down the pike like that. What is the mechanism? Who gets in touch with your organization to see whether or not you think that is a bad idea?
General ANDERSON. Joint staff, sir.
Mr. TAYLOR. Joint Chiefs of Staff?
General ANDERSON. Yes, sir. That is correct.
Mr. TAYLOR. And who would get that? You?
General ANDERSON. Ultimately it would come to me. I would be included. Myself and the Commander in Charge (CINC) would be included with the initial notification. And then we would task it out to the staff to examine it and provide a recommendation for us to bring back here.
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Mr. TAYLOR. And is that business transaction put on hold for how long until you can get back to them? Or are you just made aware of it and it is proceeding down the pike?
General ANDERSON. If it is a request for permission to do something, my belief is that they would hold up the request until it had been properly coordinated with all who have an interest in that, which could include NASA, as well as others, depending upon what the specific technology is that you are referring to.
If it is something that happened perhaps in a intelligence operation or something such as that, obviously, that will have already have happened. The issue will have already begun. Those are but two scenarios. I am sure there are other scenarios as well.
Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Would you yield to me?
Mr. TAYLOR. Certainly.
Mr. ABERCROMBIE. This is very disconcerting.
General ANDERSON. Yes, sir.
Mr. ABERCROMBIE. How long have you been in charge?
General ANDERSON. Well, I have been the deputy there since October, sir.
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Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Well, didn't you get any kind of an in-service training or anything when you come in there?
General ANDERSON. I have had some experience in this area before, sir.
Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Because on page two of your testimony, ''in coordination with Joint Chief and appropriate CINCs, U.S. space com provides military representation to U.S. national agencies, commercial and international agencies''—I emphasize commercial—''for matters related to military space operations unless otherwise directed by the secretary of defense.''
Now your answers to Representative Taylor don't reflect that testimony. You have to be specifically kept out of that picture specifically by order of the secretary of defense. Then I am quoting in the next sentence, ''most recently U.S. space com has been identified as the military lead for DOD's computer network defense, CND, and computer network attack, CNA, missions.''
Now you may not be familiar with exactly the attitude—I hope it is more than an attitude—the position that I have, and in some respects I am going to say Mr. Taylor has, and others on this committee, about transfer of technology.
But the reason for his question and the reason for my interrupting him or requesting him to yield to me was that we are very, very concerned about whether or not our military intelligence, our capacity to carry out our missions are being compromised for commercial greed in this nation.
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And the difficulty for us is we expect the Department of Defense to, in turn, be the primary focus of protection for that. And my understanding is that you are supposed to be the lead agency. But your answers to Mr. Taylor are such that you are almost a passive bystander.
General ANDERSON. Sir, if I communicated that, then that was not intentional. Because we are more than a passing bystander, that is for sure. But in the development of capability, that responsibility falls on the services.
Mr. ABERCROMBIE. It does not, according to your testimony. You are, in addition to the CND and CNA, it says that you are to provide a military representation to all commercial agencies in matters related to military space operations.
Doesn't the commerce department have to get your permission if they intend to engage in commercial activities that may possibly be antithetical to the security interests of the nation?
General ANDERSON. Sir, if I may, I would like to provide that answer for the record. I understand your concern. And I can assure you that we are not at all, and we are very sensitive to transfer of—
Mr. ABERCROMBIE. When is the last time that your agency was contacted with respect to making a analysis, observation or recommendation in regard to any of these issues, including CND and CNA missions?
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General ANDERSON. Well, we are regularly consulted.
Mr. ABERCROMBIE. General, I don't want to get in an argument with you, but don't give me this question about being consulted. I get consulted. I consult with my wife all the time. That is not the same thing as my position on this committee with respect to what my duties and responsibilities are.
It does not say in your testimony you are to provide military representation to U.S. national agencies, including commercial; you are the military representative. Even the answer you are giving me now, you are answering in the passive mode.
Are you or are you not in charge of military representation with respect to what is appropriate to commercial United States agencies in regard to space command?
General ANDERSON. We are, sir, for military space.
Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Then what is the procedure for enacting your responsibilities?
General ANDERSON. The joint staff will, when they are informed of any kind of an issue, such as you describe, they come to us if we have not been informed by any other means. The joint staff is largely our conduit for doing that.
Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Who is your formal contact, then, in the Department of Commerce, with respect to commercial activities?
