Lt Gen David Deptula, USAF (Ret.): [00:00:00] Well, good morning ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Schriever Space Power Series. I’m Dave Deptula, Dean of the Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies, and today we’re particularly pleased to host the Chief of Space Operations, General Chance Saltzman. Now, the charge before General Saltzman in the Space Force is historic in nature.

For years, space power was viewed as only a supporting entity for terrestrial operations. Until relatively recently, US policy actually prohibited discussion of war fighting in space. However, our potential adversaries, particularly China and Russia, are turning the space domain into a conflict zone, so our military has adjusted accordingly.

Space becoming a war fighting domain is a key reason why President Trump created the Space Force. As well as US Space Command in [00:01:00] 2019. The Space Force is charged to design strategies, operating concepts, tactics, and technologies to meet very real threats in space. Space power is no longer a supporting appendage to other military operations.

It’s a core war fighting arena and must be treated as such. So with that General Saltzman, it’s great to have you back at the Mitchell Institute, and what I’d like to do is turn it over to you for some opening perspectives.

General Chance Saltzman, CSO: Well, great. I really appreciate it, Dave. Thanks for having me here. It’s always an honor to be a part of the Mitchell Institute and, you know, we go way back, uh, and, and the Mitchell Institute goes as far back as the Space Force goes back, and so it’s been a nice relationship, but not one without issues.

And I think that everybody is tracking, and I just wanna kind of clear the air right outta the gate. I did have some concerns recently over a report that was issued by Mitchell Institute. But I wanna be clear, I, it was really about the circumstances. It was less about, my concerns were less about the [00:02:00] substance of the report and more just about the tone and the timing of that report.

And I’ll tell you, the Mitchell Institute listened to my concerns. They heard the issues and quickly addressed ’em. So as far as I’m concerned, that is water under the bridge now, and it’s really nice to be back with the Mitchell Institute. Uh, you know, I’m a big fan of constructive debate. I think we would agree.

Yep. It’s what hones our policy positions and it makes us stronger and better. So really appreciate all that Mitchell does to drive those debates and really happy to be here today. But I think the, the main reason why I wanna be here is because there’s this central theme that I’ve concluded that everybody is starting to recognize how much more critical space is becoming to our nation and to our national defense. And in the exact same timeframe, the Space Force is shrinking. And that’s just a fundamental disconnect that I think we have to solve. And so I appreciate this opportunity to talk about it.

Lt Gen David Deptula, USAF (Ret.): Well, super. As a reminder, our audience you can all submit questions by the chat function or raise your hand. Uh, and when you do [00:03:00] so please state your name and affiliation before you ask any questions. But thanks for those insights Chief, why don’t we just jump right in, uh, because I think a lot of these things we’re gonna talk about are interest to the entire audience.

One of the things that you highlighted when you were out at the AFAs space or at the Warfare Symposium is your clear call for space superiority. Could you talk a little bit more to the audience about your rationale and what drives your passion for getting that across at this particular time?

General Chance Saltzman, CSO: Well, some of it is just the natural maturation of our responsibilities as a service. Uh, we’re, we’re starting to develop the vocabulary to have that discussion. And so I don’t think that would surprise an air power enthusiast, for example and spending 29 years in the Air Force I think we came to the conclusion that the joint force can’t be successful without air superiority.

It’s gonna, it’s gonna be a lot more dangerous. It’s gonna be a lot more bloody. And we’re gonna struggle to meet objectives if we don’t have air superiority. And I [00:04:00] think those conditions now are true just from a different altitude. If we don’t have space superiority, if we can’t protect what we have and deny the adversary, the use of space enabled targeting against our forces, we are gonna struggle to meet military objectives.

So it’s an imperative, uh, space superiority is an imperative and we’ve just gotta get after it.

Lt Gen David Deptula, USAF (Ret.): A bit of a follow up. What are the. Can you share with the audience perhaps some of the elements getting into, I know we can’t get into too many specifics but you can talk a bit about just what kind of systems and capabilities we’re talking about?

General Chance Saltzman, CSO: Absolutely.

Lt Gen David Deptula, USAF (Ret.): You’ve got planned.

General Chance Saltzman, CSO: Yeah, they center around three basic concepts. One is what I describe as avoiding operational surprise. If we don’t understand the domain, if we don’t see what’s going on in the domain in real time, we can’t attribute nefarious behavior. We can’t respond operationally to aggressive acts.

And the problem is, is we don’t currently have real time situational awareness of the domain. We have an array of sensors. We have some good data [00:05:00] fusion. But those sensors and that data fusion was all designed for what we called space traffic management. Safety of flight kinds of concerns. And, and my, you know, poor analogy, overly simplified analogy is, you know, it’s air traffic control versus air defense. I mean, those are different mindsets. Those require different capabilities, different operational concepts, and we have to progress with it. So that’s one.

The second is right now the offense has the advantage in a space conflict. Our satellites were not designed to maneuver away from threats. They weren’t designed to have organic defensive capabilities and so therefore they look like pretty juicy targets. You know, that’s General Hyten’s famous comments and, and I agree with that. And so we’ve got to create more resiliency in our missions and our architectures in space. And so we’ve invested heavily to build that resiliency, to deny that first mover advantage, uh, attacking in space.

And then probably the piece that’s most new and gets some serious attention for us is this counter space idea. It is necessary to protect our capabilities, but that’s no longer [00:06:00] sufficient. We have to deny the adversary the ability to use the space enabled targeting that has now made them so lethal, particularly in the Western Pacific against our other terrestrial forces.

They have increased the range. And the accuracy of their weapons because of that space enabled targeting system. And it’s the Space Force’s job to deny them that. And so counter space is about deny, degrade, disrupt, and even destroy if we have to, uh, the capabilities that an adversary like the PRC would use against us.

Lt Gen David Deptula, USAF (Ret.): No, that’s very helpful. Now kind of segue to another, a completely relevant topic, and it’s one our audience understands very well, and that’s the spaces of war fighting domain. I don’t know if the rest of America understands that but for some, this is a pretty significant cultural change and this has been a major focus area for you and your leadership team. Could you elaborate a little bit more on just how you’re approaching this issue?

