"washington journal," live at 7:00 a.m. eastern every morning. joined the discussion. >> coming up, new year's weekend on c-span. on monday, 10:00 a.m. eastern, a summit.e then the legacy of bill clinton. >> he knew who he was fighting for. he got there every day. he knew the people he wanted to help. good, when times were bad, all he cared about was could he deliver for the people who needed the government to be on their side. >> watch this new year's weekend on c-span. now, a discussion on national security space strategy with general john heiden, heather wilson, and mike rogers.

this was part of the reagan national defense for him -- forum in c rally, california. simi, val -- in simi valley, california. >> i want the military would call a legacy system. [laughter] built during the cold war and repurpose for the 21st century. the 21st century. a couple years ago, i did a abovecalled the battle for "60 minutes." it was about u.s. space command. was a time, the commander general, one of the main characters in our story. to get ready for this panel, i went back and reread the

transcript online of that story. i made the mistake of continuing on and reading some of the comments. one of the first comments i came across said, shame on you for putting those you interviewed in awkward positions with the questions you asked them. my time is too valuable to waste .ith people who have no respect on myt redo the comments appearance and i queue. i also want you redo the one ran said general hyten circles around me. now, i get a second shot at him. he has been promoted. commander -- he is now the commander of u.s. strategic command. deterrence ofe war in space and fighting of war in space.

heather wilson is the 24th secretary of the air force, job which requires her to become intimately involved in space. about a she spends third of her time on space. end is the the acting undersecretary of defense for intelligence with a portfolio that includes the national security agency, ,ational reconnaissance office all of which live and die by space. is -- end have commerce and mike

rogers, a republican from alabama -- here we have republican mike rogers,. he is a proponent to create a separate space corps, an entirely new branch of the military service. it would take it away from the air force, and needless to say, that is a controversial proposal. withgoing to start questions, but the audience gets to cement questions, too. >> i'm going to start off with audience gets he to submit questions, too, and if our app,

www.rndf2017.org, you can submit those questions and for the last be taking your questions. want to begin by asking hyten. when you were lieutenant colonel, you wrote that war in just a matter of time. now that you've grown all of shoulder, don your that to be theve case? >> it's good to see you again, david. expected to grow stars on my shoulders. one thing, when you write a lot colonel you never expect to grow up and be a general. what you write as a lot colonel. i believe any domain that humans be subject to conflict.

when i looked at it 20 years ago it seemed obvious to me and also obvious to the chinese that i studying at the time conflict would move into space and if conflict will move into be the same will as it is in every other domain, to deter that conflict, to make that conflict never happens but if it does happen to figure when.w to fight it and so it's just another problem but same way i ly the looked at it 20 years ago. >> is the u.s. prepared to fight space?in >> the u.s. is prepared to prepared to 's not fight in the future. so the strength we have today is on the mass and sheer numbers of capabilities that put up over the years. adversary we face. we don't have war fighting built on to those systems and our adversaries, and ou heard it talked about, our

adversaries have been watching us since the first gulf war. enormous ed the conventional power we created that in many ways was enabled by see that when you enormous capability, you have to decide am i going to just ignore huge advantage or am i going to try and do something about it? russian for the last 20 plus years have been watching what we've been doing, and oping capabilities, they have not been secret. they have been testing weapons and building weapons to operate in space -- jamming weapons, laser weapons, they are building them to challenge the united states of america to to lenge our allies and change the balance of power notice world. that to happen. >> so we would win today but not necessarily in the future? worried about the future because i don't know how it happened, but somehow this the ability tost go fast and we have adversaries

that are going fast. anymore.go fast we take four years to study a problem before we do anything. years of risk technologies that we built 50 years ago. why do we take that much time? because we've been able to of the advantage we've had over adversaries. when you look at the threat and deal with the threat we don't time anymore. we have to move right now and we have too move fast and change business so we're in a significant advantage today that ve years from now advantage if we don't do something different it will be gone. in 10 years we could be behind. that's unacceptable. are we essman rogers, about to lose our advantage? >> certainly. t's one of the things that's given our committee a sense of emergency. general hyten has enormous the committee, particularly me, the ranking and the picture he paints to us in both classified and is scary.ed setting

the chinese and the russians larger h put a much defense e of their spending into this capability they have e, and structured to be able to go faster just like what he's talking about. look at the trajectory that they are on with capabilities, they are going to surpass us in the immediate future. not the near future, not the distant future, the immediate after if we don't get self-correct. it was interesting, about a year ago i was having a conversation general hyten and he was telling me and a few of my those twomembers that particular adversaries, near peers r maybe even our and literally within 12 months was saying, along with admiral now our peers.e that's unacceptable.