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General ANDERSON. Sir, the joint staff is the one that is engaged in the interagency activities. They would be the ones who would get the initial contact from the Department of Commerce. The joint staff would then come to us.
Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Mr. Chairman, I don't want to continue. You have granted me more time and Mr. Taylor has been more than generous to me. But I am not satisfied with this answer, in the least.
No offense, General, I am sure you are doing your best.
But Mr. Chairman, we would better find out damn quick exactly how this works. Because I have an idea that these folks are sitting on the sidelines. And these other people just move ahead and do as they damn well please, particularly if it is commercial and they can make some money out of it.
Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Abercrombie, you have touched on a good issue and an issue that took a lot of our attention over the last couple of years. Why don't we ask the general to work this issue with us? And why don't we set up a meeting here in the next week or so. And we will try to engage as fully as possible.
So, you now, General, know our concern. And incidentally, it is shared by folks on both side of the aisle here, especially with respect to technology transfer.
So Mr. Taylor, that was one of the longest yielding sessions of all time.
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Mr. ABERCROMBIE. I beg your pardon, Mr. Chairman, but I really did want to try and get those squared away.
Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Abercrombie, I think you have made a very good point. And this is an area we had major hearings on as a result of some of the losses, perceived losses of American technology and gained capability on the parts of those that may be adversaries someday.
Mr. Taylor.
Mr. TAYLOR. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
General, again, there are so many ways this could be used against us. Now I would presume that there is a commercial firm out there in the world that can call up shipping agencies and say, I can use existing technology, whether it be just plain old visual satellites or even a satellite that can look at the plume of a ship and say, ''Well, that is the Jason Maru.'' I could tell you exactly where the Jason Maru is on any given day, just in case the captain isn't being totally straight with you about his position.
But on the flipside, if that technology is out there and there is someone who wished to do the Cole or any other vessel harm—I guess my concern, to follow up what Mr. Abercrombie says, if we are going to allow, of course, commercial firms this sort of information, I have to believe that someone at the DOD has to be monitoring on the chance that it is going to be used against us.
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General ANDERSON. Sir, I understand your concern and I can assure you force protection is one of our most significant concerns in the context of the situation you just described.
And I will look forward to the opportunity, Mr. Chairman to engage back with you or your staff here in the not too distant future to address this issue with you.
Mr. TAYLOR. But getting back to my question specifically, I would like someone on your staff to walk us through what I consider to be the Hughes-Loral fiasco and the 30-something page fax that went out without anyone saying you can't do that.
What is different today? Going through the whole analogy, if someone wanted to come to you and say we want to launch satellites over in a country that may not necessarily like us, walk us through what would be different today then what happened over in the People's Republic of China several years ago on the Hughes-Loral launch where they, just because some idiot sent them a 30-something page fax, got a heck of a lot of technology with regard to kicking satellites into orbit or multiple warheads into orbit, whichever someone chooses to use in the future.
What has occurred within your organization to keep that from happening again? And if it is not your organization, could you tell us who has that responsibility, because I would like to ask them the question.
Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Taylor, why don't we make that the subject of one of our 8 o'clock in the morning briefings, since we have started this little practice of having some early briefings. So the staff will work with you, General, and we will have a little session on this?
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General ANDERSON. Okay, sir.
Mr. TAYLOR. Mr. Chairman, I hope you excuse me. Some folks from Lawrence Livermore are in my office.
Mr. HUNTER. Certainly, certainly.
The gentleman from Texas?
Mr. THORNBERRY. General, what are the prospects of the Air Force taking up the reusable launch vehicle that NASA dropped?
General ANDERSON. Sir, there is as a result of a partnership meeting between Mr. Goldin and General Eberhart about a week and a half or two weeks ago, they have formed a study that will include the NRO, as well as NASA and DOD.
It is a 60-day study to look at reusable launch vehicles and the future of them to include the various components that are currently under investigation by NASA and the way ahead. And so that is in progress as we speak.
Mr. THORNBERRY. So within 60 days we ought to have an answer about where you all want to go.
General ANDERSON. They will make a recommendation to the three leaders and then the three leaders will, from that, develop a recommendation as to the way ahead. Yes, sir.