General Chance Saltzman, CSO: Yeah, I think, you know, when I talk to the American public, and I mean that in the broadest sense of that term, you know, what I try to [00:07:00] impress upon them is one, how much space is just integrated into their daily lives. You know, they don’t recognize that their weather forecasts and their bank transactions and buying gas at the pump and just all the things that we really take for granted these days is space enabled. And so what happens is because the US, has become critically dependent in some ways on space, our adversaries, our competitors pay attention to that.

And they know that if they can deny us that those advantages, it’s gonna, it’s gonna be important and critical to the us. So where US national interests go, so goes crisis and conflict. I think that’s kind of the bottom line. So, we have to step up now and be able to protect those capabilities, and that’s why you have a Space Force.

We wake up every day thinking about how important it is, how much we need to protect it, how to use it to our advantage, and continue to maintain that advantage for the American public.

Lt Gen David Deptula, USAF (Ret.): Now I understand that you and the Space Force are about to release a Space War fighting strategy. How about a sneak peek at what might be [00:08:00] in that document?

General Chance Saltzman, CSO: I, I think for those of us that have been kind of working in the margins of this for a while, there’s not gonna be anything that really surprise us. But what it allows us to do is lay down a common vocabulary. Common terms of reference. I won’t say strategy in the grand sense of the term, but it’s, “Hey, this is what really has to happen in order for us to achieve space superiority.”

And what are the basic categories of targets? When you think about ground networks, when you think about link structures, when you think about on orbit capabilities. We saw the, one of the Russians first attacks was a ground cyber attack against ViaSat to have a an effect on an on orbit command and control capability. We have to be ready to protect and think about space superiority in all of those dimensions.

And so what the framework does is it lays those out. It defines our terms so that planners, and this is space planners, but this is joint planners. To make sure that our capabilities are accounted for and integrated fully into all the operational design. We felt like we owed the joint force that, that set of framework, [00:09:00] that set of definitions so that we could have the right kinds of discussions.

Lt Gen David Deptula, USAF (Ret.): Excellent. I’m sure everyone out there is gonna be looking forward to that. This is a subject that is near and dear to your heart. You mentioned it right up front and that’s resources. For the Department of Defense to adjust to space as a war fighting domain alone is a monumental task. If you add in new taskings, like the new administration’s Golden Dome, seems pretty clear that the Space Force needs more than the 3% of the defense budget that it’s getting. Little plug for our recent paper on Space Force vectors for the Trump defense team. In it, we recommended at 13 to an 18% annual Space force budget growth. And my question to you is, is that gonna be enough over the next you know, three to five years?

General Chance Saltzman, CSO: Well, I think the short answer is maybe not. The adversary is not stopping. They are progressing. Their, their curve for developing capabilities is on a different slope than ours. [00:10:00] Those that have been in the Pentagon wars associated with resourcing know that what really happens is your baseline budget just gets iterated on each year. It’s a copy of a copy with slight improvements and adjustments. So what I think we’re looking at is a fundamental shift, a step function shift in space capabilities through the Space Force budget. And if we don’t have that step function, then just doing the three or 4% inflation increases doesn’t buy us new capability. We’re just treading water. And so I think that’s really been our pitch in the process is recognizing new mission requires new resources, and that’s gonna be a step function for the Space Force. Uh, $10 billion in the near term, plusing up our our current resources. We can spend that we can jumpstart that.

And then you get into that steady state kind of growth that’s necessary to continue to add the capabilities, continue to close the programs. So that’s what we’re really trying to sell inside the department first, because there’s a lot of priorities and a lot of constraints.

Lt Gen David Deptula, USAF (Ret.): But speaking a bit of a following, speaking of inside the [00:11:00] building. Um, you’re acutely aware of the recent guidance with respect to the services, taking a look at and coming up with 8%, not a cut, but a reprioritization. So I’m sure lots of folks are interested in my gosh, you just articulated very well and everyone out there understands that, hey, if you’re gonna get serious about what you want the Space Force to do, you gotta give ’em more money. So how, how are you approaching the 8% drill?

General Chance Saltzman, CSO: Yeah. Uh, you know, it was made pretty clear to us that when a new administration comes in, and this is true for all administrations by the way, when they come in, they want the budget to reflect their priorities. And so the first thing they do is try to build what we call in programming language, the war chest.

Like how much money do we have to shift around to new priorities? And so the planning factor that they used to build that war chest to take a look was 8% but all it is is, is paper changes. So we’re just saying, “Hey, here are the lowest priority things. Here are the things the Space Force believes we could take some risk in [00:12:00] order to apply them to priorities where we feel like we need less risk.”

I’m very hopeful that the case that the Space Force makes means that a lot of that money will come back into our budget. And potentially with initiatives like Golden Dome, we’ll even get more money and more resources because we play such a central role in that. So, I think we’re in a good position. We’ve got a good story to tell. And, and like I said, everybody recognizes the criticality of the space capabilities and therefore the Space Force. Now it’s just about making the resourcing decisions to support it.

Lt Gen David Deptula, USAF (Ret.): No, and I’m gonna elaborate just a bit in the context of, I know that you are gonna do that because each one of the services have been issued that, but boy, it’s more of a plea to the new administration leadership to stop doing salami slice approaches to your resource allocation. And if we’re not gonna get an overall top line increase in the DOD budget, then you need to look across each one of the services and look at where you can achieve the greatest [00:13:00] impact for the dollar invested. Which ultimately takes us, I think and again, I’m not putting words in your mouth, but we it really calls for a serious and honest roles and functions review and more so driven, if I may, by the Space Force because the Space Force was not around as a separate service the last time we did a Serious Roles and Functions review. Which is Commission on Roles and Missions in 1994, 95.

So you don’t have to say anything if you don’t want, but that’s, you know.

