t organization's efforts to increase the number of women serving in public office. washington journal. join the conversation live at 7:00 eastern on thursday morning on c-span, c-span now, or c-span.org. >> thursday, panelists discuss tax policy and the upcoming expiration of tax cuts passed in 2017. hosted by the committee for a responsible federal budget you can watch the summit live starting at 3:40 pm on c-span, c-span now, or c-span.org. >> c-span now is a free mobile app featuring your unfiltered view of what is happening in washington live and on-demand. keep up with the biggest events with live streams of floor proceedings in hearings from the u.s. congress, white house events the courts, campaigns and more from the world of

politics, all at your fingertips. stay current with the latest episodes of washington journal and find scheduling information for c-span tv network and radio plus a variety of compelling podcasts. c-span now is available at the apple store and google play. scan the qr code to download for free today or visit c-span.org/c-span now. your front row seat to washington anytime anywhere. >> up next, operations chief for the u.s. space force speaks at a security form hosted at the mitchell institute for aerospace . this is just under one hour. >> that is pretty good.

i only have to ask you one time. generally it takes five minutes to get everyone seated. welcome, ladies and gentlemen to mitchell institute's third annual space power security forum. for those of you i have not had the good pleasure of meeting it, i am dean of the mitchell institute for aerospace studies. we here at mitchell institute are committed to informing the national security debate, educating about the essential rules of airpower and space power, and advocating for the policies and resources necessary to improve our nation's defense. there with me, if you will, and take a look at the screens. we have a little bit of a background presentation for you. ♪ >> everyone looks up at the same sky. but not everyone sees what we see. challenges and opportunity, all

hang in the balance. that is why at the mitchell institute, we are devoted to pushing the envelope to ensure america's continued dominance in the air and in space. our team of experts have created strategies, flown the aircraft, and operated the space that has prevailed. we never stop thinking about the issues central to aerospace and national security. from airpower, space power strategy and deterrence, to acquisition and budgeting and nuclear modernization. we inform and educate policies about the aerospace issues facing america. we are proud to chart the course to a new sector. when you look up, look up to the mitchell institute. dean deptula: ok. everyone in this room knows that space is absolutely in goal to modern life and crucial to military operations. as a result, are atmosphere --

our adversaries are you wielding weapons to deny us the benefit of space. . as the department focuses on great power and competition, the importance of capitalizing on and maintaining our space advantage is greatly magnified. this is precisely why the mitchell institute created its space power advantage center of excellence, or mi space, to inform the american public, congress, and the department of defense about the emerging challenges and opportunities facing the space force and our nation. heading up this effort, mitchell institute is very proud to have my good friend and partner general kevin chile chilton as an myspace's explorer chair. it is kind of an opportune time, because yesterday, explorer three was launched in 1958. it is very appropriate timing today.

beyond being an incredible space professional, having served as a former commander of strategic command and air force space command, mr. chilton is one of the people who worked in space and visited space as an astronaut. and to do that three times. it is my pleasure to introduce you to the stage, who will be introducing our guest speaker. thanks very much. [applause] commander chilton: thank you. good morning, everybody. it is a pleasure for me to kick off the forum and introduce our first, and i think most important speaker of the day. general saltzman is a true space power pioneer. the second chief of space operations, he is focused on transitioning the space force to a service prepared for the reality of space as a war fighting domain. as part of this effort, in little over a year ago, general saltzman laid out a series of

success called competitive endurance. aimed at deterring conflict and controlling escalation, competitive endurance includes three lines of effort. denying first mover advantage avoiding operational surprise, and responsible space campaigning. when general saltzman put out this theory of success, he also challenged the space force and broader national security space community to engage in a debate on how to continue refining this theory of success to make u.s. space power as strong as possible. that is what we are all about the mitchell institute providing a platform for debate and discussion, and a platform for education. general saltzman, we here at mitchell heard your challenge and are excited to host this event today. without further ado, i want to welcome you to the stage, and thank you for kicking off this forum today. [applause]