always hadars, we've as a guiding principle that we send our men and women into the theater where fight.as a fair we're about to be in that situation when it comes to that ar fighting domain and that's unacceptable. so i think it's imperative that sense of urgency, not just as a congress but as a that we get after this, in a serious way, and make sure maintain a degree of superiority in that theater. >> how would a space corps solve that problem? >> in a host of ways. ne, it would segregate the space professionals -- let me back up. when you look at national of it is in e 90% the air force. has one weather system. they handle very well. the army does some

communications, but 90% is in the air force. so what we have found is hat it's not been able to get he attention that it needed culturally or resource-wise and to go not had the ability fast. this technology is so rapidly evolving and developing that i needs a unique and lean agile acquisition system. and we felt like after looking t all the options available, that by segregating those space professionals in the air force, 90% of them are, into a operate organizational department of e the air force, that's one of the things i wanted to emphasize taking talked about us it away from the air force, we were going to keep it in the aggregate but just those space professionals, segregate the resources

to national security space, and segregate an ducational system for those professionals, and develop a culture that's focused on the number one mission for those professionals who come to work every day. years ago, it was never going properly resourced. it was an army where the number terrestrial.as in the air force, the number one mission is culturally d to be superior and air dominant. one mission number in life and it should be. they are the air force, but the 11 is, one of the other missions that they have is space. t is a subordinate mission, and, as we've just heard from general hyten and many others,

as smart as him on this particular issue and much marter than us, that's no longer acceptable. kadri of space a professionals who are given the mission that your number one job to work when you come is to be superior in space and o properly resource them and educate them and value them, and and again, since money is spongeable, we had to money.te that we think the space corps would have done that. piece, and i really felt this was going to be important, we were going to, and the legislation we came out of the house, designated that secretary of the air force had a clean slate to space corps from scratch. it looked like whatever she to look like, but most

importantly, the acquisition system would be unique to her, and her organization. she could design it to be as wanted it ile as she to look lt to be, and we took milestone decision authority away from the and gave it defense to the secretary of the air force. that's a lot of power. that's a lot of agility. the ability to go fast. e felt like that was the ideal way to get after this, in a very urgent fashion, but what we also going into this, is that, change.ings don't like it's just natural, and bureaucracies hate it. that's why it took 26 years for the air force to evolve out of the army. don't have 26 years for this. but it's going to happen. it's inevitable. happen, and we think that what we did this year emonstrated that sense of urgency, presented what we think is the ideal but we're not the only that being solution but whatever we're going to do we need to do it

soon. wilson, this would change your life dramatically. what do you think of the idea of space corps? >> well, first of all, i wanted o thank the congressman for their support of the national defense authorization act for he 20% increase in funding for space, which is what was requested in this year's budget. he united states needs assured access to space which means the ability to launch, and i completely agree with general that we need to move quickly, and we need to accelerate acquisition. one of the things that space -- month, a hundred million there are contract to innovate and prototype faster. milestone decisional authority has been moved, actually last authorization act moved milestone decision authority out of the secretary f defense's office down to the air force. i have moved it to the service acquisition authority or assistant secretary and we we need down and said to go fast. e need to prototype, innovate,

and with our next steps with respect to replacing space-based nfrared, with respect to indications and warning, we're -- general hyten and i are bsolutely determined, stop studying things to death and get capability on orbit for the war not all we that's need to do so it's a short the united states built a glasshouse at a time before the invention of stones. the shifting of space being a a war environment to fighting environment requires different capabilities. all, we niederreiter real-time space situational awareness so we need to know not just what's in the catalog but we need to know what's going on and what's moving in near real-time. the second thing we need to be able to do is command and control which means it's not enough to see what's happening on the traffic cam. you need to be able to do it and move ut forward with near real-time command and control. and the third thing is we need

be able to create effects. both offensively and defensive. in both this year's budget but i think in the budgets that now, you will d see significant movement in all of those areas. but i absolutely agree with hyten and mr. rogers, that the area where we need the how do we continue o reform defense wide acquisition processes in order to move quickly, to take advantage of experimentation and prototyping, to push authority down to the lowest level, and to schedules so we can move faster than the adversary. i think the other thing i would that until the 20th of january of this year, it was not space and war fighting in the same sentence. that's changed. to deter and prevail in pace as we do in every other domain of warfare in the future. > would a space corps help you

or hurt you in all of those endeavors? >> i can't think of a military that we have that's not enabled by or dependent on space. integrate space and elevate space as far as part of force. war fighting and to me, anything that from the joint fight is moving us in the wrong direction. i agree completely with mr. that the focus has to be on how to move fast. how to get ate, and capability to the war fighter. i don't think that creating more seams between a space corps and ther services helps in that regard. carey kari bingen, what are the major threats to all of there?atellites up >> if i can go back a step and just reiterate what some of my panel has saidhe space is absolutely vital to providing intelligence to or war