General Chance Saltzman, CSO: I agree. I think that’s just, you know, kind of a state of where we are today. You know, we, I think we owe that to everybody. How do you do prioritization if you don’t know what everybody’s roles and responsibilities are? So I think that’s a perfectly legitimate a point to be made. I your point about salami slice and just, you know, I, I know it’s a pretty savvy audience, but you know what General Deb tool is talking about is this idea that you take a small amount from every portfolio and therefore nobody really gets hurt that much, but you build up money that you can put another priorities.

But we have, we [00:14:00] have shrunk our budgets to the point where these, even these small cuts start to jeopardize the programs. And if you delay all the programs, you really don’t have the capabilities you need and you put readiness in jeopardy. And so what we did as a part of this drill is we really looked program by program and we took vertical slices. We said, we are willing in this mission area to take more risk rather than spread that risk unilaterally across all the missionaries.

Lt Gen David Deptula, USAF (Ret.): Well, as you know, that’s one of the things we try to do here. Is state, trying to make that case in a way that, uh, hopefully folks will be listening to. Let’s switch gears a little bit. Um, you’re trying to maximize space force capabilities and capacity by leveraging rapid advancement in the commercial space sector. How are you and your leadership team doing that in order to deliver the systems and all the other things that you need to achieve space superiority?

General Chance Saltzman, CSO: We’re making progress. Step one into making progress is understand exactly where the issues are, where the friction points are. Why are we not getting [00:15:00] as much out of the commercial sector as we otherwise could? And so let’s do some just old fashioned debrief and let’s figure out what the root causes are, what those friction areas are. One of the early things that, that we came to realize is that the way in which we conceive of write document our requirements actually stifles innovation in industry.

Lt Gen David Deptula, USAF (Ret.): No.

General Chance Saltzman, CSO: Uh, can you believe it? That it turns out we can’t write the perfect requirement which both meets our needs and allows innovation in industry, but you can also swing too far the other direction and be so broad with what your requirements are that industry struggles to deliver what you really need. So there’s a sweet spot in there and we’re really looking hard at, you know, what are the mechanics of writing the requirements? And you also probably recognize that there are echelons of requirements.

You can write a big mission level requirements. And turn that over to industry and they will struggle because they don’t have the mission expertise. You can write a very specific system level, specification level requirement, and really hamstring industry. [00:16:00] And so we’re, as we look across the echelon of requirements, what is the right level?

What’s good, what, how are we debriefing our requirements writing and then having a tight feedback loop and revising them as we start to bring capability to bear so that we get what we need at an on an operationally relevant timeline.

Lt Gen David Deptula, USAF (Ret.): Um, no, it’s very good and very much appreciate that and I know our industry partners out there understand the challenge as well.

I would just add that, you know, space is one of those areas where I think commercial capabilities have really led the way with respect to innovation. And I don’t have to go into a whole long lit litany on that given the recent space launches. Switching to threat for a minute. Or back to threat all of this is driven to a large degree by threat, but China recently stood up a Fifth Force and many people don’t know this, the People’s Liberation Army called Near Space Command. And it’s on the seam between air and [00:17:00] space, the Chinese near Space Force is gonna have control of China’s hypersonic weapons, including those from all the other services. What are your thoughts on how we should deal with countering this new Chinese near Space Force?

General Chance Saltzman, CSO: Well, I don’t think it’ll surprise you that having been an airman for 29 years and now leading the Space Force that I see there, there really is a tight linkage between the air domain and the space domain.

And there’s this interesting little layer, physical layer that, that people have called near space. PRC used that to put balloons through our airspace. And I joke that it’s called near space, but it’s really far air as well. And, you know, aerodynamic properties break down where you’re not quite at the point where orbital mechanics can kick in.

So it’s this, so there are literal seams between air and space. And so the, what I’m proud of is that we work so closely, we continue to work closely with the Air Force. It shouldn’t [00:18:00] surprise you that as we stand up our service components to the combatant commands, we stay literally tightly coupled to the air component.

We use the Air Operations Center as the infrastructure for our command and control capabilities. We sit like side by side with our air component brothers and sisters because we see this tight linkage. And so that, that’s one aspect. So making sure that we don’t separate too far, that we start to lose the synergies associated with air power and space power because there are those seams and our adversaries are looking to take advantage of ’em, and we wanna make sure that’s as tightly coupled as possible.

Lt Gen David Deptula, USAF (Ret.): That’s a great way of answering that question. And I think back, and I promise you I won’t tell a long war story, but in Operation Enduring Freedom as the director of Air and Space Operation Center, there was a situation that occurred and the first thing I did was turn to the Space DIRFOR, if you will, and say, okay, I need some of that. I mean, there was a particular capability that we needed but it was seamless in terms [00:19:00] of execution. So that, that’s great to hear.

Moving on to International Partnership, international Partners. They’ve long been a critical element of our military operations, and I would dare say that they’re more so today given some of the capacity challenges that we have. And I know the Space Force is leaning forward in this area as evidenced by the fact that you have a British officer on your staff. So what are some of the successes that you’d like to highlight or areas that you’d like to see where there’s greater promise in terms of partnering with our allies and friends?

General Chance Saltzman, CSO: Well, first I was really encouraged by some of the comments I heard Secretary Hegseth make when he was on his Indo-Pacific tour and saying America First does not mean America only is a great way of saying that I think. We recognize that we are gonna be successful in coalition operations only if we work together before those operations kickoff. And if we’re not tightly linked in terms of integrated capabilities and integrated training, integrated operations [00:20:00] that we’re gonna struggle in the learning curve as we try to address a crisis or a conflict as a coalition ’cause we know that’s how we fight. And so our efforts are to make sure that we’re doing that ahead of time.

So bringing in Air Marshal Godfrey has created a daily persistent reminder of we have to stay linked and he’s done a great job of making sure that we don’t forget, “Hey, okay, this is a great concept. How do we leverage the allies? How do we bring in our international partners to make sure we’re maximizing the capabilities?” And then recognizing it maybe even more fully than we had before what are the issues. Like, what’s preventing that integration and what do we need to do to make sure we don’t get so far out in front of them that now they can’t synchronize and integrate with us effectively? This is training, this is operations as well as building and buying the right kind of systems that can work together.