gen. saltzman: thank you general chilton. it is the third time you have introduce me in the last couple of weeks, which happens to be the same number of times that general chilton has gone to space. [laughter] and one of those is so much cooler and more distinguished -- more distinguished than the other. i do appreciate that you went to space, also. [laughter] thanks to general deptula as well. mitchell institute has been putting on the security forum and with this current theme of competitive endurance, it is near and dear to my heart. i appreciate all the effort and opportunity to have this debate and discussion. it is critical to what we are doing. before i get started today, i want to draw your attention to the fact that it is international whiskey day. [laughter] it is a little early in the

morning. and i don't have anything up here, i don't think. but there is a distillery in north carolina that is looking to age their bourbon for three years, on earth, followed by one year in space. it's true. they are going to launch the barrel enclosed in a titanium shell, and deorbit and after a year. you can get a bottle of it for the low price of $75,000 per bottle. and if you have seen the 24 budget, you know i will not be -- the space force will not be purchasing one. this is not the first time whiskey has been aged in space. in 2011, there was a scotch whiskey aged in the space. while some said it tasted like fruit lawns edges -- like throat lozenges, others said the taste was out of this world. [laughter] since we rolled out the working theory of success called competitive endurance, a little

over a year ago -- i am amazed at the dialogue, the discourse from the field, from academia, from our partners and allies. the genesis of the topic today the logic of space superiority stemmed from a conversation i had with julie at the afa's symposium back in february when we were talking about competitive endurance. i want to spend some time level setting this forum by introducing the logic of space superiority through our idea of domain control. which falls in line with all of the other military services. then i want to open it up to questions, because i want to hear what is on your mind. my hope is that the discussion will be a nice tie into the three panels later today centered around each of the tenants of competitive endurance. to start, all measurable metrics continue to show dramatic growth in the use of space, from 2008 to the end of this year. the projected number of launches worldwide is up almost 400%. number of active satellites, up

more than 700%. a number of satellites launched per rockets, up a whopping 2100%. more concerning, we see a dramatic rise in man-made debris and a corresponding increase in the hazard of on orbit collisions. to punctuate that point the number of conjunctions to the international space station are up over 1000% in the last four years, resulting in multiple shelter-in-place warnings for the astronauts. the increasing use of space is not the only driving of change here either. two decades ago, threats were localized, temporary and mostly minor inconveniences. fast forward to today. we have seen an incredibly sophisticated array of threats from the traditional gps jammers, to more destabilizing direct weapons across every orbital regime, two on orbit

grapplers, optical dazzler's, directed energy weapons, and increasingly cyber attacks both to our ground stations and the satellites themselves. it has become increasingly apparent over the past decade that the russians and the prc are coupling space-based isr with precision guided musicians -- munitions that can receive updated targeting. specifically, the prc has more than 470 isr satellites that are feeding a robust sensor, shooter kyl web. part of the fabled a to a deep problem that most of us are familiar with. this new censored to shooter kyl web creates an unacceptable risk to our former -- our forward deployed forces. this is something most of us are not used to thinking about. our lived experience in the middle east was one of indirect mortars, rockets ied's, not too thousand kilogram warheads delivered at mach 5 by more

ballistic missiles. we have gotten a taste of what it looks like from the 2020 iranian attack on u.s. forces at al-assad airfield, and more recently with the ongoing conflicts in gaza and ukraine. collectively, this rise in congestion and competition within the domain has led to a growing risk to our continued access to and operations within space. in the face of this unacceptable risk, the face -- the space force was established. in military service focused on addressing the challenges and opportunities we face in the space domain. in the military sense the task is a reflection of the space force's charge. to prepare ourselves to control the space domain with force, if necessary, as part of the joint force while also protecting the security and prosperity our nation derives from space. since so many joint force operations depend on space

capabilities and protection from space enabled attacks our guardians are an integral part of the joint force. every military service regardless of domain, must field forces capable of free core operational activities. access to their domain, control of their domain, and exploitation of their domain to ensure the security and sustainability of the domain, not just for the u.s., but all of our allies and partners. a service must be able to control its domain to be able to access and exploit it. each service must be able to control its effective domain for the joint force to be successful. the air force must gain air superiority, control of the skies to enable friendly aircraft operation without significant threat from enemy forces. this control allows the u.s. to conduct various operations including close air support reconnaissance, strategic attack, with reduced risk to

