 So then the next panel is what will we what will we be doing in space in 2030 and the panel is going to be moderated by Colonel Dennis Willie who is a new America's first army fellow and has been an amazing contributor to our collective lives And he is deployed to Bosnia Iraq Afghanistan Kuwait. Can you keep it down over there? Sorry if you take the conversation outside. Thanks Colonel Willie is an expert on space operations. He's a military planner. He has multiple good degrees in space operations and I'll hand it over to him now Thank you, Peter and thank you for the opportunity to moderate this panel today Ladies gentlemen, if you would please turn your attention to the television screens on either side of the stage I'd like to begin this panel by polling you on the following question in 2030 what will be the biggest threat to US space operations? If you're new and haven't been for the morning sessions, you'll see the instructions for how to vote and The options there a orbital debris be armed satellites see the anti-satellite missiles and D the acquisition process Joining me today are three accomplished individuals that will help us examine how the military views the space domain from now out to 2030 Lieutenant General David Thompson immediately to my left is the vice commander of Air Force Space Command and Air Force Space Command Organizes trains equips and maintains mission ready space forces and provides missile warning position navigation and timing and communications for the North American Aerospace Defense Command otherwise known as NORAD and US strategic command as well as the other functional and Geographic combatant commands John Thompson is a graduate of the Air Force Academy and a career space officer with assignments in ops Acquisition research and development and academia and he has commanded operational space units at the squadron group and wing levels Our second guest is Chris of Bryce Christensen the founder and CEO of Bryce Bryce space and technology a leading aerospace and emerging markets Consultancy she serves as a strategic advisor to government and commercial clients and has been an expert witness and testified before Congress on the market dynamics of space commercial Enterprise she currently sits on the board of the aerospace Center for Space Policy and Strategy and serves in the National Research Council space technology industry government University Roundtable that is a mouthful Advisory group and she's a fellow with the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics and has founded multiple companies since 2001 in the domains that include quantum computing national security and space and Our third guest today is Wallace Locke re he's vice president of space systems for Raytheon's space and airborne Systems and as a member of the leadership team for the space and airborne systems He oversees all of Raytheon's space systems programs developing the organization's vision strategy and plans and then positioning Raytheon to be a leading provider of space capabilities And then before that before leading the space systems mission area Wallace was a deputy for Raytheon's advanced concepts and technology team and he is also a graduate of the Air Force Academy and During his time in uniform served in roles with Air Force Space Command and Air Force material command during his time in uniform So welcome to all three of you and before we get too far along I'd like to for each of you to comment briefly on the poll results John Thompson, what were your thoughts first about threats to satellites? Thanks, first of all, thanks to you and Thanks for for entertaining this forum today, and I'll say Regarding the threats and the poll results The good news is I don't have to pick one, but the bad news is I have to be prepared to Address and mitigate all of them and as the poll results obviously show some of them are threats opposed presented by our adversaries Some are threats opposed by ourselves and others may be naturally occurring threats And so I would say that all of them are threats today all of them are likely to be threats through 2030 and We will need to between now and then have definitive plans and actions to address all of the threats Ms. Christensen, do you agree with how the audience sees the threats? I Agree that there's a diversity of threats And I want to highlight thinking forward about how the space domain is evolving one of the enormous Factors that will help shape threats in the future is the diversity of actors the evolution of Space capabilities both in the number of nations that can deploy and operate systems in space and the number of nations that can use space assets because of the increasingly available commercial space Capabilities offered to them so there's a direct threat. There's also a threat to space primacy in that if Space assets provide us with unique imagery and with extraordinary analytics to interpret that imagery for example the ubiquitous availability of imagery and the increasingly capable analytics commercial analytics may Actually mitigate that advantage in a way that becomes a threat in itself And mr. Laffer is somebody who leads the engineers that build our satellites. What are your thoughts about the future? Well, I'll pick one. I Think that the acquisition process And largely because of the speed in which you know, we we discuss those threats We look at changing architectures And you know, this is we're sort of in a period that's very similar to where we were in the 90s The the big geos or the big comm systems and how many of those survived and and so I think we're at a point where There are so many options that are available for You know the the Department of Defense the intelligence community the commercial market the international community Which we're having a lot of discussion on now, which we didn't have some time back That really navigating through all of that, you know, the the engineering side of things the aerospace and defense Companies the commercial