 Hi, my name is Sarah Minera. A few years ago, I had the opportunity to play a big part in the establishment of the United States Space Force and the reestablishment of the United States Space Command. I was the staff director for the strategic forces subcommittee in the House of Representatives in both the majority and the minority. I now happily serve as a senior defense fellow with the Center for New American Security, where I focus on space and strategic forces issues. Let me say thank you to the Secure World Foundation for having me to talk a little bit about Space Force, how it happened, and where it can go in the future. Let me first recognize that the call for an independent space force really started around 20 years ago with senators like Bob Smith from New Hampshire. The 31st Marine Corps commandant general Chuck Kruljak, as well as at the time the Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. It wasn't until almost 20 years of reform and reorganization had occurred that Congress started to believe that these challenges were so big that the executive branch was not capable of fixing them on their own. Which is where Representative Mike Rogers of Alabama and Jim Cooper of Tennessee enter the scene in 2017. I just asked a pretty simple oversight question. Who's in charge of DoD military space. And instead of getting a simple answer, what they got back was a labyrinthine chart with over 60 different organizations, all of whom were able to say no to a specific space acquisition, but none of whom were responsible and authorized to say yes. For the next couple of years, with the help of individually motivated senators and the executive branch, the reasons for developing a space force started to really crystallize and there were four of them. The first was really resourcing in a resource constrained environment. Who was advocating for space unique budgets, and if a tough choice needed to be made between an air breathing platform and a space system. How is that going to be made. The second was really about requirements and acquisition. As a threats to our space assets, coupled with the innovation and the potential that's coming out of the commercial sector. Are the processes that the DoD uses for defining requirements and for buying and purchasing and developing satellite systems adequate to be able to address these concerns in a quick and responsive manner. What is really about culture about cadre development. You know who wakes up in the morning and thinks solely about space operators. How are they trained, what is their career progression, what is their opportunity for growth, and how will that be fostered into the future. So I would like to recognize that space was a war fighting domain. How did this fundamentally change how terrestrial operations would be executed and how future war fighting concepts would be developed space forces, still less than two years old. They've made consistent progress in addressing all four of these issues and I anticipate that they will continue to do so. I think space force would be well served by going back and looking at those first four issues or challenges that were identified by Congress in the establishment of space force and the reestablishment of space command. I think they need to build honest and transparent relationships with their oversight committees and have the courage to shape their own destiny. And this is important because it's not just some science fiction kind of trope. I think that space force has the opportunity not only to make history but to shape the future. And it does this by prioritizing space resources by choosing winners in the private sector by making big bets on advanced technology, and by challenging legacy architectures that have been with us since the Cold War. And space force gets to define itself in other ways the services only wish they could. At the same time, let's recognize that space force will encounter challenges. Let's be honest, all of the space force leadership prior to 2020 was Air Force leadership. And so, as an individual, it's now up to them. We're raised in Air Force culture to navigate these challenging incremental incremental steps towards independence. Let's recognize how personally and professionally challenging that will be for them. Nonetheless, it is their responsibility not only to change how they were taught to think about space, but to make demonstrably different decisions about how they acquire and operate space systems. I'm really loath to talk and perpetuate Star Trek references when talking about space force and I've been counseled plenty of times not to do it. I'm actually going to kind of open the aperture a little bit here, if I had to give guiding advice to the space force, I would probably quote. One of our NASA astronauts, never limit yourself because of others limited imagination, never limit others because of your limited imagination. Thanks for having me and I hope you have a wonderful conference.