policymakers and our weapons developers, so when we think about what just we ened earlier this week witnessed another north korea ballistic missile launch. area. denied it's tough to penetrate with airborne assets or human spies. pace provides a unique way for us to get access that we can't currently get by other means. the intelligence imagery satellites, we take pictures of launchers, the missile warning satellites to detect those launches, it's the ground who the process and report on the data and the communications satellites that relay that dater for users in the field to take action. when i look at that and parrot t with the threat and the threat over the last 10 years in particular, 2007 when the that satellite, that was a watershed moment for us, and they have not stood years.over the last 10 they have rapidly moved forward n all areas of anti-satellite capabilities to reduce our advantage in space. everything from kinetic energy,

the ground om both and the air, laser weapons, cyber, we ammers, also have to remember that threats are not just to our atellites on orbit, but to the communication links, to the ground stations, to the user taken a , they have full spectrum approach to call capabilities, and the difference now, we've been focused on iraq and afghanistan, missions. important russia-china, it's a very different game. contested environment operations. space is critical to that and really think s to hard in the intelligence community about how we effectively protect those we get greater speed at scale to provide intelligence to our policy makers who aren't of g to have the luxury time, and so we're focusing across the board not only on to put into sures our architectures but also measures on the ground that processinge speed of

the deluge of data that we're imagery ff our satellites and we're focusing on ska scale as well. >> so how vulnerable are we those satellites that provide all of that intelligence? > one of the challenges is physics. satellites go in pretty predictable orbits. potential adversary with an engineering degree knows where hose is the will be and as highlighted there are many avenues for them to try to pursue them so they are fragile.y however, there are steps we can to protect the mission. we're designing more resilient allies , leveraging our and partners to provide greater intelligence sharing and we're at other nonspace alternatives so we're doing things across the board to try address some of those vulnerabilities. > general hyten has said he

would not support buying any make ig satellites which targets. ann, how do you make smaller satellites without giving up capability? well, i think first, i want to say thank you for allowing industry to have a role on this panel. an extremely important topic, and as much as we think there is, i are a lot of folks who don't it's part of the core of what we do everyday from he mundane tasks to national security and this conversation is larger than any one program or one company. this is about ensuring that we space toassuredness of gain access. weing is very fortunate that have a strong partnership with he u.s. government, and both through the air force as well as our missile defense agency, and it isn't about whether it's a

small atellite or a satellite. this is about providing the capability that's needed for the ight that's at hand and for predicting the fight in the future. so our job is to collaborate. is to innovate, our job is to provide capability faster, ithout having to be told to go faster, as well as make sure it's affordable because the rate is hange in this domain moving so quickly. --general hyten, do you want blunt me just put it in a set of observations. o, if you went to boeing and you wanted to buy a large, oh, the realy, size is not issue. speed and defense ability is the issue. o size is an interesting dynamic but if you go to boeing, you want to buy a commercial, commercial communications satellite, very complex satellite, they want a fixed price agreement and they will sell it to you and 36 months.to you in

i was in a meeting in the pentagon and i'm going to keep he names out of it and the programs out of it but in the eeting of the pentagon, we're discussing whether we should buy equivalent of one of our current on-orbit satellites, and somebody who i done t very much who has this business for a long time made the following statement. if we can very risky get that delivered by 2029. this year. think about that for a second. 2029. years from now. boeing will go through four generations of commercial way, lites and, oh, by the if they can't build it in three years they are out of business build it in ll three years. that's commercial sector. what do we want the next missile to be?te warning what do we want it to be? i'll tell you what i want it to be. commercial bus that we can buy from anybody, i don't care. i want it to fit in the current

ground system so i don't have to ground system. and then i want to invest a lot of money into a very good sensor strategic missile warning for this country and i want to put that sensor on the satellite. boeing can do that, lockheed can do that. any of the nations industry can do that. why does our process say it akes 12 years and it will be risky whether we can get there from here? that's ridiculous. >> and the great thing is, hyten now has the support, the pentagon agrees and we're not going to let that happen. [applause] >> this country can do business a different way. way all theifferent time. all we have to do is empower the eople that can make the right decisions, put the responsibilities and authorities in the right place, allow them it o fast, and we've done time and time again. we can do it once again. like you were talking about space, space, infrared system. well, i was talking about it

on the second piece because the secretary started walking down remarks and i er wanted to get that. i wasn't talking about that generic the conversation. i was giving to the pentagon, about why ban communications in the current environment. wide e built our current band communications satellites, they were designed in the 1990s. hat was the commercial of communication satellite industry in the 1990s? best.yte at invisible. not even really there. still , we think that we have to buy wide band communication satellites this boeing that ave builds huge satellites all the time. lockheed builds huge satellites. it's just a commodity. why don't we buy it as a commodity? it's wide band communication. that as a commodity and we'll spend a lot of time and money figuring out how to do and egic missile warning those kinds of pieces. it's sitting there right in front of us. its right in front of us and

not that hard but we still try to make it hard. >> and it's not just the piece.ition and we all know this up here. requirement process that's sclerotic in the there is an then analysis of alternatives, in a case where, this is not technology.y we're not pushing the bounds of human knowledge on some of these things. e're just trying to build something that is largely well-developed and known. get theget after it and bureaucracy out of the way. > i've got to jump in, i'm sorry. whenever we have this iscussion, the congressman, secretary and i, it always sounds like we're criticizing community.ition that's not the case. we're criticizing everybody in this room. in this room. so let's go through the five pieces that have to be fixed in done. to get this number one, you've got to have a budget. if you don't have a budget, if