companies that are all working to deploy new systems can answer Whatever the need is but the vacillation of what the government is debating or discussing and architecture changes I think, you know trying to figure out and find that right direction Is critically important for being able to address where we had in 2030 You know being here with New America this year It's provided a wonderful opportunity to cover a broad spectrum of topics And so again, I'm very thankful that we're able to talk about the future of military operations in space One of the topics that's been out there, and I believe there's a question already today about this So space command and space force How do each of you view the pros and cons of both of those organizations John Thompson? So I guess I'll I'll start with the cons because I think the cons apply to both and they're pretty Simple and straightforward to state. I think I think it is that Each of these organizations is going to come at a cost. There's going to be a Cost associated with putting in staff structures to make sure that both organizations function effectively There's going to be a financial cost obviously because it's going to take a budget to be able to Institute them and then third any time you add new organizations to any Any structure it's going to increase complexity. So that's what I would consider to be the cons But what I would say on the other side is that those are always cons and As long as the pros in every other sense outweigh those then they're not really cons There are really costs that you have to accept and so what you really want to ask is okay Then what are the pros of developing these two organizations and I would say I could probably spend the rest of the panel talking about that But I won't the first is on the US space command side You have a four-star joint war fighting officer whose job every day It is to do to do a couple of things the first is to see and surveil and to understand deeply everything that's going on in the space domain the global commons that we need to preserve and Continue to use to see it every day to understand it to know what we need to do to provide for a secure environment an Operating environment that we can use civilly commercially and for national security purposes when we need to an ace and a single Responsible four-star combatant commander to do that is vitally important to the security of the nation our allies and frankly I would submit the free world on The space force side you also have the same thing with respect to a service an organization and a four-star whose sole Responsibility every day is to organize train and equip the forces that we need for that domain And I think it we've had a great Debate not just in the nation but in the world right now our adversaries have already organized in that manner our adversaries have voted with respect to the threats they're posing to that domain And I believe it's now time to to look at and understand that perhaps you need a service who deeply understands is focused on and is organizing Training whipping and preparing those forces to be used by that four-star commander Cons cost and complexity it's hard to argue with that pros let me take a little bit of a different perspective and I Talk about the potential benefit of being able to build a more integrated National and even international Space community around military and intelligence space needs. We are seeing right now for instance billions of dollars of New money from a different set of investors being invested in commercial space. That's driving Innovation with new form factors small satellite systems small launch vehicles that community is not Well connected to the military and intelligence community. It's a very different model than what we've seen in the past We as a nation will benefit from taking advantage of some of that innovation and and Also managing some of the uncertainty and the challenges that come with that innovation and a space force Could provide a focal point for building those relationships more effectively And I think you can make the same argument with regard some of our ambitious to some of our ambitious goals in civil space as well So, you know as a material solution provider. It's to us. It's you know from my perspective largely around alignment of Customers that we can engage with more directly and so I think you know the From from the side of representation of what those requirements are It's absolutely Exciting but and it's something that you know will will definitely help To sort of clear the air in some cases around alignment of priorities Indirection so Wallace in the military significant changes around doctrine and operating models will often Either lead to or come about because of a big technical technologic change so Some of the historians will look to the development of the stirrup Gunpowder powered flight as instances that created drastic change in the way militaries Did their business around the world? It's not just an American thing But it's it's a warfare thing and that the character of warfare changes and sometimes it changes fairly drastically So within the engineering community and we look at the future of satellites. Are there leap ahead technologies or different aspects of Satellite tech that might or that you're looking towards that might That we need to think about when it comes to how we use space differently Yes, so the I mean far and away the biggest change that's happening Is on the manufacturing side, you know when you think of? Large production runs of spacecraft. We're talking 23 on the government side, I think for DSP And then you start looking at Iridium, you know and going back to all of the manufacturing changes to get a satellite from Doc to doc out in seven days That was just unheard of but we haven't really gotten to that point yet So so many of the the things that are I'll say not necessarily the most sexy and things that we haven't been able to do in space for a long time Similar