got geoint?

At 1 p.m. today in the Rayburn House Office Building, the Strategic Forces Subcommittee of the House Armed Services Committee (HASC) will hold a hearing on the FY2013 budget request for national security space activities. The scheduled witnesses are General William L. Shelton, USAF Commander, Air Force Space Command; Mr. Gil I. Klinger, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense, Space and Intelligence; Ambassador Gregory L. Schulte, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense, Space Policy; and Ms. Betty J. Sapp, Principal Deputy Director, National Reconnaissance Office (NRO). Bob Butterworth, former senior advisor to leader of Space Command, recently penned an Op-Ed for AOL Defense that makes a strong case for not trimming the budget that was published in advance of this hearing.

Here are a few excerpts from that Op-Ed:

The scariest part of the projected budget for national security space is not the cuts. It is the ensuing proposals that promise ways to do more with less. Adopting them without close and careful analysis can easily bring on far more damage to national security space capabilities than the cuts ever will.

We’ve seen this movie before. Budgets for national security space headed south soon after the Cold War ended and the Soviet Union dissolved. By 1994 it was obvious that the Defense Department was not going to be able to recapitalize the constellation then in orbit, let alone pay for modernizing and expanding it. Brig. Gen. Roger DeKok, then director of requirements for Air Force Space Command, convened a large study group in Colorado Springs to determine what needed to be done to “Re-Invent Military Space.”

Buttersworth also proposed three solutions that would allow government to do more with less:

• Go commercial-use commercial processes in place of government ones wherever possible; partner with and buy more from commercial space industry;
• Become a smarter buyer-make satellite acquisition quicker and more efficient by specifying performance goals instead of designs and depending on commercial practices wherever possible;
• Use allies-lean more on the space programs of allies and partners.

Be sure to check out the full Op-Ed here and we will certainly be following and covering future space budget developments.

Tags: Bob Butterworth, Defense cuts, GEOINT, got geoint?, government, HASC Space Budget, National Reconnaissance Office, NRO, Space Budget, Space Budget Cuts, Space Budget Hearing, Strategic Forces Subcommittee of the House Armed Services Committee