those assets. the navy uses see control to establish dominance over specific areas of this he, exerting influence over maritime activities within the region, allowing us to project power globally, protect maritime trade routes, and ensure freedom of navigation. finally for the u.s. army, land dominance is a fundamental access -- aspect of its doctrine. emphasizing the capability that can tug ground operations across a wide range of environments and scenarios. to allowed to establish a main theme control over territory on land, and enabling the force to dictate the terms of engagement, deny access to adversaries, and project power within a designated area. for our service space superiority is the fir function. it is the ability to contest and when necessary, control the space domain, at a time and place of our choosing. must protect our space capabilities while also being able to deny an adversary the hostile use of its space

capabilities. in the past, we were able to meet our mission by accessing and a split -- and exploiting the domain. now the domain is more contested than ever. role of the domain is not only an operational imperative, it is the space force's reason for being. preparing forces to achieve space superiority without the insights of historic combat experience in the space domain requires a system of assumptions, guiding principles, logical conclusions that focus all service activities on a common operational perspective. this was the starting point of competitive endurance, and my reason for being here with you today. the noted military strategist bh little heart one said "the objective in war is a better state of peace even if only from your own point of view. hence it is essential to conduct war with constant regard to the peace you desire." unlike the other domains with some exceptions, when conflict

takes place in the space domain, remanence of that action stay around for a very long time. at is why our approach to space superiority cannot endanger the safety security, stability, and long-term viability of the space domain. this was ultimately the genesis of competitive endurance. a theory of success that allows us to balance the need to deny the adversary's use of space while protecting our ability to use it. only by pursuing space superiority in a disciplined way can the space force ensure the u.s. and our allies and partners have the peace we desire, and more specifically, that we can all access and exploit the space domain. i think on the chart, on the screens, you will see a quad chart i like to use. it sparked a debate that we had a couple months ago. i would like to use this to talk about the logic of space superiority in competitive

endurance help influence that. at its core, it is a visual representation of blue space capabilities against red space capabilities. top left is where we have lived for a second -- for a significant time. it is where we want to be. blue space superiority. of course, it favors u.s. and our allies and partners. the bottom left is a space domain where neither blue or red can use space capabilities. i would argue this is a landscape that also favors the prc in the western pacific. in other words, we need our space capabilities to project the power that will be effective. the top right is a space domain where both blue and red can use space capabilities the way they want. one would also argue this favors the prc again, because of the localities in the western pacific. would love to talk more about this in the q&a section. finally, the bottom right is where red has faced superiority and of course it favors the prc. anything other than the top left

has very high risk to the joint force, and our ability to project power. how do i increase the top left box while maintaining the domain for future usage? that is the job of the space force. it is where competitive endurance comes into play. first, we must avoid operational surprise. we cannot, as a country or a service, miscalculate the capabilities, force posture, or intentions of our potential adversaries. we must have timely and relevant indications and warnings to help us avoid operational surprise in crisis and take defensive actions where appropriate. this means we need to have access to and invest in actionable state -- space domain awareness. to prepare our combat forces reassure allies, strengthen partnerships, and reinforce norms of responsible behavior in space. secondly, we must and first mover advantage. the space force must make a first strike in space

impractical and self-defeating, thus discouraging potential adversaries from taking such actions. this phase force's resiliency efforts are to make preemptive attacks against space-based capabilities. this means our forces must be able to defeat, absorber, and recover from attacks. we will continue to feel defensive capabilities that protect space missions from attack, and resilient capabilities that degrade gracefully if attacked. finally, we must be prepared to undertake responsible counterspace can tame -- campaigning. we must preserve our advantages without incentivizing rivals to escalate to distractive military activities in space. should deterrence fail, space forces must be prepared to protect the nation in the joint force from space enabled attack without generating hazardous debris. striking this balance will require a wide range of measures to interrupt adversary targeting