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Mr. THORNBERRY. Let me ask you this. And I realize that you have been in this position only since October. But one of the things that a number of people are concerned about is if we are to put added emphasis on space as it must have, then it is necessarily going to come, really, out of the Air Force's hide. And you gave us some numbers in response to my earlier questions about the percentage of budget that comes from the other services verses the percentage of the R&D budget that comes from the Air Force.
Aren't we going to have a problem with space with the organization that we have now unless and until we have, really, its own procurement authority or its own representation up at the top level?
General ANDERSON. Sir, that is, as you know, one of the issues that the space commission addressed. And their conclusion—and we would agree with it, so I am not trying to point this responsibility to somebody else—was that we would take this step that we are doing right now, in terms of the milestone and decision authority and Title 10 and MFP and all that kind of thing, and with the intent to try to make that work.
And then a reassessment will be made, although I am not sure specifically when that has been developed, when that would happen, as to whether or not it is working. And if it is or is not, then somebody will look at a different way. And perhaps it could be that that is the way it goes.
Mr. THORNBERRY. One of the options that they talk about is to create space as an additional major force program. That is at least one, again, intermediate step which could bring space kind of together and give it greater emphasis, don't you think?
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General ANDERSON. Yes, sir, that is true. And what we have chosen to do is to undertake the MFP, major force program, in the virtual context, as we are going to try that. And then my expectation is if for some reason that doesn't work, then alternatives will be looked at in terms of what the next—and again, it could be that you go to a full blown MFP.
Mr. THORNBERRY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Abercrombie.
Mr. ABERCROMBIE. General, I am sorry, but old journalism class I took told us about a phenomenon in journalism called ''glittering generalities.'' And what we are hearing right now is ''glittering generalities.'' Let's take force enhancement, page six, GPS and SATCOM systems.
I am just trying to figure out what actual authority you have. Maybe we need to give you more authority. Maybe we need to write language that gives you more direct authority and responsibility. You understand I am not asking these questions because I enjoy giving you a bad time.
As the chairman has affirmed already, this subcommittee, I think, is in some respects been a bird in the wilderness crying out that we see real problems, real significant problems that are going to cause us all kinds of grief. And the terrible part about it is, General, is I don't think it is going to cause you any grief or me any grief personally, but it is liable to kill a hell of a lot of people and put the security interests of the United States at risk.
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Now, I think it is fair to say, Mr. Chairman, that the general complains in his testimony starting on page six in force enhancement, going to page seven. ''Over the past decade, a significant amount of radio frequency spectrum has been reallocated to the Federal Communications Commission.''
Now that gives me, Mr. Chairman, a whole hell of a lot of comfort. I mean, the Federal Communications Commission is about as useless as anything that I have seen so far in terms of being able to exercise any kind of authority over the frequency that is supposed to belong to the people of the United States. They get pushed around by the—well, in any event, if we are relying on the Federal Communications system and we are talking about the security of the country, again going back to your original testimony as to you being the agency to which the commercial interests must look for permission.
Now you say to move forward here, the defense authorization—some of the spectrum previously allocated for federal use. This committee was a part of that. Now, you say, however, next ''we face continued requests for expanded nonfederal civil and commercial use of this limited spectrum.'' And then you give an example with the space ground link subsystem frequencies which support the on-orbit satellite systems to be reallocated.
Do you have the authority to turn this down? Do you have the authority to say to the secretary of defense or the Joint Chiefs or whomever you are reporting to, ''We are opposed to this. This compromises the national security interests of the United States.'' Do you have that authority?
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General ANDERSON. Yes, sir.
Mr. ABERCROMBIE. And do you have a process by which you can exercise that decision should you conclude that is in fact what the situation is from your point of view?
General ANDERSON. Yes, sir.
Mr. ABERCROMBIE. What is that?
General ANDERSON. Sir, we—
Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Well, then how can you be saying that you face continued requests? How can they continue requests of you if—when was the last request?
General ANDERSON. Sir, I would have to provide that for the record. I don't—
Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Well, in general, for conversation's sake. Have there been five requests over the last six months? Once over the last year?
General ANDERSON. Sir, I do not know. I should, I suppose. But I will provide that for the record.
Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Whoever helped you to put this together, then, presumably would know, would they not?
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General ANDERSON. Oh, sure. Yes, sir. Somebody on our staff will know.
Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Let's suppose for conversation's sake that it happened once—
General ANDERSON. Okay.