want to know why shriver and rickover and all the people that ame forward, big advantage of going fast, in the first year they had a budget and they knew what they could get done. budgets, budgets that are sufficient, that's a critical enabler. then the requirements process. would it take three years to build a requirements process? i can sit down with a piece of not in this ow, room because it would have to be classified but i can write down of the next nts generation. a communications satellite. i know what they are. i don't need three years of analyst to do that. he acquisition process is broken. because a program manager spent all of their time in the pentagon. they run to the pentagon all the approval. they don't actually execute their programs. we have to give them the authority. hey should spend time in the factories. number four, we have to have a test process that's efficient need for speed and that means we have to understand how to take risks in failured that sometimes will be okay. and then number five, operators have to understand how to take

come ional risk when we in. all five of those things have to be fixed and if we only address the it will not solve problem but if we address each we of these across the board difference. >> let's talk about acquisition authority. it's something that the congress pushed authority down. as of two years ago, 2/3 of the major programs where we mad to decisions on major acquisition programs, 2/3 of managed grams were within the auspices of the secretary of defense. that's completely reversed so those programs are now at the service level and we've requested delegation of the rest of them. of those that are at the service level, i'm not the acquisition authority for any of them. them to our assistant secretary and we've pushed everything else down. so program managers no longer have to come to the secretary to get approval to move on, which takes months out of this process.

we're going to continue to move forward in that direction. but i think there are some other need to think about, just kind of stepping up and back a little bit. they have to do with strategic things. deter and prevail? we've never had to talk about that in space before. we hold at risk things that other countries value? doubt in the te mind of an adversary that if they were to take out our space capabilities, the consequences for them would be unacceptable. that's the nature of deterrence. nd then how do we defends, restore, and operate through in in the same way that we do in every other domain of conflict? those are the kinds of strategic that we're trying to set up in the national defense strategy in which the air force services are now focused on developing those apabilities, demonstrating

those capabilities, and sending a message to our adversary that the last thing they want to do mess with the united states of america. congressman? >> i just want to reemphasize believes ybody really that you're going to see dramatic space in the way space eets its challenges without dramatic organizational change, you're fooling yourself. that came out on this, that really sent alarm in 2001, the rumfield commission and, by the ay, that was the first group that suggested a space core as options.our since then, there have been a commission, nd all who said the same thing. reflection on secretary wilson, who is a personal friend of mine, i serve for eight congress years, show just got here. she didn't cause this problem.

department let this problem languish. the air force was not able to self-correct. going to be able to self-correct as long as 60 and cause a ay no 12-year acquisition process, but yet no one owns it and no one say yes. that has to be changed. we're going to have to rip this roots, and put up a new system that not only has but builds a on, culture around space dominance, that values it. things i talked about arly in this process was, to emphasize the cultural concern, this past year, there were 37 nominated for brigadier general in the air force. guess how many of them were professionals? >> one? >> zero, until i made that point and then they brought one up, that's at one unacceptable. f you're a bright young engineer, or professional who wants a career in space and in likeir force but you would

to grow some stars like this gentleman did, you're not going o choose space, because you're not going to be valued. we need to make sure these bright young people who would to have a career in space know they will be valued, nurtured and can actually grow some stars. that's how we're going to have space.ority in >> i have to take issue with that because i think we have airmen who are wearing the badges that general hyten is wearing. have met a lot of them. first e providing the global utility to the world. on your that blue dot phone, gps is operated by a 40 air force men in colorado springs, colorado, and free to a billion people every day. t is an exciting time to be many space in the united states military. and while one of 37 last year

generals, adier actually in the last two cycles, a higher percentage of space became general officers than the average in the air force. o there is a tremendous opportunity. but it's not just those who come within space. i think when general -- walks meeting of the joint chiefs of staff or when he commandern he was the of the air war in central command, a guy named general turned to him and said you're my space control authority. they don't know what all the stuff means on their left shoulder. they just know they look at that that niform and they know you're supposed to be in charge of space. and air. and airlift. and the nuclear deterrent. we're the air force. we're responsible for this. it. we own on the question of advancement, the general is a

self-described face -- space nerd. [laughter] i insulted you. he did all right. he was the exception in the room. that despite do those challenges. i'm saying most young professionals are going to see fewer opportunities to get to where he got. there are people like him who are wonderful examples. i want to see more of them. corps wehe space suggested was going to create more opportunities. let me give another example. the professional military education that is required in the air force, 450 hours of education. dedicated toas space. you don't value that when you don't put more of that in your educational curriculum.