Our service components, this is one of the things that they have as one of their responsibilities. When you build a service component to a combatant command, that combatant command has an AOR. That AOR includes other countries. So everything you do is in [00:21:00] light of the allies and partners and things that you think are gonna be brought to bear.

And now we have somebody on the right time zone working with partners on a day in day out basis to make sure we understand the challenges, make sure we understand the issues and address them before we’re in crisis or conflict. JCO, the Joint Capabilities Office Commercial office. This is a place where we share data.

Our sharing agreements have exploded over the last few years. The number of international partners that are sharing space, domain awareness is going through the roof. Our ride share program with Norway and Japan, where they’re launching payloads for the DSD on their assets, saving us a ton of money, but it also puts skin in the game. Like this is this a US capability or a Japanese capability? The answer is yes. It’s a coalition capability and that those are tremendous advances in terms of more tightly integrating our allies and partners.

Lt Gen David Deptula, USAF (Ret.): No, that’s great. I’ll share with you and I won’t use a particular company, a country to protect the the interest, but just had a discussion with a senior leader from one of those countries. And they were talking about an example with respect to, and this was pretty [00:22:00] unusual, but given the fact that they might actually invest in US military capability, because the US may be putting up X amount of satellites to do this, they’d like to see a little bit more coverage area X, Y, Z doesn’t matter. But the therefore, they might be willing to invest and provide monies to the US Space Force to expand that coverage. As long as they understood that, you know, there’s a handshake that they’ll be able to collect the data

I mean, it’s.

General Chance Saltzman, CSO: Space is purpose built for sharing. Because when you, when, especially when you operate in low earth orbit. You can’t help but the satellite going around every part of the earth every day and so once you build that constellation, you build that network, there is capacity to support all regions simultaneously to some degree. And so it’s purpose built for, “Hey, why don’t we contribute? Pay, do some cost sharing to put the constellation in orbit.” And all they ask for is, can [00:23:00] we get the data that’s particular to our regions? And answer is, of course, ’cause that benefits us as well. And so it really is a nice relationship and we are working along those lines to make sure that happens.

Lt Gen David Deptula, USAF (Ret.): It’s also a way to supplement your budget that Congress will do.

General Chance Saltzman, CSO: Do what you gotta do.

Lt Gen David Deptula, USAF (Ret.): Okay. Training. We often focus on hardware, but as everyone knows, success ultimately depends on people. The demands on the Guardians are changing at an aggressive rate. Space superiority demands critical action in high and intense environments. And that has huge implications for training. So can you talk a bit about how you’re getting to some of those, issues with respect to training challenges?

General Chance Saltzman, CSO: Yeah, it’s one of the biggest emphasis areas because when we talk about a shift in culture, a shift in mindset, a shift from benign domain to a war fighting domain that is a central element. Are the operators, are our war fighters ready to do what’s gonna be asked of them? Not just fly systems but actually compete against an adversary that’s trying to deny us those capabilities. And so we have a little bit [00:24:00] of a three-pronged approach. First is, structurally. We had to carve out time to do advanced training the, it won’t surprise you that just flying a military satellite communication system today doesn’t prepare you against the high end fight ’cause we’re not in a fight in space.

And if that’s all you do is stay procedurally current on your weapon system, you are not getting ready for that high ops tempo and that thinking adversary that’s gonna try to deny that capability. So, we redesigned our force generation model to make sure that we carve out time for our operators to be able to train against the threat. Train against the thinking adversary, get the reps and sets on their tactics so that they are prepared if things go bad in the space domain.

The second line of effort is of course, we gotta give them the simulators and the range capabilities and the aggressor force that replicates that threat effectively and allows us to practice in a simulated environment so that we’re ready to go to war. And so, we’ve invested heavily over the last couple of years to develop a high fidelity [00:25:00] range complex. A high fidelity set of simulators so that our operators can do that kind of training. And then it’s about the, you know, just the operational concepts. Do we understand what battle management means? Do we understand what, this is the new language. This is why we have to write the Space War Fighting Framework. We have to give them the vocabulary to have the discussions to integrate into planning. And so then it’s just about releasing them and saying, your job is to win. And this is competition. This is not about operating a system and keep it safe and alive. You have to win against a thinking adversary. And we’re setting up the exercises in the training venues to be able to do that.

Lt Gen David Deptula, USAF (Ret.): Yeah. And the environment’s changing all the time as well.

General Chance Saltzman, CSO: Rapidly.

Lt Gen David Deptula, USAF (Ret.): Okay, while we’re on the subject to people, related a topic, not necessarily to training, but we’ve talked before about the challenge that is very specific to the Space Force. And now I’m talking, I’m coming back to the Washington DC AOR, but that’s the, you know, the disadvantage that you face in the size [00:26:00] of your staff relative to the other service staffs. And that there’s a fundamental, you know, operating level to be able to deal with all the issues that come to you. Are you, have you spoke with our friends on the other side of the river about increasing the number of personnel on your staff?

General Chance Saltzman, CSO: Yeah, it, you know, it’s a multi-pronged attack as you would imagine. And there’s a lot of different nuances in this. So the federal workforce is being, to some degree, downsized through the DOGE efforts, and we are caught up in that as well. We’re not immune to that. And those are, that’s a priority that this administration is making.

What we’re doing is we’re saying, given the workforce we have, how are we optimizing? Are they, are they the right people in the right jobs, in the right place to do what we need? And so we’re going through that as the, the federal civilian workforce is resized, reshaped. We’re making sure that they’re optimized to do the work they need.

On the military side, there is great support for growth. I think there is a recognition that these are [00:27:00] new missions and we don’t have the ability to trade off a mission, take those people and plop them down to new mission. We’re still doing all the things we were doing and now there are new capabilities and that requires new resources and new people to do it.

We have what we’re calling managed growth, a period of managed growth. It won’t surprise you that I can’t, if you were to gimme 10,000 people tomorrow, I don’t have the training pipeline. I don’t have the seats to put ’em in to, to properly get them ready.

Lt Gen David Deptula, USAF (Ret.): Scale issue. Yeah.

General Chance Saltzman, CSO: So you have to manage it. You have to manage it. And so we do have a uptick in our personnel across the fight, up to account for emissions, but do it in a managed way.