Mr. ABERCROMBIE.—since the 1990 defense authorization act, that someone has requested this expanded nonfederal use or commercial use of this limited spectrum. Do you think it has happened once? It says here continued requests in the plural. It happened at least once then, possibly twice or more.
General ANDERSON. Sir, if I could place this in the context of the statement, please, when I say ''We face continued requests,'' what I am suggesting and what I am saying here is we get requests from OSD, who get requests from whatever sources they get them from or we get requests from the joint staff. It is the process. They ask us what is our position—
Mr. ABERCROMBIE. But you say on page eight that your position is it will limit our ability to effectively command and control our space assets. Jesus, that is pretty fundamental.
General ANDERSON. And that is exactly—
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Mr. ABERCROMBIE. So have you turned them down?
General ANDERSON. Sir, we are not the decision authority.
Mr. ABERCROMBIE. I didn't say that. Have you made a representation to whoever you make the representation to that if this is carried forward, if this request is carried forward that you will be limited in your ability to effectively command and control your space assets.
General ANDERSON. Yes, sir, we—
Mr. ABERCROMBIE. That is in writing someplace.
General ANDERSON. I can't say for sure that I have seen it, but yes, sir, I will get that for the record for you.
Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Is that your position today?
General ANDERSON. It is.
Mr. ABERCROMBIE. And the Joint Chiefs are aware of that?
General ANDERSON. Yes, sir.
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Mr. ABERCROMBIE. If this goes forward then, am I to take it that the Joint Chiefs don't pay attention to your recommendation?
General ANDERSON. Sir, I will not speak for the Joint Chiefs.
Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Has the Joint Chiefs ever overruled you?
General ANDERSON. Not since I have been there.
Mr. ABERCROMBIE. But you said you are not aware of something since October.
General ANDERSON. That is correct.
Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Well, is there anybody on your staff that can tell—I mean somebody knew enough to be able to talk about the reallocation of the space ground link subsystem frequencies to put it into this testimony.
General ANDERSON. Sir, I am not sure—
Mr. ABERCROMBIE. I am frustrated. Excuse me, sir.
I am frustrated, Mr. Chairman, because if it is the Joint Chiefs that are the ruling body here or the secretary of defense, either they pay attention to the recommendations coming up or they don't. Otherwise, why ask them in the first place?
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Mr. HUNTER. Well, Mr. Abercrombie, what I would say is this. We have a date now with the general to expand on this area that Mr. Taylor and you are interested in and I am interested in also.
And why don't we add to that subject matter, General, this subject matter that Mr. Abercrombie has just brought up, and specifically, the proposal being considered to accelerate the reallocation of the space ground link subsystem frequency, which you say could limit our capability in space.
So why don't you come armed with some facts and—
Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Just one addendum to that, Mr. Chairman—
Mr. HUNTER. And I think Mr. Abercrombie has a good point here, in that we have to make sure there is some connectivity here with some accountability. And maybe you can understand some of our frustration because we went through a lot of hearings without ever being able to determine who the heck was supposed to say no or was in a position to say no.
And as a result of that, a lot of bad things, in our estimation, happened. So let's add that onto our briefing. And Neil—
Mr. ABERCROMBIE. If you would be so kind, Mr. Chairman, just 30 seconds.
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Mr. HUNTER. Absolutely. Go right ahead, Neil.
But with respect to this thing, what I thought we might do, I think we have a breakfast briefing next Wednesday morning an another issue. What I thought, Neil, with your indulgence and Gene's, if we could precede that with this briefing, at say 7:30 in the morning.
Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Fine.
Mr. HUNTER. So we get there 30 minutes early. And we will push the other one off to 8:30 and we will take this thing up first.
So, having said that, just go ahead, Neil.
Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Thank you.
With regard to force protection on page eight. See, the problem, General, with submitting testimony is people actually read it. And that always causes a problem, I know.
Under that glittering generality, it all sounds very good here, but that doesn't tell us anything. That paragraph tells me absolutely nothing. So perhaps you could let us know exactly what it is you do to continue to conduct regular antiterrorism training assessing and correcting for our vulnerabilities.
What constitutes regular antiterrorism training? Can you give me an example?
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General ANDERSON. Sir, there are several ways in which we do it. We have staff sections. For example, on our staff it is the J34 who has responsibility. Their sole responsibility is force protection and antiterrorism. And so therefore, they are linked into the joint staff J34 and so on. In addition—
Mr. ABERCROMBIE. What does it do?