i want you to understand it is a cultural thing that i don't think will be properly addressed until you have the segregation we are talking about. that is my view. that is the view of the house armed services committee and we will continue promoting this because we are not willing to allow china and russia to surpass our capabilities in space. we have become too reliant on it. not just in our daily lives commercially, domestically, militarily it is absolutely intertwined to everything we do. >> secretary wilson, you raised othersue of holding assets at risk. he did not answer your own question. i saw a speech you gave when you question,her basic what is the policy of the united states if another country destroys one of our satellites.

you did not provide the answer. is there an answer to that question? the unitedilson: states has not had a declaratory policy with respect to space. it is time we talk about this. if one of our satellites, particularly that provide indication of a missile launch, or that provides control for our national command authority, if another country interferes with so satellites, we would consider that to be a hostile act and would respond. not necessarily in the same domain. we respond across domains. cornwallis was defeated at yorktown, it wasn't because we defeated him by bombarding him. he was cut off by the french. you respond across domains has a nation. capabilityating that

in a time of peace, we reduce the possibility of miscalculation in crisis so our adversaries know that we will respond if they seek to disrupt our ability to command our forces or disrupt our ability to see if someone attacks us with a missile. by declaratory policy, we reduce the likelihood that someone will actually destroy those satellites in a time of war. we've never had a declaratory policy before. we've lived in a glass house. we did not need one. it is time for the united states to consider whether we need that kind of policy. david: sounds like the time has passed as we need a declaratory policy, if these countries have the ability to take out our satellites. secretary wilson: as i said,

until january 20, we could not say space and war fighting in the same sentence. when i was going up for confirmation, i had to those words in the name sent to. sentence.same there was a holdover who sought to strike it out and i said you'll have to get somebody of a higher rank to do that. [laughter] airmengeneral hyten, don't care about declaratory policy. they care about rules of engagement. what do i do if such and such happens? are there was of engagement for operating in space? general hyten: no. it is the only domain, even cyber we have rules. or a sailor goes to operate a space system in cradles -- and critical support, they go a in without rules of

engagement. that is because we don't have international modes of behavior to start from. it has not been a contested environment to sit down and walk through that. it is a significant issue. that is one reason why i support internationalt of norms. we are going to figure it out. we are doing it ourselves in strategic command. that is not the right answer in the overall scheme. the command that operates in defense and uses space should not define the rules of engagement. guidancehat kind of from above, we have to figure out how to do that. yesterday was significant in the operationalization of space. we had a functional component. we stood up a joint force component commander, went from a three star to a four-star.

he is now my component commander. sounds like the same thing, doesn't it? it's not. it is different. if you go into any combat and command around the world, but andfind is an air component maritime component. strata,, used to find 18 components. nuclear task force and structures. -- this time next year, when you walk in, you will have air, space, land, maritime. a war fighting structure that everyone will understand. we will put a four star in front of it. it ish as i love space, not my top priority in strategic command. my priority is the nuclear enterprise and it will always be, it should always be the

number one priority in stratcom. i need the smartest guy i can find and put him in charge. was on thee that president's desk will establish that person. , for the last 12 hours, he is my space component commander. >> one thing i give him credit for, the vice president -- one thing that is helping ring a , commercialce space, where we see plummeting costs to launch and the sides of payloads, and also the groups that are starting to look at these norms of behavior. we think about who is in charge in space. on the national security side, for us, it is general hyten. that is not the question they

are asking. tokyo, youight to fly through an ungoverned area. there are norms of behavior for over thehappens pacific ocean. the development of norms of behavior in space is one of the things that has to be done government to government and with the private sector. we've got issues on launch, norms of behavior with respect to creating debris. the united states air force has been keeping the catalog of objects in space and we are now in the situation of we tell the chinese, they put 3000 pieces of debris on orbit when they did the launch of 2007 and destroyed a weather satellite. .000 pieces of debris the united states air force is telling the chinese when their debris might interfere with a satellite. that is one service we provide.

norms of behavior with respect to debris on orbit, minimizing debris. there a lot of nation to nation of thethe vice president national space council will help facilitate. impossible foro an outsider to understand the organization of all those commands in space, the joint functional commands. in 2015, there was something interagencyoint combined operations center. the worst acronym in military history. got, somebody with a sense of branding, it may have been to nationalthat space defense center. what is the national space defense center? >> words are important.

a place theled joint area agency combined space operations center, which is every word associated with space in one acronym and we said that is the place. it doesn't matter if a was you, david, our allies, the secretary, you could never explain what it was. i decided in conjunction with the intelligence community that we ought to call it what it is -- that is what it is. national space defense center. , thelace where we go intelligence community, the department of defense, army, navy, marines, we figure out how to fight that fight. marines that came to work in the national space defense center.

i will tell you, general dunford came to visit and he puts his eye on those young marines and he makes a beeline for them, ignoring everyone else. young captains. he has a great time. how is life going here? they told him a story and after five minutes he realized i should learn what this place is about. he moved on. leaving those greens feeling good about themselves. i said, ok, you tell me the truth. how are you guys doing? sir, there's 70 people in the center. 68 of them are smarter than we are. [laughter] when it comes to space, that is probably true. when it comes to war fighting, as a captain, you know better than anybody else. if you treat whatever problem that comes to as a war fighting problem, you will be valuable because why do you maneuver?