when necessary. our adversaries must never be debt that -- desperate enough or emboldened enough to ensure this combat in space. these three tenants guide investment that posture us to protect the u.s. interest without compromising the usability of the space domain. if we can do these three things, that allows the joint force to effectively engage strategic rivals, does not compromise the safety security, stability long-range sustainability of the domain, this is the logic of space superiority, and why it is so critical to the joint force. because if we do not have space we lose. 31 years ago this month general chuck horner testified before the sun arms service committee as the commander said, quote tomorrow is national military strategy, must fundamentally accept the potential adversaries with the capabilities to do so will conduct military

hostilities jan the terrestrial arena and enter the limits of space. following the end of the cold war and our victory in desert storm, the space domain was hours to control. as general horner warned, our potential adversaries have identified space as a critical capability of the joint force and our challenging control of the domain. competitive endurance was created to solidify our approach to achieving space superiority. we must have space superiority if the joint force will be successful in any conflict. my hope is our conversations particularly those discussions focused on individual tenants of competitive endurance, will help us to think through the challenges we collectively face, what we need to change to address those challenges, and how we need to work together to find the innovative solutions we need to ensure space superiority. thank you so much for allowing me to speak on this topic.

i'm truly passionate about it. may be as much as david deptula but i am very passionate about this topic. it is only fitting on international whiskey day that this kentucky boy sign off with scottish and gaelic for "years." or as the southern gentleman william faulkner would say civilization begins with distillation. [laughter] [applause] >> want to thank you for being here and speaking with us. when you talked about general horner 30 years ago, the air force and state force -- space force was 10 years ahead in many capabilities our adversaries possess. today, it is china. china is probably, in some areas, ahead of us in terms of

capabilities. part of the problem is, we don't know what the space force needs. i say that because the recent priority list came out, and there were six items. how do we in the industry respond to your need if we don't know what you need? security is a problem. security is important. but there got to be a balance. gen. saltzman: i could not agree more. the short answer is you can't respond if you don't know the needs. that's on us. second the unfunded priority list is an addendum. it is an add on. what you need to note is what is in our budget. think you will be able to see where we wish we had more dollars because you will see the funding profile. i courage you to look into the budget itself rather than focusing on the apple. i'm happy to have other conversations about the upple.

secondly, i know i have said this for a while, but there is a commercial space strategy that is almost ready for delivery. i know. i know. [laughter] i feel like i have built this up to a crescendo now where you are expecting everything that could possibly be wanted in this document. but it is coming soon. ost is about to release their version of a commercial space strategy. we will follow that right behind. i expect to talk about it in detail at the space symposium in colorado springs and a couple weeks. i think you will see, at least categorically, where we think in a prioritized way where commercial industry can provide the best value to us as a space force, what our needs are. if it doesn't give you insights of that, come back and tell me and we will fix it. thanks.

>> looking at the 2025 budget request that was sent over, the secretary said he is worried about the space force moving forward, particularly with the budget caps that have been put in place. how do you balance your need for modification against the fiscal realities that are in place? gen. saltzman: you do the best you can. honestly. first, we get a lot of money from the u.s. taxpayers. i'm committed to getting the most out of every dollar we get. i think if you look at the -- the growth of this phase force from a budget perspective, you will see continuous growth. from 2023 to 2024, a 9.9% increase. do i need more? probably. do i want more? absolutely. i think we have to take it all in context and say, the fiscal responsibility act definitely created some constraints all of the services had to live within in support of the act. and we were caught up in that to some degree as well.

from 23-24, there is an increase and we will use it to our advantage as best we can. >> good morning. i'm curious about the status of the integrated mission deltas and how you see those evolving? i know in the past you have talked about expanding that. just wanted to get some updates. gen. saltzman: great. i think it is a pretty exciting initiative. we started with two. mostly for beta purposes. we knew we would learn a lot just trying to commit two of our missionaries to that concept. for those that are not tracking, what we did is we, under a single o6 command, we have put all of the components associated with readiness. and from a military perspective that means the people, the training requirements, the equipment, and the sustainment of that equipment.