Lt Gen David Deptula, USAF (Ret.): Well, awesome. Thanks very much for the insightful discussion. What I do want to do is give our audience the opportunity to ask some of their own questions.

So, let’s hear what you have to have to ask for our audience members. I think you all know the drill by now. Tell us what your name and affiliation is and provide that information on the chat function too. And we’ve got a bunch of questions already, uh, but let me go to a raised hand first [00:28:00] and turn it over to Greg Hadley.

Greg, you’ve got it.

Greg Hadley: Hi. Sorry, can you hear me?

General Chance Saltzman, CSO: Loud and clear.

Greg Hadley: Awesome. Uh, yeah. Greg Hadley with Air & Space Forces Magazine. General Saltzman I wanted to continue the discussion on resourcing because Secretary Hegseth, I know recently addressed the, uh, you know, a gathering of senior leaders and said something to the effect of, you know, this administration is going to be investing in space offensively and defensively. How much do you take that as a sign that your messaging is getting through to the, like you guys were talking about earlier, the inside the building? The very highest levels of the building and how also do you kind of reconcile that or work that while you are operating under CR right now?

General Chance Saltzman, CSO: Yeah, thanks Greg.

I think the easiest way to answer that question is I was very excited when Secretary Hegseth came to talk to the Department of the Air Force leadership. [00:29:00] The two things he said, one about the offense and defense. He recognizes what modern warfare in the space domain looks like. So that’s encouraging that there’s no learning curve there. I don’t have to educate him. He understands exactly what we need to be thinking about. The second thing that was encouraging is he talked about probably the most important domain. This is a paraphrase of his comments. The most important domain in modern warfare is gonna be the space domain. And I think this is back to the conversation that Dave and I were just having about, you know, if you don’t have space superiority, you can’t enable all the other functions, then you can’t enable air superiority, which can’t enable ground and sea operations.

So this is all nested, and if you don’t take care of one, you open yourself up to serious vulnerabilities. Secretary Hegseth understands that and so that, that’s why I’m not uncomfortable with this reprioritization drill in the FY 26 budget. The FY 25 budget the year long CR is problematic. The good news is Congress had the foresight to give us a little more latitude with the CR in terms of reprogramming and new starts, things that traditionally [00:30:00] hamstering us in a continuing resolution period. However, the bottom line is our appropriated money is less than we had in 24, so we are literally shrinking in resources as a Space Force, so we have less to do more with.

And so that’s a concern and that’s, it’s starting to be a trend. We’re starting to be able to connect some dots that over the last few years. Even if you don’t account for inflationary adjustments, we’re still shrinking in real dollars. And so, it is a concern and we’re trying to work hard on resolving that as we go forward in 26.

The last thing I’ll say, Greg, is, you know we started the FY 24 budget, obviously in late 23. That’s the way the fiscal year works. So if you think about it, we are on an FY 24 baseline from fall of 23 probably, if you think there’s gonna be a CR coming out of this budget. Into 26 so you’re talking about more than two years where you’re operating off the same basic year’s baseline. That is [00:31:00] stagnant and in the face of an adversary who is not stagnant, I’m worried that we’re not gonna be able to keep pace the certainly the way we want to.

Lt Gen David Deptula, USAF (Ret.): Okay. Um, let’s go to one from chat. This is from, Adam Turbit. For most terrestrial and air operations energy is both a key enabler and limitation of operations. How is the Space Force addressing their energy concerns in the space domain?

General Chance Saltzman, CSO: That it’s a great question, and it’s true, especially when you have to take all your energy with you or generate energy on orbit. That creates some technical challenges. Things like maneuvering without regret. For example, we talked about that our satellites had not really been designed to defend themselves. The ability to maneuver without creating mission limitations would be an advantage. It would create a more resilient architecture, but you have to either carry fuel with you or figure out a way to generate power on orbit. And that becomes limiting. [00:32:00] But we are investing in science and technology with different methods of propulsion, different methods of generating power so that we can become more dynamic in the environment. The, the Holy Grail, of course, is dynamic orbits. Orbits that never really adhere to Kepler’s laws, you know, that, that are continuously maneuvering so that they become very hard to target from ground-based sensors. And so the, the short answer to your question is energy is a concern whether it’s carried with us or created, and we’re looking at our science and technology and our industry partners to help us innovate to find new ways where we can, for instance, maneuver without regret.

Thanks, Adam.

Lt Gen David Deptula, USAF (Ret.): Here’s another one separate but interesting topic from Russell Strassberger. Last week, the Space Force Commercial Space Office signed the first contracts for your new commercial augmentation space reserve program. This was modeled after the civil Reserve Air Fleet program. So what kind of mission areas is this program gonna [00:33:00] include?

General Chance Saltzman, CSO: Yeah I think right outta the gate, the easiest one to conceptualize was satellite communications. It’s an area where we know that the demand signal for satellite communications is almost unlimited. They just it’s an insatiable appetite for that kind of capability, certainly more than the government can put on orbit.

And so the idea when we go to crisis or conflict mode, we know we’re gonna have an increase in the needs for satellite communications. And so the idea was if we can use this kind of commercial augmentation space reserve construct to pre-negotiate our contracts, talk about what we’ll need, talk about all of the work that has to be done.

So that when the crisis kicks off, that’s all behind us and we can sign on the dotted line and immediately or near immediately have access to more capacity. So satellite communications is a prime example, but we’re also exploring areas for space, domain awareness. There’s a lot of commercial sensors collecting data and as I talked about my challenges of understanding the domain in real [00:34:00] time. The more data you have the better you’re gonna be and where those sensors are located. And so taking advantage of the commercial network of capabilities that are out there is another area we’re exploring. Commercial, remote sensing is a, is a third area that we’re exploring. So there’s a lot of exciting places because commercial industry is moving into all these mission areas and we just want to be postured to be able to rapidly take advantage of it in a crisis or conflict scenario.