maneuver to avoid contact and again positions of advantage. that is what you teach a marine from the beginning. how do you defend yourself? they know how to do that. it is a war fighting problem, focused on space defense. that is why does the national space defense center joint interagency. david: sounds like a battle lab. general hyten: you have to have a place to fight it. there is no such thing as war in space. it doesn't exist. there is just war. you don't fight a place. you have conflict with an adversary. the adversary uses all domains to gain advantage. that is why stratcom is focused on those domains. we want to provide integrated responses to a problem. when i have a problem and it comes to me in space, i will look to my air component, space,

my missile defense element, and my maritime component to provide help and we will work with the commander to figure out the response. it's not that hard. it is a straightforward military problem. is a horrible thing. i never want to fight a war that goes into space. we better figure out how to do it without ruining the environment. >> a national space defense center, there are things i talk about we need to do now that the class house -- glass house -- near real-time awareness. the picture of what is going on in space. to second is the ability make change. command and control in space. defenseonal space center is intended to bring those together. we have told our contractors and people who build things there's going to be no more exquisite of-off science experiments

specific things in space. if it does not integrate or share, we are not to buy it. it has to be command and control integrated. the national space defense center is moving from an experiment to an operating war fighting center where army, navy, marines, and other space elements will be able to have an operating picture and command and control of what is going on to create the protection of our high-value assets and hold at risk others. david: operational war fighting center? it is operational? secretary wilson: it looks like see,ther ops century would whether maritime, land, air. .let's look back at the words

national space defense center. it is national. our allies will not be there. we are bringing in all of the most sensitive information into that place and we will not share that. directed the new space component time one that to be a coalition center by the end of next year. we are coalition partners. and the commercial partners we have can understand and we will integrate both centers together to provide that seamless command and control we need across the space force. involving allies, the commercial sector, the intelligence community. that is the energy we have built right now. , what kari bingen difference has it made to bring the intelligence satellites into the other military satellites? i talked about speed

and scale and for us to effectively support all of the war fighter operations, we have to be fast. that is one common theme today. one of the items i wanted to pull the thread on, the debris we have in orbit. debris in000 objects, orbit. 10 years later, 180,000 objects. an 80% increase. we do not have all the airmen and analysts to watch that many objects move in figure out what is maneuvering and could threaten a satellite. we need to bring additional tools to identify and predict what that debris is doing. maybe it is not debris. there are things we are working on in the buzzword right now is

artificial intelligence machine learning. that is a no-brainer. we have to invest in this. and by the way china has made aiml a megaproject. by 2030, they want to invest $150 billion in this arena. the u.s. private sector investment, almost $40 billion in this arena. we put $30 million into this. there is some significant opportunity here for the department of defense and the intelligence community to do more. >> one of my favorite facts about the u.s. military, the surveillance wing at langley air force base have the highest cavity rate in the united states air force from drinking all the red bull they needed to keep awake looking at the monitors of all those drone teams. i remember hearing a general say imaging satellites

that are planned to go in orbit get there, the u.s. would need something like one million photo handle that data. >> if we do it the same way. that is one area of their is opportunity -- that is one area where there is opportunity for reduce theto help us number of eyeballs staring at use artificial intelligence to tip to where we want to look at. --is also a good example of what are the challenges the air force has faced? there is no doubt the most devastating impact across all of not from ouris adversaries. it has been from sequester. recovered from the

sequester. the most important thing that can be done from space is to lift the budget control act as it is structured. so the financial issues have been there. i think there are structural issues and changes. you think about this, the entire air force and militaries focused on winning the fight in the middle east. the united states air force ,eveloped a gps satellite advancing gps. it came up with the new satellites that are being put on orbit, developed the space plane, which is revolutionary. i would rather be us than them. now where we are, we've got to put the throttle forward and become even more innovative, more machine learning, to get ahead and stay ahead. night the airt

force was looking at using ai to navigate the acquisition process. [laughter] >> a lot more flexibility than intelligence. ,> some people don't remember the national reconnaissance office which is responsible for intelligence is a joint venture between the air force and the cia. half of the employees are air force. the air force has been involved in all aspects of the space business for a long time. they are pretty good at it. we need to change it to war fighting domain. in terms of technical capability, there are things to be proud of. david: gps came up. you guys make gps. , notked at a gps satellite

to look at it -- >> did you want to buy one? we have lots of payment plans. [laughter] juicy it looked like a target to me. how do you defend a gps satellite? >> i'm not going to get into the specific technology or tactics. the point is as technology continues to evolve, what is the in the most effective way? thedo we have it in capacity that can maneuver and can avoid and have situational awareness and bring in the artificial intelligence in a way that doesn't take 12 years? exciting point of the conversation we've been having since january is we are having a conversation out loud and in public where we are focused on