for the integrated mission delta's, the equipment and sustainment of the equipment was led into ssc. the people in the training was in stock. . you had 23-star commands is possible for half of the readiness elements. it just hurt my military sensibilities from a unity of command perspective. if we give a command or an operational responsibility and readiness is on the list, then they should have all of the capabilities, resources they need to affect the readiness of their units. that was not the case with the imd's. we have learned. a ton of lessons. i think we are now in active planning for what the next phase is, how we bring on new missions into the construct. so far, so good. you will see more this year. >> hi, thank you. i want to ask if you can clarify or expand on the new command. gen. saltzman: if you could wait

for a mic. >> my question is, can you expand a little bit about the feature command and its role in the three tenants of competitive endurance? gen. saltzman: yes. the easiest way to explain what we are trying to do their is making sure we have a comprehensive way of looking into the future, trying to determine what the future operating environment will look like. think 10 to 15 years out. what threats do we expect? what technologies on both sidess of the equation do we think will be a factor technology? what missions are we being given by the department of defense? how is it all going to look 10 15 years from now? once we assess what the future operating environment is, then we can develop the operational concepts.

start to define high-level requirements for what the missions will be, how to mitigate the threats. we will be able to prioritize our s and t investments to make sure the s and t community is pursuing the kind of technologies we think will make a difference in the future. it gives us the underpinning assumptions, constraints, and restraints to allow our planning teams, whether it is manpower, whether it is facilities, whether it is training and range assets, it will give them all they need to invest properly to support those missions as they come on. in short, it is to say a lot of these activities happen, but in my mind, they were happening in disparate ways, disparate places and not far enough in advance so we could line up all of the budgeting, all the people, all the training, so that it all comes together in a capability we can present to the combatant commanders. we will pull these activities together, have a commander in future command responsible for that and to end thinking.

i think you will see a more coordinated process, a more coordinated aspect for how we want to move forward. >> given the threats you talked about, i wonder if you can talk about, does the space force -- do you think the space force has sufficient intelligence or space domain awareness to really understand these threats? the second part to the question, when you look at the budget, there is a lot of funding in different areas for space domain awareness, or ground and whatnot. can you highlight some specific areas you think maybe you need more capabilities than others? gen. saltzman: absolutely pure thanks, sandra. has there ever been a military leader that says hey, i have all of the intelligence i can handle, just stop flooding me with the intelligence.

it's just never -- it is the unquenchable thirst for the demand for intelligence is continuous. it is ever-changing. we will never be satisfied that we have enough. it is a little bit of a curt answer but it is the truth. with that said, i don't often get surprised by things i hear, because the foundational intelligence is pretty good at assessing where we think the threats are coming from, what the adversaries are developing. we are usually far enough in advance that surprising me in terms of a new technology that arrives on the battlefield or in the battle space does not usually happen. think we are pretty good, without desire to always have more. that is the intelligence side of things. the second part of your question was? >> [indiscernible] gen. saltzman: right. it is another thing where, how much data do you need to say i

have all of the sda i can handle? it is another unquenchable thirst of mine. how many different phenomenology's are we bringing to bear on a problem? how continuous can i monitor a high valued object in space? do i lose it? can i maintain custody? this requires a tremendous network of sensors to continue the dataflow. we leverage allies and partners because this is a global aspect. space covers the entire earth. maneuvers on the south pole have to be observed, if we are going to accurately determine what the intent of those maneuvers are. we have to make sure we have a sensor network. you will see investments in putting new sensors, deep space advance radar capability that we have. it is adding to that collection of data to bolster our space domain awareness. i think there is another important piece. do we have the tools that pull the data together and contextualize it so

decision-makers can make operational decisions? think that is where we are trying to invest. to get those tools together that make the most out of the data we are collecting, and we will be able to take on more data and make more sense of it faster. >> great to see you lecturing again. taking the whiskey analogy -- gen. saltzman: you know what purse on a non-grotto means, right? [laughter] >> it is very clear. practical realities added complexity into that. we probably day to day sit further toward the top right than the top left. where do you think we sit between those two boxes? gen. saltzman: the problem is it is a moving target depending on where you feel you are in the spectrum of conflict.