to the way in which we produce aircraft or other systems That is a major dramatic change because it drives so far deep into the supply chain Which even today it's difficult because the supply base just is not there for electronics parts and There's there are so many changes relative to once we can get to that Get true leverage of what's in the supply base on the electronic side It will open the door for things like higher levels of autonomy on spacecraft where? We are able to take into account AI and machine learning in different ways in which to leverage those systems So those are you know far and away right now the biggest changes and in space We're talking about 2030, but these are things that we have to do now To even deploy these systems by 2030. So those those big changes are happening Sure the Changed form factor the development of very small satellites Has had an effect in that Innovation can occur in a different way than it has historically occurred It can occur in different environments. So you it doesn't the company Individuals or a small number of people can develop an innovative capability And that I think results in new capabilities that we would not otherwise see there is today a Company that is providing an alternate GPS service Using a software-defined approach and a radium satellites there are You know synthetic after a radar small sats there are there's of course, you know planet labs which Deployed a system that can image the entire earth multiple times a day at a fairly low resolution But then blends that imagery with other data sources through Powerful analytics and machine learning and that provides insight into Decisions and behaviors that imagery alone might not Those new form factors are not going to replace in there in it the Larger satellites in conventional form factors, but they're driving a different kind of innovation I think that's very critical. So generally come to you in just a second Job one for space command ever since we started launching satellites was to provide services to the terrestrial forces all around the world As the department looks to establish space command as a combatant command I'd like to so we're talking about how we're going to operate differently Do you see any changes in job one or the direction that we're headed with respect to how space Operators do their job and then what are the initiatives that we're looking at and making sure that space command as a combatant command is Connected to the already existing command commands. Okay So to the first point It will so providing those capabilities to the rest of the joint force will always remain job one for Space professionals whether they're in US base command or the Air Force or whatever organizational construct the Department chooses in the future in fact for too many years I think the space community community at least inside the Department of Defense has been a little too insular If it doesn't matter on the surface of the earth It really doesn't matter in space from our perspective certainly that's different when it comes to exploration and science and and some other things But for the United States military and the capabilities we provide if it doesn't matter to Civil society or national leaders or the joint force. It really doesn't matter to us. So that will always remain job one Our job or our challenge right now in addition to the threats that we see And with the threats will come the responsibility to protect and defend those capabilities and sure they're provided But the other piece is to see and understand that we're on the it may be a Precipice or it may be a hill or it may be the the cusp of an explosion in commercial space and from a military standpoint The job is to see it to understand it to make smart investments And I'll call them smart bets and be prepared to leverage what's coming in the commercial market to our advantage in the future I think that's a great bridge to the next thing I want to talk about which is this proliferation of satellites that Companies like Amazon or SpaceX or one web and so Chris talk to us about That shift that all of the satellites that are about to be launched changes the environment So I can offer two Absolute certain statements about that one is there will be more small satellites than we have seen in the past Two is there will not be as many as companies are planning proposing and announcing right now The reality is not going to be tens of thousands of small sats deployed for multiple commercial Providers and Let me just kind of give you a couple of evidence points for that much of the funding for those Small sat companies is coming from venture capital which is seeks high returns and Accepts high risk historically not just in space, but just historically venture funded companies fail at a rate of about three out of four And so it's important to kind of view the startups that we're seeing in the right in the context of the right-risk profile That said that investment that's getting spent on technology development. That's getting spent on manufacturing facilities that's getting spent on Sensors that technology will be available for use and companies that fail don't disappear They leave assets and capabilities that can be used for other purposes so We're certainly seeing The emergence of new capabilities the largest systems are the telecom systems, and that's SpaceX that's one web that's a tele-sat and Leo sat and now Amazon has talked about a system and The real question there is you mentioned the iridium and Celestus and Teledec and the systems of the 90s and it's exactly the same question Can I from space? Provide a telecommunications service that is competitive with with a terrestrial provided service That's all and iridium extraordinary successes of iridium which was a Satellite system if you're in a wave of investment in the 90s improved manufacturing dramatically Improved our ability to launch multiple satellites until to launch at pace But failed as a business investors