.n important domain historically we have looked at it as an ration of. we know it is part of the fiber for how we live our lives. as industry, we have an obligation to bring forward our best people in talent in a way that is economical and meets the needs of the nation. david: i'm about to go to questions from the audience. congressman rogers, did you have something? rep. rogers: listening to talk about those marines, just a fundamental he was emphasizing. it reminded me of a conversation he had with my subcommittee that helped us understand why china and russia have stepped up their activity. i thought i would share it with you. it was illuminating. when he was telling us initially how much more china had put in a percentage of their defense

spending into national security russia, hel as emphasized, like i talked islier our domestic society reliant on space. they realize that. they also realize tactically they can't defeat us in a head-on had battle. they can't. if they can take our eyes and ears out, they may have a fair fight on their hands. let these folks have a fair fight. they can't compete with us financially. buy a lot ofto weapons systems or other capabilities, they aren't as wealthy as we are as a nation. this is an area where they sense a vulnerability. they actually can put the

resources against it to make us vulnerable. it helped us understand why we need a sense of urgency about this and why we need to have a greater pre-ca should -- greater appreciation about this concern. it grows across all aspects of our national security. the north korean threat we've got right now that has had a lot of people rapt with attention, people aren't thinking about the fact our first way of detecting a launch by north korea so that we can turn the radars to track it and aim our interceptors to get it in time is a satellite waiting for that he'd signature. satellite bethat dazzled with 10 or 15 minutes. it would be too late. is. is what the situation it is a very important topic for this a-day to be talking about

today. this gentleman has been doing great work in that area. i appreciate what he is done for our committee and nation. david: i'm going to start with some questions from the audience. then i'm going to run for cover. is the lack of a rapid acquisition program a military or congressional problem? rep. rogers: both. this is not unique to the air force. this is across all the services, this bureaucratic, lethargic acquisition process. about, whenhopeful it is implemented, and it will thise will hopefully have pilot program we can take a blank slate and create an agile, non-bureaucratic system and

prove it works so we can replicate it in the other services. as we've talked about in the congress is as guilty as it can be for not -- for being negligent in properly resourcing the military and allowing this sequester to continue. it was one of the stupidest things in my 15 years in congress. we should own it and fix it. [applause] i think it is both as well. i'm testifying on acquisition and i'm going to bring forward five additional suggestions on changes to the acquisition rules to allow us to go faster. it is not going to be a single fix. it is not going to be just legislative or administrative. there's an irony in the air force that we have operational

airmen who will take risk on our behalf. we have an administrative side of the air force and other services that have been punished for taking risks and our risk-averse. , weave to not only free up want them to fail fast, it, and move on. that is a different culture. it is going to take sustained effort over time and preparation and support of our program managers when they try something that doesn't work and they move on. often times, senior leaders in the defense department and in the congress will say, how are you going to make sure that never happens in? the answer is, we are not. we are going to allow people to fail. that is why we call them experiments.

when somebody gets called up to the hill, which will probably be me to explain why something didn't work, the answer is i'm accountable. i don't mind failing fast as long as we can move faster than the adversary. whid: i don't understand y space corps won't become prisoner of the same process as the rest of the military is held hostage to. think in the initial phase, there would be attention to keeping it lean and agile. it would be rapid. creepthink bureaucratic can't get anywhere. just not initially. earlier, covered this but it is a rich topic. the question is, for general why is the air force planning a next generation missile warning constellation

that will not be operational until 2029? i would add to that question the request for information for the , describe theork request as compelling in urgent. compelling and urgent, 12 years. anybody see anything wrong with that? i am a commander. i am the nation's war fighter when it comes to nukes, space, cyber missiles. my lover in this process -- level in this process is a requirement for may war fighter. it is not the same thing we have in 2029.vering my requirement is a good enough capability that should be delivered in advance of the 2029 date.

i have talked to enough people that i know that is possible. it is not unrealistic. we have to be careful not to left of the requirements run wild. , it is a described it simple satellite. it is not hard. i was around for the summer .tudy of 1995 if you want to know everything that is wrong with it, go back to 1995 when we said if we put another sensor on it, we could put a scanner. we could do technical intelligence and missile defense. we could do theater missile warning. strategic warnings. we could do it all on one satellite. that would be awesome. $7 billion later, we're trying to chase that. we have to hold the requirements under control to go fast. we can. all i can tell you is i am

adamant about the requirements and i'm going to watch them closely. it is up to the air force to go build it. leadershiphave great in the acquisition business right now. i think we have a great partnership with the missile defense agency, who needs infrared satellite to do what they need to do. if you put those pieces a lot of we could buy capabilities for the amount of money we are putting into the budget. there's not enough money to keep buying billion dollars satellites and put them up and try to defend them. you can't get there from here. them $200 make million, $100 million, all of a sudden all kinds of opportunities open up. we have to go down that path way. we have to.