whether it is competition, crisis, or in a full-scale conflict appeared luckily we are not in conflict. i think we are both -- both sides are using space the way they intend to. i think we are in the upper right quadrant. the question is, while that works in competition, is not going to be an effective place to be if we move into crisis or conflict? there is a timescale on this as well. it is not just about what is our current position and can we maintain it? it is about where do we want to be on those quadrants when we go into crisis and conflict? if we are able to be in the upper left, i think you can make a case you might be able to deter. if you can convince somebody that you can put yourself in the upper left quadrant, it has a deterrent effect and you don't have to go beyond crisis. you can drive it back into a more stable state of competition. that is why we call this competitive endurance. do we have the ability to keep the conditions of the international order in a state of competition as being

preferable to crisis or conflict. >> i think tied it to the other question what i want to get your insight on is one of the critical assumptions. going back to your chart if the benefits of p.r.c., they built up a ride -- a wide range of counter space the last several decades. there is the assumption baked in, if it benefits, as you suggested, it still benefits p.r.c. where we are in an denied environment. how do you continue to make that assumption that p.r.c. is willing to make, whether they are rational or irrational? how do you look at that tied it to what you were mentioning now? how do you deal with that

assumption the p.r.c. might make -- might look at the threshold of risk differently than how we do? gen. saltzman: absolutely. i think what is happening over time is it is starting to play more and more into our hands. the more time we have, more resilient we are going to be. by resiliency, i mean we are not going to conduct missile warning with five or six exquisite satellites hanging over a spot at geo. we are going to do it from a proliferated consolation. the level of violence that it would take to deny us the missile warning mission would be orders of magnitude above what it is currently. that, i think, has a level of deterrence. over time, the prc is becoming more and more dependent on their own space capabilities. if you have to go to a level of violence to achieve a single mission affect, but you created a hazardous debris field that jeopardizes your own kyl web it starts to change the calculus.

i think time has an effect that we have to pay attention to. that is the idea. changing the calculus for what it would mean to watch a first strike. that is the idea. >> circling back to your response to the captain, regarding -- i was hoping you could expand,. -- expand on that. from the outside looking in, it looks like space domain has been a constant, whether it is passive aggressive or outwardly. it seems like it is always in a state constant. gen. saltzman: i'm taking this purely on hard-core definitions. not how are we fighting, not how aggressive is the contesting of space. we are not at war with any of those countries. we are also not in a state of crisis that looks like if we don't take active action, it

could lead to a conflict. we are in competition. there are things that are going on. they are probing, exploring, pressing or buttons. that is what great powers do in competition. we have a long history of seeing how that plays out. we have to recognize our goal in that state of competition is to maintain stability. push where we can push, receive when we can receive, and manage the competition itself. going into crisis and going to the full-scale conflict, you will not have to guess whether we are in conflict with the p.r.c. it will be very obvious. we have to stay out of that environment. >> thanks so much for doing this. national guard enthusiast. gen. saltzman: uh oh. >> exactly. you probably know what question is coming. i'm sure you have a plan, if indeed congress forces your hand

issues. can the space force afford two components and all of the structure and overhead that would come with managing two components? can a state's national guard manage a small force and have the retention, the upward mobility the things that make a force viable for its personnel? there is good and bad in all of this. . we are weighing it heavily. secretary of the air force will submit a report to congress later this spring on the pros and cons. we will see how congress decides to organize it. back here, sorry. >> good morning, sir. we talked a lot about the threats to the space segment. i wonder if you could elaborate on the other part that is just as important, the ground segment that controls all of those things. and how those are threats. and also especially the cyber threat it poses to those of --

