REPORT: MILITARY SPACE PROGRAM IN DISARRAY

The American mil­i­tary space pro­gram is in a state of near-​​total dis­ar­ray, says a report from the Defense Science Board, released yes­ter­day. The trou­bles run so deep, they’re begin­ning to rival the mess at NASA, its coun­ter­part in civil­ian space.
Among the “sys­temic prob­lems” the group found: “wide­spread lack of bud­get reserves required to imple­ment high risk pro­grams on sched­ule; and an over­all under­ap­pre­ci­a­tion of the impor­tance of appro­pri­ately staffed and trained sys­tem engi­neer­ing staffs to man­age the tech­no­log­i­cally demand­ing and unique aspects of space pro­grams.“
“Cost has replaced mis­sion suc­cess” as the “pri­mary means” for eval­u­at­ing new mil­i­tary space equip­ment, the report notes. And “low cost esti­mates through­out the acqui­si­tion process” have “lead to unre­al­is­tic bud­gets and unex­e­cutable pro­grams.“
The U.S. mil­i­tary has become increas­ingly reliant on space to wage war. Global Positioning System-​​based “smart bombs,” “eye-​​in-​​the-​​sky” sur­veil­lance, and satel­lite phones are just a few exam­ples of how American troops lean on space tech­nol­ogy to talk, track friend and foe, and fight.
(via Secrecy News)

September 5th, 2003 | Space | Comments Off Both comments and pings are currently closed.