lost billions And the reason one of the reasons for that was the rollout of mobile phones in areas where a big iridium phone was Was targeting and many other market reasons as well So so that's the core question. Is it possible and it is it is typically Cheaper to provide services with terrestrial systems than with space systems. It's very rare that there's a True competition One of the the big successful areas of direct competition is direct-to-home television satellite TV Competing with cable TV. So that's that's the the uncertainty Will Multiple of those systems or any of those systems succeed in the business models that they've laid out I think that it's too early to tell I will say that the first quarter of 2019 had two events that certainly shapes My and I think everyone's view of those probabilities to some extent that is Amazon's announcement Amazon has deep pockets and a history of successful innovation and the fact that one web which is One of the most visible of those startups Received another billion dollar plus investment from a soft bank That's very substantial investment and very substantial commitment by highly resourced highly resourced player. So Maybe it tilts the odds a little bit positively But there's still a great deal of uncertainty about where those systems go and from a military standpoint What does that mean? Does that mean I'm not sure if those systems will succeed? I want no part of them Does that mean I? bet on all of them To me the important thing is that the important change in the acquisition process is to move from the idea that at some point We'll know We're that's never coming that's never coming back We're never going to be in the position where we can say well Let's just wait a year or two or three and these new this this proposed system We'll see if it succeeds or not and we can make our choice the the pace and the dynamic of space innovation has Fundamentally changed an effective acquisition has got to accept that uncertainty as part of the decision process As opposed to treating it as a temporary and not anomaly that can be outweighed So I'm reaching back to some of your R&D work many years ago Just talk a little bit about how that past experience of plies to today and and maybe provide some advice on where We should go with it Well, and let me if I can so one thing because my R&D experiment experience was in rocket propulsion So let me add one more facet to the the discussion We've had here about Manufacturing and where we need to go in terms of manufacturing space systems and small sets and the micro Miniaturization that comes with that I think there's another piece that really might take what's a blossoming commercial space sector and really turn it into an explosion And that is one of the highest barriers to operating in space absolutely continues to be launch costs And to the extent that that launch can become more rapid more reliable and much more low cost I believe that's one of the factors in which we may see yet more entrepreneurial investment and creativity and innovation And to get to the point where we dream of or we are we're doing things we haven't even dreamed yet because On the spacecraft side we're able to build small things cheaply and quickly And then we're able to be able to get them into space in a rapid fashion So I think that's the first thing the second thing is I've learned now and and I don't have it with me, but all of you do if you pull out your smartphone I Would argue that every enabling Technology and that smartphone at some time in the fast in the past was probably a result of some sort of research and technology Development that what that applied to national security or was was sponsored by the government in some form But if at the same time we took that smartphone and said how would you like it if the United States government built and provided that to you today? You know the answer is you know be this big and weigh five pounds And it'd be about one-tenth the capability and so what I so I think what I've learned from my past But also examples like that is I think it's time in on the space sector just as we did in it and other things in the past is to watch the commercial innovation and and the Creativity there and see if we can figure a way to foster that so that we end up in ten years With the equivalent of the iPhone in space not the equivalent of what the government would build Preparing for today, I look back at my own past and think about the what I call the Google Earth moment where in 2001 Google still a fairly new company allowed the entire population of the earth to be able to look at the earth through the view of a satellite Obviously not all the pictures were That great, but some of them were and it really changed the way people viewed Satellites and so so maybe that's the direction that we're headed a little bit that when As Chris has not tens of thousands, but still many hundreds if not low thousands of satellites Go into space then that's going to create a new Google Earth moment It kind of feels like Here in 2019 it might be a little like 1919 in the aviation industry Where all of a sudden the success of airplanes in World War one? led to an explosion of more R&D and more uses So if all these large corporations really do deploy all these thousands of small satellites in low earth orbit How should both the military and the federal government respond to these trends? We already know that the Commerce Department will assume the space traffic management task and we might have to talk a little bit about what that is and And then what are the other aspects of space that we might see some shifts in oversight and primacy between military and non-military I'm hoping that went up to anybody Well, I was I just want to say one thing about What Chris and the general just talked about here recently because I think Relative that comment of the acquisition process the original question the first question being asked in the poll I Think that that is This