those systems. gen. saltzman: i appreciate it. we are actively cleaning up our vocabulary because when we were under the air force, we over aggregated our mission sets to some degree. because we needed to. to advocate properly inside the broader department of defense. now we are starting to talk about it in more precise terms. when i say space operations, i'm really talking about three elements. it's the on orbit element, it's the ground element, and it's the link structure element that has to be protected as well in the electromagnetic spectrum. we recognize all three of those can be capabilities and vulnerabilities that have to be exploited and protected in order to get the broader space operations mission complete. we are doing our best to account for that. >> i was at a briefing not long ago where colonel davis was

talking about the problem of only having guardians for a short period of time. how much of that time is involved in clearing them, how much of the time is involved in training them, and how little time they had on site. a very slight, that there might be a need to have commercial augmentation to the guardians where you may have a civilian contracted force. is there anything you would like to say about that? gen. saltzman: i can tell you that when you are a small force as we are, we are approaching 9500 in the next couple years. we will probably get close to 10,000 active duty members. that his tiny side apartment of defense standards. that means we do be careful and specific with how we use manage attract assess, and retain our workforce. we are going to great lengths to make sure we are actively looking at each of those elements to make sure we optimize it. where do we need people to stay

longer? if it does not make sense for a military member to stay longer, how do you augment that with either civilian workforce or commercial augmentation? we are looking at what the right mix is for that. when i mentioned the futures command looking at what we would call all of the doctrine organization, all of those considerations, we get to manpower and we don't necessarily have space force derived models for how to use our manpower. . we are leveraging on what we learned from the air force when we were pulled out, or across the department, policies and guidance that the secretary has put in place. now we are going about it more individually as a service, build our own models and tools to do the planning more effectively. but it will consider active force, civilians, and contractor commercial augmentation. >> hello, sir.

thank you for being here. firstly, it was great to see the colonel work on all of these tables. i understand if you have another dollar, you would not spend it on that. understanding the source of operational surprise and the location that we are behind in for domain control, do you foresee looking into how to efficiently leverage it? gen. saltzman: certainly from a conceptual standpoint, absolutely. from an intelligence standpoint, we are watching closely what is going on. we are working closely with nasa to make sure we understand what they are doing and learning. . we are not ignoring it, i promise. there are several different lines of effort to make sure we understand where specifically the military aspect stands with regards to the lunar concepts and the work being done out there. i've got some really closer, near to the earth problems that i have to solve before we start

thinking about large-scale investment beyond that. just about priorities, near-term priorities. >> the space force recently demonstrated the mission planning more demonstrations on looking to operationalize that and the next couple years. as you look at the industrial base to support that, where do you see the strengths and weaknesses in the industrial base to get to that operational capability? and what is the space force doing to invest on that? gen. saltzman: the interesting thing i learned watching that, and that was a commend us success -- was a tremendous success. what we learn about our processes might be the most valuable thing. not just scan the hardware perform, do the links work, do we have the training to bring things to operational viability quickly. i think i was counting on that.

what i was worried about is procedurally, process wise, do we know how to take a spacecraft out of a warehouse and get it on orbit fast. and how do you integrate, how do you move it? what are the contractual mechanisms that have to be implemented quickly to pull it off? when you shrink all of that down from warehouse to operating on orbit in 96 hours, you have to be really tight on all of those processes, because you can lose weeks quickly executing a more deliberate set of processes. whether it is a standing capability that we say look, there is tack rs, that is not where we are in the learning environment right now. where we are is, do we have the processes in place to be able to respond and react rapidly by putting something on orbit quickly? i think we started down that path to learn those lessons. >> my name is matthew, friend

from london. when we have a look at what the chinese are doing the chinese are pulling ahead in a variety of different spaces. whether it is quantum hypersonic's, all sorts of stuff. when we look at the space domain, if we look at the two extremes, on the one hand, we have the ability for adversaries to destroy space assets which will create a huge amount of junk, and will be counterintuitive because it will eventually disrupt their own space operations. when we have a look at things like spoofing and jamming and general interference, that is where most of our adversaries will go. however, when we look at cyber we have iran, we have north korea, we obviously have russia, china heavily aligning. what are your plans to prevent signals interference? if i was an adversary, one of the best ways to disrupt the u.s. military, in my mind, would be to make your satellites feed you the wrong information, so

