thedrifter
09-28-07, 07:49 AM
September 28, 2007
Military looks to next frontier
By Jenn Rowell
Montgomery Advertiser
Space is the next frontier, and the military is working out how to educate the next generation of officers on how to master it.
Air University concluded its annual Space Education Symposium on Thursday. The symposium drew about 150 military officers, civilians and speakers to discuss space capabilities, vulnerabilities and how to prepare a new crop of space professionals to replace those who will likely be retiring soon.
"Somehow we need to engage the imagination of America," Col. John Hyten said of the interest that's been lost since the moon-landing era. "Somehow we need to get that spark restarted."
Hyten is the director of plans and requirements at Air Force Space Command at Peterson Air Force Base, Colo. He's also a Huntsville native.
He said more collaboration among military agencies to further space education is critical. For example, Space Command is only about 20 miles from the United States Air Force AcadeMy, where a group of cadets have launched their own satellite into orbit and communicate with it effectively.
But most of those cadets haven't expressed serious interest in space-related fields. Mostly because they want to be pilots or they don't want to be stationed in Minot, N.D., he said.
Another deterrent keeping young officers out of space fields is that they can't see a clear career path, Hyten said.
"If cadets see a dead end in space, then they're going to go elsewhere," he said.
Lt. Commander Tim Poe, a Navy officer currently attending Air Command and Staff College at Maxwell, said that's one of the reasons he attended the symposium.
"There's no career progressive for space in the Navy," he said. "Space affects (us) in so many ways, (and) even though the Space Race is over it's still an open frontier."
Hyten and other panelists like Roger Harrison, the U.S. ambassador to Jordan in the early 1990s and now a professor at the Air Force Academy, agree that all military officers should have a basic understanding of space and American society's dependency on it. They also agree that mid-level and senior officers need to be able to apply that understanding to strategically operate in space and maintain satellites, communication systems, global positioning systems and other space-based technologies.
Col. Sean McClung, director of the National Space Studies Center at Maxwell, said although a number of space education programs exist nationwide, there is no coherent framework tying it together.
"What we're trying to accomplish is the synergy," he said. "The level of education and the level of thought in the U.S. is not mature when it comes to space."
Another problem when it comes to creating a career path for space professionals is that the professionals themselves are having trouble coming up with a checklist of what the next generation of space-smart officers will need.
Joseph Rouge, the assistant director of the National Security Space Office, told the group via phone that his agency doesn't want to mandate requirements because he thinks the services should determine those based on their specific needs.
Air Force Brig. Gen. Edward Bolton of the National Reconnaissance Office advised military leaders to make guidelines not rules because the field is constantly changing and many of the problems the next generation will face haven't even been thought of yet.
He said in the early 1900s, the specifications for the first military plane only required it to go 40 miles per hour and the builders got a bonus when it went 42 miles per hour. He said space exploration could follow a continuum similar to the development of American air power.
But the biggest problem is simply awareness, Rouge said.
"We have made space transparent to the user so he doesn't even know he's using it," he said. "All our fears come down to what happens if all our space capabilities go away, will we be ready?"
Ellie
Military looks to next frontier
By Jenn Rowell
Montgomery Advertiser
Space is the next frontier, and the military is working out how to educate the next generation of officers on how to master it.
Air University concluded its annual Space Education Symposium on Thursday. The symposium drew about 150 military officers, civilians and speakers to discuss space capabilities, vulnerabilities and how to prepare a new crop of space professionals to replace those who will likely be retiring soon.
"Somehow we need to engage the imagination of America," Col. John Hyten said of the interest that's been lost since the moon-landing era. "Somehow we need to get that spark restarted."
Hyten is the director of plans and requirements at Air Force Space Command at Peterson Air Force Base, Colo. He's also a Huntsville native.
He said more collaboration among military agencies to further space education is critical. For example, Space Command is only about 20 miles from the United States Air Force AcadeMy, where a group of cadets have launched their own satellite into orbit and communicate with it effectively.
But most of those cadets haven't expressed serious interest in space-related fields. Mostly because they want to be pilots or they don't want to be stationed in Minot, N.D., he said.
Another deterrent keeping young officers out of space fields is that they can't see a clear career path, Hyten said.
"If cadets see a dead end in space, then they're going to go elsewhere," he said.
Lt. Commander Tim Poe, a Navy officer currently attending Air Command and Staff College at Maxwell, said that's one of the reasons he attended the symposium.
"There's no career progressive for space in the Navy," he said. "Space affects (us) in so many ways, (and) even though the Space Race is over it's still an open frontier."
Hyten and other panelists like Roger Harrison, the U.S. ambassador to Jordan in the early 1990s and now a professor at the Air Force Academy, agree that all military officers should have a basic understanding of space and American society's dependency on it. They also agree that mid-level and senior officers need to be able to apply that understanding to strategically operate in space and maintain satellites, communication systems, global positioning systems and other space-based technologies.
Col. Sean McClung, director of the National Space Studies Center at Maxwell, said although a number of space education programs exist nationwide, there is no coherent framework tying it together.
"What we're trying to accomplish is the synergy," he said. "The level of education and the level of thought in the U.S. is not mature when it comes to space."
Another problem when it comes to creating a career path for space professionals is that the professionals themselves are having trouble coming up with a checklist of what the next generation of space-smart officers will need.
Joseph Rouge, the assistant director of the National Security Space Office, told the group via phone that his agency doesn't want to mandate requirements because he thinks the services should determine those based on their specific needs.
Air Force Brig. Gen. Edward Bolton of the National Reconnaissance Office advised military leaders to make guidelines not rules because the field is constantly changing and many of the problems the next generation will face haven't even been thought of yet.
He said in the early 1900s, the specifications for the first military plane only required it to go 40 miles per hour and the builders got a bonus when it went 42 miles per hour. He said space exploration could follow a continuum similar to the development of American air power.
But the biggest problem is simply awareness, Rouge said.
"We have made space transparent to the user so he doesn't even know he's using it," he said. "All our fears come down to what happens if all our space capabilities go away, will we be ready?"
Ellie