ecosystem that's happening, you know, if you if you look back launch Has been such a limiter for the ability to put up and demonstrate Technology or validate technology and so there was this hedge this this barrier that had to be crossed Is it high enough TRL now? We're getting to the point where we're able to demonstrate The technology works it's then in okay, how far is it that the government leans on What's happening in the commercial marketplace today? Versus Placing their own bets in some cases that run in parallel and that's it's a resource question and and What we're seeing right now is that there's a lot of bets being placed And so how all that plays out over time Over the next couple of years, you know, it's we're not talking a long time here We're talking to the next 24 to 36 months. We're gonna see some of these Some of these bets that are happening in the commercial marketplace They're gonna survive or not because the capital just continues to increase it's not like an aircraft program right the lifecycle of a the cost of a lifecycle cost of a satellite is 80% on the front end and in 20% on the back end whereas it's it's a different when you get into a large-scale manufacturer how that of aircraft or other things how that Need for resources plays out over the next couple of years will determine whether or not this This collaborative ecosystem works where the government can take greater advantage of those investments But to this question, I think It we'd think of things in the context of I'm gonna build a satellite. How does that change things? But when you get to these constellations of systems performing missions in support of government customers or others how that happens Collaboratively versus system by system how the government deals with things like mission assurance at a constellation level versus you think of a Aridium-built some number of satellites knowing Expecting that they would lose some percent And they did that in a way that said okay. I can take advantage of what's happening in the broader commercial marketplace Right now without so that I can get to market faster and so there's our hedges but Our our current acquisition process doesn't necessarily know how to deal with that We have a lot of discussions with our customers on you're talking about a constellation You need to be okay accepting that you're gonna lose four or five of them out of fifty to a hundred whatever that might be How that's all managed as well the space traffic management side of it how we deal with the debris aspect it's The the secondary and tertiary questions are starting to be asked In a lot of ways and how that applies to industry or the commercial market Is you know, there's a lot there's There's a lot in front of us and a lot of opportunity But a lot of really really difficult hard questions that have to be solved This goes maybe back to our first question about space command and space force is Changing the way the organizations Interact might provide an opportunity to have those conversations. I'm gonna ask one more question And then we'll go to some audience questions. So since we're talking about the future I I Tend to look towards sci-fi and different things for inspiration And so within your own areas of expertise, so there any is everything out there right now that you're using to be inspirational when it comes to thinking about the future so yeah, I'll start and and What inspires me is not, you know, it or the latest tech which is inspiring enough in itself, but I Had the opportunity. I've had the opportunity recently not as much as I would like to in the past just a lot two weeks ago We had an exercise with our youngest space operators here in Crystal City We call space flag and we gave them hard and challenging problems to solve With respect to I'll call them operational scenarios in the space domain And to watch those young folks and their passion and their vision and most importantly The fact that they weren't shackled and blinded by 30 years of this is the way we do business in space like I am Was incredibly inspiring to me and and gave me confidence that Despite the challenges we have and they're myriad and you can name any number of them If we first of all first of all the future our future when it comes to military spaces in great hands and our job Really is just as best we can Unshackle them and give them the support and and allow them to run with their vision and passion and the expectation that they can take Us into the future. That's what inspires me One of the most interesting things to me is The breadth of the community that is now paying attention to space and the way that they're doing it Space and dinosaurs Very popular topics So there's there's an affinity for space that we've all kind of any of us in the industry have experienced but from a from a business standpoint the investors that are looking at space with a Healthy objective of not simply space for space's sake or Exploration objectives, but financial objectives mean that new money new participants and new innovators with just as you say very different kinds of backgrounds and Experiences are entering the space community and that to me is going to drive change in a positive way Yeah, it's I was at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo last week They have a you know the format for the Cube sat the u-form came from Cal Poly came out of the industry error came out of the academic side and they do a forum every year where they bring folks in from around the government or industry and certainly from universities and it's You for us the biggest The most exciting thing and one of the biggest challenges we have is the workforce because we went through a lull for a long time in the space business and What's exciting is you go, you know the Cal Poly has one of the the the largest cubesat programs Where they bring folks in and it's a it's it's not an act It's it's not a club, but it's a program that They get I think they were telling me on