you end up with the wrong battle info, and that way i maintain my sick -- myspace assets as an adversary, but i have mocked up your data field. what are those projects? we see a lot of artificial intelligence being used to manipulate data and signals and that is going to eventually end up in the satellite space. gen. saltzman: when you hear the space force talk about its cyber defense missions, that is precisely what we are talking about. how do we assure our networks will be available, that the data is secure. your round when we say cyber defense it is missions systems and the ground element of billing structures protecting all that. that is what we focus on what we focus on with our cyber contingent. we don't currently offer u.s. cyber forces to cyber command because our forces are focused on that aspect. so that is an aspect of cyber. another thing that gets lost may be in wordsmithing but the world

resiliency is important to what we are trying to do from a strategy standpoint. it's different from redundancy. redundancy gives you some insurability but you can overcome redundancy with additional capacity, just taking out more things, networks, lines, etc.. resiliency is an ability to recover an existing system and a cyber domain is different. we understand we will be under attack. how fast or significant can we make the attack? that is where we are focused. clerks -- >>[indiscernible] a long-term intensive plan? you forecast that? we are open on that.

we are looking for that plan. i would like to see some sort of budget right now. gen. saltzman: i think the work spacex is doing with the starship's groundbreaking. we have had big rockets before with heavy payloads. but now you are talking about a commercially viable product that can change the cost, an amazing set of innovations. in a broader sense, when i talk to industry, i want to be along for the learning. i want to watch what is happening. if i were to define the requirements it would fall so short of what you are capable as an industry at a start up of doing. i would never have written requirements for starship, right? my mental model would not frame around that kind of capacity at that price point, at that scale. you could not do it. we are relying on an industry to

help us innovate by showing us the art of the possible bringing ideas to us saying, is this useful? these are ideas we think could be useful based on what we are doing. here is the price point. get as excited about it. if we wait for the space wars, i have all these technologies and now i will start writing documents, i will get it wrong. i just won't have the insight and creativity i currently see in the commercial space industry. i am trying to flip that a little bit. quicksilver -- >> [inaudible]. >> good morning, george. >> good to see you again, sir.

the special forces foundation. a question historically is about strategic support from space command and tactical. how is that being resolved? if you look at the buildings out there right now with dedicated capability, in this region and others, i think you have talked to general fenton in so gone. i look at problems we have had in the past. i had conversations with general raymond on the iranian hostage situation. and in granada. basically, the conversations you had is looking up basically educating them on what you can do from space you don't need to do with legacy assets. >> george, thank you and thank you for your service as well. i would start by saying that in

the past, the relatively recent historically passed that historical past, my career, it certainly, the line between strategic and tactical space was a clear division, whether on who the customers were for the data, how the data was given out, how it was protected what classic indication -- classification level that was held to you could see a bright dividing line between strategic and tactical space. that has blurred to the point where it is starting to cause consternation. you have to figure out new rules and responsibilities. data can be made available. how it is used one minute is strategic and one minute is operational in the next is tactical or simultaneously across multiple theaters. we have reached that point with how space capabilities are being used. you have to break the mental models on strategic and tactical with regards to space. that is one thought. i had many great conversations with general fenton. special operations is an

interesting place for space to be involved with. one, we don't build traditional special operations forces. so, presenting them the special operations model does not necessarily work for us. he comes up with great ideas. what if this was true? what if we used forces like this? thinking of it as an asymmetric force, how can space be integrated to help? i am overwhelmed when i hear him talk, like i have no idea, i trust you, right? that is the take i have on it. i want to say i will commit to establishing service components while the combatant -- to all the captain -- combatants. that is the means by which i can have those dialogues every day and the service component commander is there to understand the tempo of the commands, their challenges, their opportunities. having someone embedded in those commands, a team embedded in

those commands allows the service to support better. i'm trying to create a flexible organizational structure because i don't have easy answers now but i want to support all the answers that come up over the pending years. are we out of time? [applause] i will repeat myself. we are lucky to have this man in charge of the spaceports. sir, you have given us a lot to talk about today. thank you for joining us.

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