Lt Gen David Deptula, USAF (Ret.): Here’s a related question from Ryan Blackburn, from Jobs, Ohio. Thank you General Saltzman for taking the time today. How do you see the Space Force partnering with industry and organizations like NASA to share research and testing capabilities? A lot of unique testing capabilities here in Northern Ohio that could certainly be leveraged, especially under tight budget constraints.

General Chance Saltzman, CSO: Absolutely. And we do work with NASA. Obviously, both being very interested in the space domain, it won’t surprise you that a lot of the technologies, that NASA’s pursuing are of interest to [00:35:00] us. Sometimes it’s not the reverse. We have a very particular maybe pessimistic view of the space domain sometimes. That’s our job, and so it doesn’t always go both directions, but things like satellite production launch capabilities. I think there is some crossover with NASA as well, but the facilities in terms of TVAC that we, that I’ve seen up in northern Ohio, for example, leveraging those capabilities to test our satellites. We definitely want to take advantage of those and look forward to working with the new NASA leadership team as they come in and get in place because there is a lot of trade space and a lot of overlap in terms of the science and technology that NASA uses that we’re very interested in. Again, it’s about leveraging investments that somebody else is making to further our cause wherever we can. So NASA is another example of that.

Lt Gen David Deptula, USAF (Ret.): Okay. Let’s switch back to one of our phone in callers, Peter Norton. Peter, please, uh, unmute.

Peter Norton: Sir, can you speak to where [00:36:00] you are in the futures command that has been talked about over?

General Chance Saltzman, CSO: Yeah. Thanks for that, Peter. What we’ve done is we’ve done all the planning. And to preserve the decision space of the new secretary. We’re just kind of waiting to fully implement until we get a chance to talk through the new secretary of the Air Force. Talk through our plan, talk through what we’re thinking. This is nothing about, “hey, is the futures command in jeopardy?” I have no reason to think that it’s the case. We just didn’t wanna make a bunch of decisions and then a new secretary come in and go, “well, hold on I need to understand this.”

And so little bit of a planning pause while we get the new secretary of the Air Force in place. But we have taken the time to make sure that we understand the flow of information. And so this is the workflow of what futures command will do from defining the future operating environment. What are the threats we’re gonna face? What technology is gonna be used against us? What technologies can we take advantage of? And really identifying what the future operating environment looks like. Writing that down in terms of concepts and [00:37:00] then validating those concepts through modeling and simulation. A tight feedback loop. If a concept doesn’t look sufficient, sending it back for more work to be done. Once we validate the concepts, passing it off to our Space War Fighting Analysis Center to do the physics based hardcore systems level analysis that then informs what we’re calling the objective force.

And so I think if you just take anything away from this little description, it’s that Futures command is primarily there to have a deliberate process that identifies what the objective force of the space force needs to be as we look out seven to 15 years in the future. And then by putting enough definition into that objective force that we can do the programming, the S&T work the acquisition work to make that real. That is really that upfront work that futures command’s doing and we’ve got most of it in place. And now we just wanna have that discussion with the new secretary and we’ll be off and running.

Lt Gen David Deptula, USAF (Ret.): Here’s an interesting one from our Mitchell Institute, [00:38:00] executive director Doug Birkey. Doug asked a recent headline, spoke of China Dog Fighting in space. This may have caused professional space practitioners to cringe, given that the technical reality is far different than a top gun analogy. That said, those descriptions is generalized, as they are will likely register with the public. Do we need to take that into account as we try and explain the space power challenge past the professional ranks?

General Chance Saltzman, CSO: Yeah. If we can’t make our case to the American people, then members of Congress become less interested in it. And if members of Congress that are less interested in it it’s harder to advocate for the resources we need. That’s the connection. It doesn’t mean that they need to have a PhD level of understanding, but they certainly, need to understand it well enough to not be upset with Congress giving us resources because they know the critical nature of it. I kinda like the dog fight analogy. Obviously 29 years in the Air Force, probably [00:39:00] makes me think about it like that. But the difference is, and I think this is what is really important, and I’m, I don’t realize I’m talking to an, a seasoned war fighting fighter pilot here, but if you were to think about a two circle fight at night with no onboard sensors and you’re getting everything from ground-based GCI. That’s the kind of dog fighting you’re talking about. And if you’re relying on offboard sensors to cue you in a tight fight, there’s a lot of trust there and you gotta really count on high fidelity, low latency data and information getting to you in that spacecraft or aircraft.

That’s the problem we’re facing. And so that’s the, that’s the real trick, is making sure we have the right sensors that can collect the data, provide the operators that are in that dog fight the situational awareness they need to make the right decisions to keep that positional advantage. But it won’t surprise anybody that sun at your back works in space the same way as it works in the air.

It’s the same exact issue. So, I, I kinda like the analogy ’cause I think it’s easy to get your head around. [00:40:00]

Lt Gen David Deptula, USAF (Ret.): Well, I think the point, and you make an excellent point. Is, you know, particularly when you’re talking to an audience that doesn’t have any concept, analogies are always very good, particularly if you can get ’em down to the, down to the level folks can understand, which does remind me of a story once I actually did do night dog fighting.

General Chance Saltzman, CSO: How’d you do?

Lt Gen David Deptula, USAF (Ret.): That was a long time ago. And I’ll just share with you that it was difficult.

General Chance Saltzman, CSO: That means you lost?

Lt Gen David Deptula, USAF (Ret.): No, it means that both of us were very aware of the fact that it was pretty dangerous and so yes, we didn’t press it exactly too much.

General Chance Saltzman, CSO: Exactly right.

Lt Gen David Deptula, USAF (Ret.): Uh, but your analogy’s a very, very good one.

All right. Let’s go back to, uh, some raised hands. Um Glenn Cooler. Glenn.

Glenn Cooler: Um, SECAF’s chat at CSIS in January bottom line of his Air Force and Space Force slides. He said the Air Force of 2050 will be the centerpiece of resilient US power projection and the Space Force of 2050 will be a [00:41:00] mature war fighting force. During World War I, the Navy struggled with the shift from battleships to carriers. General, if I could characterize you as the Billy Mitchell of space, at what point do you see the Space Force becoming a co-equal centerpiece of power projection? Over.