General ANDERSON. Sir, it stays in, basically, touch with all activities associated with potential threats and informs subordinate commands of—
Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Give me an example.
General ANDERSON. If there is a threat in, let's say, Egypt, that has developed through intelligence sources, then we would inform the command that they need to inform their subordinate elements if they have those in Egypt.
Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Would this have been useful where the Cole was concerned?
General ANDERSON. Of course it would be, sir.
Mr. ABERCROMBIE. How would that work? What possibly could you have been doing with respect to conducting regular antiterrorism training, assessing, correcting your own vulnerability. Does this have to do just with the space command? You mean developing some intelligence through a satellite system? Is that what you are referring to?
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General ANDERSON. No, no. No, sir. No, I am talking about intelligence that we are provided by, again, by the joint staff and the J34, who would be our counterparts. They would inform us of these various threats. They would also inform us of various training sessions that are available, both for our staff, as well as our subordinate elements, in which they are made aware of what some of the techniques may be, some terrorists may use.
Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Why would you be doing that? Wouldn't your obligation be to protect space com facilities and so on?
General ANDERSON. It is. Yes, sir.
Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Well, then what would you have to do with all—because the way you have it down here is you are virtually all over the world. How many people do you have working in this?
General ANDERSON. Sir, we don't have many people. But we have them deployed worldwide. And so therefore, we have a responsibility for the force protection of those individuals no matter where they may be.
Mr. ABERCROMBIE. All right then, I am forced to ask you, were you informed that there was a possibility of terrorist attack in Yemen? In the harbor?
General ANDERSON. Sir, I was not in U.S. space command at the time of that incident, so I cannot say.
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Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Well, I am trying to figure out what authority—who exactly does this? Is it a captain? Is it a lieutenant? Who does this?
General ANDERSON. Who does what, sir?
Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Conducts your regular antiterrorism training, assessing and correcting of our own vulnerabilities.
General ANDERSON. We are responsible for ensuring that the resources and the guidance are provided to our subordinate commands. It falls down the chain of command—
Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Well, do you have a pamphlet or a booklet or a series of directives or orders that enables people to understand what their responsibilities are in this regard?
General ANDERSON. Yes, sir, we do. We have a unified instruction within U.S. space command.
Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Well, could you provide that to the committee?
General ANDERSON. Yes, sir.
Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Thank you.
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Mr. HUNTER. Mr. McIntyre.
Mr. MCINTYRE. No questions.
Mr. HUNTER. Okay.
General, thank you for being with us. Let me just ask you to, as you finish up here, if you could tell us what, right now, your biggest priority is.
General ANDERSON. Sir, our biggest priority in U.S. space command is, as you would expect, the execution of the mission and the responsibilities that we are given under the unified command plan in terms of providing the space support for our commanders in chief, as well as we have now been given the mission for computer network operations, in other words, computer network defense and computer network attack, which I addressed in my statement.
And then, of course, we do see on the horizon, that at some point decisions will be made on missile defense. And we expect that that will affect us either in U.S. space command and/or in NORAD.
Mr. HUNTER. If you had a few extra dollars this year, where would you put them?
General ANDERSON. Sir, if you were to give me extra money, I would probably put them into computer network operations. It is an area that we are just beginning to understand and learn about. And the more we learn, the more we see that we have need to move in that direction.
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Mr. HUNTER. Do you see any marked funding shortfalls?
General ANDERSON. Sir, at the moment, as you know, the budget is in the process of being reviewed.
Mr. HUNTER. I know that.
General ANDERSON. And so I have not had any access—
Mr. HUNTER. But in the context of what you have now, you know what you have, essentially in terms of facilities and capability. Do you see any areas where you think there are fairly strident priorities?
General ANDERSON. SBIRS continues to be our priority, as I indicated. Other than that, no, sir.
Mr. HUNTER. Okay. Thank you very much, General. We now look forward to having this 7:30 session with you. And let's try to do that, Bob, on Wednesday morning.
Okay. Thank you very much. Appreciate it. I thank the members for attending.
General ANDERSON. Thank you, sir.
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[Whereupon, at 4:30 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]
A P P E N D I X
June 20, 2001
[The Appendix is pending.]