the order of four times more than they can even bring in and it's people from the medicine side medical side by all you know that want to art from the from whether it be the arts or humanities and The amount of people that are excited And to Chris's point the breadth you know where we have general Thompson here But you know there's a whole you just think of what Elon And Bezos have have inspired the idea of exploration all of these things are really really Creating an environment where there's a lot of interest And and so You know I'll get up and maybe I'll give a speech sometime and show something out of infinity war give out tickets for the new Avengers Maybe but you know it does it's people are really inspired Especially people that are really early in their career or out of the academic community So it's it's really exciting right now good. We have any questions from the audience Over here in the front Thanks Brendan Mulvaney from the China Aerospace Studies Institute So the name of the panel is what will the US military be doing in 2030? But of course, we're not the only military acting in space, right? We've talked a lot about international partners and partnership in commercials So my question is what is the US military doing for its friends and partners and allies to make sure that our interests Are looked after when we're doing this and specifically for industry when we talk about supply chains And those kind of things is industry getting that message and making sure that when they make Commercial decisions that US interests are taken in that one example is of course You know China got lauded for launching the first quantum satellite. We forget that they partnered with Austria, right? So it was really a lot of Austrian know-how that was helping them advance that which of course is a as a major driver for the PLA, so I'm just kind of curious is what are we doing now to make sure those interests are Ensured and is commercial industry getting that answer? So I'll say briefly on the commercial side I'm sorry the the military side before he moved to the supply chain side is I think the United States has finally woken up and realized that just like we do at land see Air cyber special operations the best and only way you want to operate as a coalition I think we're truly now taking steps to be a coalition in space In July of 2018, we took our joint space operation center at Vandenberg Air Force Base and made it a true coalition space operation Center at Vandenberg Air Force Base and then the second piece is One of the components of US space command will be a coalition space force component And so there's a lot of challenge and work to do to make that Fully integrated but the recognition that it's time to act like a true coalition in space is one of the big things We're doing on the military side and a Snapshot that I think really illustrates that was the 2018 Shreve award game So that game had an eight nation coalition I Participated as a senior advisor. I believe that is the first time there have been a commercial senior advisor as part of the game the and that game is focused on Ten years in the future. I think that really underscores the I agree that evolving view and Successfully evolving view And from the certainly from our we've never seen as much Support engagement from the policy community with For us to be able to have a more robust dialogue on What we can do with partners from around the world and so it's very very positive the What we're seeing and the amount of makes it difficult because I have to fly a lot more than just around the United States But there is a lot of engagement and I think you know also just the fact that when you walk into You know if you walk into Saudi and you go to the Department of State the US Department of State There's a they know what's going on and they want to talk about how we can partner and what Capabilities can be brought to bear so there's a lot a lot more engagement than certainly I've ever seen From the industry side in in more robust dialogue on how we can be supportive Say we might have time for one more question right over here in the back Hi, my name is Teresa Hitchens, and I'm with breaking defense I have a question about architecture and there's a lot of discussion about and I think Mr. Lowry mentioned it sort of back and forth on what the future architecture is going to be So I'd like to ask the panel how confident are you that the military space architecture will actually include proliferated Leo in the near future I Will say highly confident. Let me say a couple of things about that the first is I think I'd mentioned earlier. We need to make smart bets Which means we need to invest appropriately? we need to track appropriately in fact in the Current prejudice president's budget the Air Force Invested an additional 141 million dollars with DARPA in what I would call a pathfinder military proliferated Leo constellation called blackjack What we have to understand are two things the first is how close to a true operationally capable and effective Service can these provide That's the first thing and then how do they integrate with the rest of the architecture? And so I have no doubt in fact I would I would tell you that there are pieces of the architecture today one being missile warning missile defense that has both elements of the The classic architecture, which is geosynchronous and elements of the new proliferated constellations So we will be using proliferated Leo constellations in the future It becomes simply a matter of what missions and on what timing that makes sense. I Would say I'm a hundred percent confident that there will be That commercial capabilities will be critical to that proliferated Leo capability used by the military whether that capability is Leans more toward the manufacturing synergies or leans more toward services synergies that I would say is an open question so with that we have run out of time and Help me thank our panelists for participating today