General Chance Saltzman, CSO: Yeah I cringe at that analogy. I’m not worthy of that. I do think that recognition that two things will probably happen. One is space will become more and more contested and congested. Space will become more and more critical to national interests in multiple countries. That is gonna create tension, conflict, crisis that has to be dealt with and that the Space Force, because of its evolution as a service focused on that war fighting domain will have a growing importance in terms of the joint concept of war? I [00:42:00] think that, I don’t think there’s too many people even right now where we are that would disagree with that trajectory. The question will be will we be up to meeting the challenges should they arise in time? We know you can only fight with the force you have when the crisis kicks off.

And I like the way General Goldfien stated it when he was the chief of staff of the Air Force. He doesn’t know when that’s gonna, he doesn’t know when the crisis is gonna kick off, but he knows we have between now and then to get ready. And so the idea of continually enhancing our readiness. Continually pressing our equipment to make sure it’s engineered for this kind of fight, continuing to hone our operational concepts. That’s what we’re focused on. I do think we are on a trajectory where that will be a serious part of warfare in the future.

And I just wanna make sure the Space Force is postured on the right glide slope to make sure that we’re ready to, to meet those challenges.

Lt Gen David Deptula, USAF (Ret.): Okay, let’s go back to ’cause I called on you earlier. Courtney [00:43:00] Albon. Courtney.

Courtney Albon: Hi. Yes. Um, another resourcing question. General Saltzman you’ve mentioned, today and a few times recently that the Space Force kind of offered up, you know, lower priority missions and programs as part of this 8% budget exercise. Can you expand on what those low priority programs and missions are? Or lower priority, I guess.

General Chance Saltzman, CSO: Yes. I, I could Courtney, but I’m not going to and the reason I’m not is because that we haven’t made those decisions yet. That’s the Secretary of Defense’s position to, or decision space to make. And so I’m hopeful that the Space Force won’t take any cuts. And so I certainly don’t wanna talk about potential cuts that may not happen because we want to keep everything we’ve got. We believe the things we have are still necessary to modern warfare. They’re still necessary to support the joint force but we just have to grow and add additional priorities. And so this is purely a planning drill. Not an actual we’re not actually ready [00:44:00] to make those decisions yet. So, I certainly don’t want to talk about something before the secretary makes that decision.

Lt Gen David Deptula, USAF (Ret.): Okay, here’s an interesting one from Mezstone. Adam Mezstone from Air Force Global College instructor. He’s a contractor. General Saltzman, what’s your approach and how long will it take for the other services to understand that the space domain must bring more to the fight than ISR and PNT? I teach an AWC class on aerospace and cyber power monthly and rarely get somebody in the class that can articulate Space Force space command missions today and for the near future.

General Chance Saltzman, CSO: Well, thanks Mez for that question. You know, Mez worked for me. This is a, he’s setting me up here. So, this is, it’s great to to hear. He’s always a smart, been a smart guy, and that’s a well-informed [00:45:00] question. Education of what the Space Force does, what US Space Command does is an ongoing process. And I take every opportunity I can to talk about those things which are necessary for us to do our job and those things that are sufficient for us to do our job. This is the evolution of Merchant Marine to US Navy or Southwest Airlines into the US Air Force. It used to be okay to take advantage of the benign in domain and do ISR and PNT and focus on doing those missions very well. Delivering those services to the war fighters. It’s just no longer sufficient.

Now we have to be able to control the domain. And that’s why a merchant marine is not asked to control the sea lanes. You need a US Navy. And so that’s the transformation that’s occurring. So when I have these discussions, that is where I start. If we can’t control the domain, we can’t exploit the domain to our advantage the way we have in the past.

And I’ll tell you, Mez senior leadership in the other services understands this. In fact, some of our best [00:46:00] proponents are in the other services saying we need this capability in order for us to continue to do what we need to do for the joint force. I also get good feedback from the lower echelons, the lowest echelons, the young people in all the services fully understand the digital environment. They surely understand how we need to move information. They understand that what space can bring globally is an imperative to the joint war fight. There is that group in the middle that’s always hardest to get on board with you. And all we can do is continue to educate, continue to talk about it, and that’s why we’re trying to offer things like the Space War fighting framework to provide that doctrinal level, if you will set of terms. Here’s the terms we can talk about. Here’s what orbital warfare means. Here’s how we use electronic warfare. Here’s how we would use cyber warfare in pursuit of space superiority, protect what we have and deny an adversary.

So we’re trying to normalize that discussion so that educators like yourself when you’re faced with somebody that doesn’t fully understand, will use the same terminology that I’m using. [00:47:00] Or the same terminology that anybody else is using, so our collective knowledge grows. Thanks, mez. Hope you’re doing well.

Lt Gen David Deptula, USAF (Ret.): Let’s go back to raised hands, please. And Shelly Mesh. Shelly.

Shelly Mesh: Hi. Thank you for taking some time to talk with us. So I was wondering how much can you change your requirements writing process within the current oversight confines that you have? And do you need to get more authorities or greater latitude from Congress to be able to really use the innovation coming from industry?

General Chance Saltzman, CSO: Yeah, I feel pretty good about the authorities we have. A couple of things that insiders might be tracking, but some of the external stakeholders may not completely understand. Two things are true about space and requirements. One is the Joint Requirements Oversight Committee. The JROC inside the Pentagon responsible for joint requirements writ large. Has designated the Space Force as the joint space requirements [00:48:00] integrator for the Department of Defense. It’s a pretty powerful position where we actually take in all of the requirements from all of the services, from the combatant commands, and then we’re the kind of the adjudicators. We make sure it all fits together.

We make sure the mission areas are comprehensively accounted for without too much redundancy or any gaps or seams in the mission area. And then we, we reflect those back to the JROC for validation. So that’s an important responsibility. I just, it’s about the mechanics. How do we take on that responsibility?

