Bush trying to create NEW space authority. "Bold Steps" to merge "black and white" space

[Joanne98]

This doesn't sound good at all.

A blue-ribbon panel of national security space experts is calling for a number of "bold steps" - including the abolishment of the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) and the U.S. Air Force Space and Missile Systems Center (SMC) as they exist today - to shake up today's ineffective national security space procurement and operations structures and provide cohesive governance of this increasingly vulnerable area for the Pentagon.

The so-called Allard Commission - named after Sen. Wayne Allard (R-Colo.), a retiring senator who has pushed for a group of space experts to assess the state of national security space - has briefed its findings to the director of national intelligence (DNI), deputy defense secretary and a number of senior USAF and intelligence officials.

The report from the National Security Space Independent Assessment Panel, which is the seven-member panel's formal title, will be published soon, and it is not yet clear if the Bush administration will adopt its findings prior to leaving office in January 2009.

The most radical of the group's recommendations fall in the area of leadership, which was found to be woefully lacking across the U.S. government. First, the re-establishment of the National Space Council, chaired by the National Security Advisor is needed, says retired Lt. Gen. Ed Anderson, now a principal at Booz Allen Hamilton. This would shift senior authority for space policy from the vice president's office and puts it only one step removed from the president. The panel argues that this is needed to allow a senior official authority to implement national space policy and - perhaps more importantly for the often-at-odds intelligence community and Defense Department - adjudicate roles, missions, requirement and funding disputes directly from the White House.

The current administration appears to exercise its control on national security space matters through the green eyeshades of the White House Office of Management and Budget, the panelist says, rather than working on requirements for overhead systems as they are being formed and technologies are being developed.

Yet, perhaps even more radical is the recommendation for management of duties now executed to develop "black," or classified, satellite systems at the NRO and open, white-world constellations at the SMC in Los Angeles. A new layer of management, called the National Security Space Authority (NSSA), should be formed, the panel says. The NSSA chief would be dual-hatted, reporting into the Pentagon as an undersecretary of defense for space and reporting to the DNI as the deputy for space.

Despite decades of attempts at various arrangements to doubly assign officials in the intelligence community and the Pentagon, the government has fallen short of true integration of black and white space. This has led to duplication by the two organizations and in many cases - most recently with the beleaguered Space Radar program - turf battles that amount to millions of dollars spent without ever fielding a product.

The NSSA staff would blend two major areas of national security space, ironing out requirements for various agencies and managing programs to field systems to meet them. These areas are now combined in the NRO's classified work, but they are disparate for the USAF. Indeed, the Air Force Space Command in Colorado Springs, Colo., writes requirements for systems that then get handed off to SMC as acquisition programs.

By fusing these areas for both black and white space under the NSSA, the experts are recommending the abolishment of the traditional lines between black and white space. "The environment no longer exists to justify two organizations," Anderson says. He made his comments during a briefing for reporters here at the 2008 Space and Missile Defense Conference. The NSSA's office would have authority over the Pentagon and intelligence community's multi-billion-dollar space procurement enterprise.

A new National Security Space Office, led by a three-star officer or civilian equivalent, would oversee the day-to-day acquisition management, development and operations now handled by NRO, SMC and the Air Force Research Laboratory's Space Vehicles directorate. Spacecraft operation would fall under this new office, though the panel recommends that traditional tasking relationships remain intact. This means tasking for imaging satellites is handled through the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA). Tasking for military systems is overseen by U.S. Strategic Command and signals intelligence sensor tasking handled by the National Security Agency.

The panel was chaired by Tom Young, a former Lockheed executive and a noted expert in national security space.

The report is the most recent of a long series of experienced panels to bemoan the state of national security space acquisition and management. Previously, Donald Rumsfeld led the Space Commission before taking office as defense secretary. But despite his senior role in the administration, a friendly national security space community and a Republican-dominated Congress and White House for most of this decade, the Space Commission's attempts to overhaul national security space management fizzled shortly after Rumsfeld took office and the focus turned to Iraq.

The Allard Commission also found that commercial space services providers - including imaging and satellite communications firms - are only consulted on national security space matters when "spot" coverage is needed. The NSSA and NSSO would be directed to better integrate the capabilities of commercial industry into the national security space apparatus. Similarly, these offices could address the need for export control reform, which is seen as crucial to keeping U.S. industry competitive with budding and highly capable industries across the globe.
http://www.aviationnow.com/aw/generic/story.jsp?id=news/SHAKE08148.xml&headline=Panel%20Wants%20Massive%20Milspace%20Reshuffling&channel=defense

One of the targeted agencies is in Jane Harman's district..

The full report has not been published yet, but will be soon, according to the AviationWeek.com article. What’s uncertain is whether the Bush Administration, in its final months in office, will take any steps to try and implement the plan. What role Congress will play is also unknown. Certainly anything that takes away power (and money and jobs) from some of these organizations, particularly SMC in Los Angeles, will be opposed by the likes of Rep. Jane Harman (D-CA), a key member of Congress on defense and intelligence issues who also has SMC in her district.

http://www.spacepolitics.com/2008/08/14/whither-the-nro/