i can't control the acquisition process. i can control the requirement out of the combatant command and i will do that. one of theilson: unsung heroes of the air force, jon voight, who was the father of the f-16. use an iconoclast. he was always clashing with the officials. i'm so tempted sometimes to take one of the lessons from john boyd, no request will be longer than 30 pages and every proposal is no longer than 50 and it had better be dense with specific stuff. there are things we can do that take us back to our roots as bicycle mechanics who get things done and don't let the paperwork slow us down. why is the need for a new

missile warning so urgent and compelling? general hyten: the secretary described it pretty well. i was watching it the other night. every missile that comes off the seen first by one of our capabilities. satellite launched quite a while ago now. we have six to buy and then we have to decide after that. though satellites are not easy to defend. .hat is a significant problem we have to make sure we provide that capability. it is one of the most important missions stratcom has, for the nation and world. we have to make sure it is there. it has to survive on orbit. that is be a target easy for an adversary to get after. we have to put those things together.

the way you do that is if you only put one satellite, with the technology today, i believe you can put it in orbit. what you see is going to blow you away. it will be amazing. what are you going to do with all the other room? i want gas and a bigger motor. if i can move quick, everything changes. i don't know about you, i'm looking at a lot of pilings in the audience. -- pilot wings in the audience. if you are trying to get away i do want torsary, be flying b-52's around the heavens when the guy that can shoot me is right there. war fightingsimple problem. we have to look at it that way. david: what happens at the contractor level when

requirements run wild? stable requirements are the key to any program. the governmentn side, industry side, if we don't deliver, if we provide, if we funding from the customer, that hampers their ability to do other things. i am accountable from a boeing perspective. having stable requirements is will best friend. we understand how we are going to operate. ofis not just getting a set corporation. it is having inside. it is making certain the language we are using we all understand and we have the right measurements in place technically and financially so .e can provide a win-win industry's only here because of our customer. there is no benefit to us to not

be partnered. there is not benefit to not invest. we are going to be with our customers, and i can speak to that from a boeing perspective, through good and bad. we will own it when we mess up. i like to minimize the opportunity to mess up. was a lieutenant, i was in the acquisition business. that is why i am passionate about it. the person i wanted to be was the kernel. i did not want to be the general. that is horrible. [laughter] why did i want that? they had the authority and responsibility to get things done. they were going to deliver gps for the world. that changed ones warfare. they deliver the capabilities. i remember a couple of big failures and i remember the

firings that came with those failures. we held them accountable. there's 10 people lined up to take those jobs. put me in, coach, i can get it done. now we are having trouble keeping colonels in the acquisition business. we do not give them the authority. that is changing now with the .ecretary's leadership we have a culture that is going to be difficult. man, when the lieutenant and captain's want to be the colonel s again, we will get it right. secretary wilson: we have been given more authority. we are delegating down. they gave us eight more yesterday. they have delegated more down, secretary lord did. of our second-level protocol, there are 42 of them. all 42 are with the assistant secretary. of the third level, there are

373 of those. 274 are at the full colonel level or below. we have pushed authority backed down. we need to make sure they have the skills and education to be they areo those jobs, all busting butts. they are going to make this work. we are going to keep bureaucracy out of their way. that is what big it up every morning to do, to support the guys and gals on the line who are taking the fight to the enemy. that is a tremendously satisfying piece of work. david: when we were doing a story on space command to an half years ago, you told me about -- two and a half years ago, you told me about geosynchronous orbit.

we've been talking about the importance of geosynchronous orbit with the satellites. up told me you would put awareness satellites. they were not operational when we were talking. they've been operational two years. what have they found? general hyten: i won't tell you. [laughter] our adversaries know they are there. they watch them closely. they understand if there's anything that goes on in that critical real estate in space, we can watch it, we can take a picture of it, and we can figure out something to do. that is deterrence. , the fundamentals of deterrence have not changed. that is my number one priority.

the ability to impose cost on an adversary, which is what you think when you get to the nuclear business. making sure your credible and it is communicated well. space focuses on the deny benefit than the impose cost side. that is having exquisite situational awareness, provide.se satellites that is a powerful deterrent because there is nothing they can put above the earth that we won't know about. you said there were four seconds left. [laughter] we have come to the end of the panel. i want to thank everybody up here on the stage for answering the questions and i want to thank everybody in the audience for being patient listeners. thank you. [applause]

weekend, on c-span3, tonight at 8:00 a.m. eastern, we toured the national world war i museum and memorial in kansas city. >> i think it is an extra ordinary story of grassroots support of crowd source funding to pay for what turned out to be an extraordinarily dramatic memorial. >> american history tv this weekend, only on c-span3. >> earlier this month, the shakespeare company of washington dc presented a mock trial based on william shakespeare's play 12th night. a panel of judges, including a supreme court nominee, heard and oral argument of people representing the characters as to whether their marriage should be annulled. this is an hour and five minutes.