What are the right level of requirements? And I think we have the latitude inside that function to do it better. The second that’s out there is Congress and then subsequently the Secretary of Defense designated me as the force Design architect for space for the armed forces. And so it’s not exactly been codified what that entails. So there’s a lot of latitude there. As a force design architect for space for all of the armed forces, it gives me a lot of latitude to look across all of the portfolios to determine how we’re doing our mission. [00:49:00] And then look to the future and say, this is what’s gonna be expected of us in terms of countering the threats in the near term and the missions that are expected.

And then lay out what that force design architecture looks like. When you lay out the force design architecture you are tipping your hand as to what the requirements should be. And so again, I think this is a relatively new authority, a new set of responsibilities. And now we can shape how we, uh, incorporate the right kinds of requirements written at the right level to execute those responsibilities.

So I’m comfortable with where I am right now with authorities and I think there’s work to be done now just to put the mechanics in place to write the right kinds of requirements for the joint force. Thanks.

Lt Gen David Deptula, USAF (Ret.): Okay, here’s one from, former undersecretary of the Air Force and first chair here at the Mitchell Institute Center for Space Studies and that’s Matt Donovan. And he asked General Salzman, how’s the effort going to reduce classification in the space realm? This would go a long way toward increasing understanding and the importance of space, both within the Department of Defense and the broader government, as [00:50:00] well as the general public.

General Chance Saltzman, CSO: I think we’re making progress. Matt, I don’t think you’ll be satisfied with the speed. I’m not satisfied with the speed. Um, you know, these things can get stretched out sometimes bureaucratically as we look at all possible scenarios and do a little hand ringing over dropping classification.

Once you’ve set a classification, it is the burden of proof is on the person that wants to drop the classification to prove there won’t be any harm and that’s sometimes a tough standard to meet the. The previous Deputy Secretary of Defense, of course, laid out a memo stating the intent of the department was to drive the classifications lower, especially with regards to our SAP portfolios.

Drive them out of SAP as best we can. The intent is there, but as it’s being implemented, again, it’s about who has the burden of proof. Do you have to do, you have to prove that it’s okay to bring it out. Or do you have to prove why it’s necessary to keep it in. And so that’s where the senior leadership in terms of the service chiefs and even the combatant commands are trying to [00:51:00] ask the latter question.

Like, let’s prove that there, we really have to keep this in. Let’s protect only what we must and let’s share everything that we can at the appropriate level. So good progress. I think we framed the question properly and now we’re just going line item by line item to make sure we get it right. Uh, again, the intents there, the guidance is there, just probably not moving as quickly as any of us are comfortable with.

Lt Gen David Deptula, USAF (Ret.): Here’s an interesting one from Ken, uh, I’m sorry, Kevin Alvarez. General, you mentioned that offense has the advantage in the domain and that many of the assets comprising the legacy satellite force do not have organic defense capabilities to limit or block adversarial attacks. How can assembly in space impact asset resilience?

General Chance Saltzman, CSO: Well, I think any, any time you decrease the cost of putting a capability on orbit, then you increase the resiliency because you can put more assets [00:52:00] in place to do a mission set. If you’ve got a billion dollars and that only buys you two assets versus a billion dollars buying you a hundred assets, obviously you’ve created a more resilient architecture.

And so anything that leads to a lower cost in production, manufacturing or employment deployment fielding of those capabilities is gonna be beneficial in terms of resetting that relative advantage in space. Proliferation is one of the attributes that we think creates more resiliency. If you don’t have to launch to space, that saves you a lot of money that you can spend on orbit capabilities.

And so I’m a big fan. The question is, how much, you know, government support does there need to be other than two thumbs up. Let’s go, let’s see what we can do as quickly as possible. And that’s kind of where my emphasis is right now. With my limited resources I’m more of a cheerleader in that regard than I am funding those efforts, but I think it’s got tremendous possibilities.

Lt Gen David Deptula, USAF (Ret.): Okay. Here’s a quick one from Muriel [00:53:00] Delaportlard. Laird, thank you. How do you assess French cooperation and exercises like Astro X? Is this useful from your point of view?

General Chance Saltzman, CSO: Anytime we get the opportunity to exercise with, with our allies and partners we learn something. They, working with General Adam in France has been a real joy.

He always brings a different perspective, you know and sometimes I think the hardest part about perspectives is recognizing that yours is not always the best. And so it’s really encouraging when I get to hear him talk, when I get to hear the other allies and partners talk about the challenges they face or the opportunities that they are seeking, because it, it’s a chance for us to reevaluate the assumptions that we’re making in the US with regards to capabilities.

Uh, but it’s one thing to talk theoretically about system design and it’s quite another to actually get into an exercise and actually try to do the operations with your capabilities. And so every chance we get to, to exercise and operate together with our all and partners, we take it because we always learn something.[00:54:00]

Lt Gen David Deptula, USAF (Ret.): Okay. And we’re running out of time, so I’m gonna give the last one to Daniel Batchilder. Daniel here with the Civil Air Patrol. My question is, as an aerospace educator, what is the best way of communicating with high schoolers in particular about what the Space Force is and why it is just as shiny of a military branch as the rest.

General Chance Saltzman, CSO: It’s not. It’s more shiny. I think being, being the hardware that we do gets direct reflections off the sun, but I think it’s, it’s really important that they understand that we are a military force. My job is not research and development. My job is not to provide television signals for streaming services my job is to protect the assets that the United States requires for both its economic prosperity and its national defense. And then more importantly, my job is to be able to deny any adversary of the United States the ability to [00:55:00] use space against us. This is a uniquely military function. And the other services are rapidly coming to terms with the fact that if the Space Force doesn’t do its job, then the other services are not gonna be able to do their job. Certainly as effectively. And so it’s a team sport and we are just as much a part of that team as anybody else.

So, I appreciate you taking on the education of our, of our youth to understand that. Thanks much.

Lt Gen David Deptula, USAF (Ret.): Well, ladies and gentlemen, unfortunately, we’ve come to the end of this Schriever Space Power Series. And, thanks again, General Saltzman for taking the time. I think this has been, uh, uh, very instructive and by the way, audience great questions.

So from all of us here at AFAs Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies, we wish you a great space power kind of day.

General Chance Saltzman, CSO: Thank you very much, Dave. Appreciate it.