Heather “Lucky” Penney: [00:00:00] Welcome to the Aerospace Advantage Podcast, brought to you by PenFed. I’m your host, Heather, “Lucky” Penney. Here on the Aerospace Advantage, we speak with leaders in the DOD, industry, and other subject matter experts to explore the intersection of strategy, operational concepts, technology and policy when it comes to air and space power.

This week, it’s time for the Rendezvous. Our monthly look at what’s happening in Washington DC when it comes to air and space power. national security trends we should be watching around the globe. We are recording this on Monday, the 29th of September. So if world events have developed since then and you probably expect that they will, we’ll catch that on the next episode. So with that, everyone’s back from the summer break and it’s time to get in gear.

We’ve got a big group today, so I’d like to welcome Sledge. Harmer Sledge?,

Todd “Sledge” Harmer: Great to be back.

Heather “Lucky” Penney: Laser Lazarski,

Anthony “Lazer” Lazarski: also great to be back.

Heather “Lucky” Penney: Jeff Rowli Rowlison.

Jeff “Rowli” Rowlison: Hey, great to be here.

Heather “Lucky” Penney: Good to have you here. It’s three of our Washington Insiders, and of course we’ve also got Lieutenant General Dave Deptula, our dean.

Lt. Gen. David Deptula, USAF (Ret.): Good to be back.

Heather “Lucky” Penney: Jen Boots Reeves.

Jennifer “Boots” Reeves: I always [00:01:00] love it. Thanks.

Heather “Lucky” Penney: And brigadier General Houston “Slider” Cantwell.

Brig. Gen. Houston “Slider” Cantwell, USAF (Ret.): Hey, Lucky.

Heather “Lucky” Penney: All right Laser, Sledge, and Jeff, we’re gonna start with you with a congressional update. where do the defense bills stand and what should we be tracking?

Anthony “Lazer” Lazarski: All right. I’ll, besides the continuing resolution, which I expect we’re gonna talk about more later. Senate’s gonna be focused on four things the directly impact defense one’s, the nominations, then there’s a reconciliation bill spend plans that we’re supposed to be getting. Then we have the NDAA, the National Defense Authorization Act, and then our appropriations bills.

And real quickly on the noms. Senate changed confirmation process to allow unblock confirmations of groups of civilian nominations from the president. It’s gotta be non-Cat, non-judicial noms. I wish we could be in using regular order, but this change allowed 10 defense civilian noms to get confirmed on the 18th.

And there were another four defense Civilian Noms. Included in the next group that we think will get confirmed in early October. [00:02:00] So that’s a positive. We start getting people over there on reconciliation. Well, we were supposed to get the spend plan last month. The updated timeline is sometime in October, and then that funding is gonna get aligned with the President’s budget request.

And we need to move forward with executing this funding because that in turn informs both the authorization and the appropriations bills, which we’re working on and for the, national Defense Authorization Bill. The process is moving forward, I guess. How far forward is to be determined, and that’s really because everybody’s focused on the continuing resolution right now.

Over on the House side. Back on 10 September, they passed their version of the bill, essentially funding it at the president’s budget request has a pay raise in there. And then we’ve talked about acquisition reform before the Senate’s working on their version. but they haven’t been able to come into an agreement on the way ahead.

And the neat thing about the Senate bill is it actually increases defense spending, [00:03:00] just over $20 billion and also has acquisition reform in the pay raise. The issue right now is we cannot get an agreement between democrat, senate, Democrats and Senate Republicans. On what we’re going to debate on the floor.

One amendment’s equally divided. There’s about 16 out there, that they would like to get, debated. And then there’s another manager’s package, which honestly is outstanding. There’s another 46 amendments that have been cleared by outside committees, so they’ve been hot lining, which means we send out a note to all the member offices in the Senate and we say, Hey anybody have an issue, with going forward with this proposal on what we’re gonna debate on the floor in this manager’s package? And the Republican side have cleared it, but we haven’t been able to get it cleared from the Democrat side. So without an agreement we’re not gonna be able to pass it on the Senate floor, which we hasn’t happened in the last two years.

So we could always just bring that substitute amendment that was filed and conference that with the House Pass Bill. So we’re just gonna have to [00:04:00] see what happens this week. Again, focus on a continuing resolution. But whatever happens, they’re gonna take the two bills so start conferencing in October.

They’ll get it done end of November, definitely beginning of December, so that it can get passed before they recess in December. And then the last thing just real quickly is appropriations bills. This House has moved forward. They did 12 outta 12. The Senate has eight outta 12 bills out of committee.

The good news is, or I guess sort of good news, we’ll see what comes outta CR, but House and Senate appropriate. Are expected to work on a mini bus around three bills, military, construction, veteran affairs, agriculture and ledge branch. And they may try to get that package together and pass those three sometime in October.

And that’s a great move forward. That would get at least three bills going. And then there’s also a couple other bills, transportation, energy and water. They could try to get those moving forward sometime [00:05:00] in, October, maybe November. But the only thing is defense appropriations, unfortunately, is usually last and expect to be one of the last bills considered.

And if we move forward on continuing resolutions. I will remain optimistic that we will get these bills done by the end, and I know, but I’m listening to Sledge. He’s always a Debbie Downer over there, but I think, let’s put it this way, the reason why I’m saying this is except for a select few, I’m not aware of a House or Senate, Republican or Democrat.

That wants to forfeit their legislative power to fund the government by passing another year long CR and giving it to the executive branch. So that’s why, and I’ll be quiet, I’ll let Sledge jump in.

Heather “Lucky” Penney: Oh, that’s quite a rollup, Sledge.

Todd “Sledge” Harmer: Yeah. No, i’m not gonna be Debbie Downer on this one, for you there Laser, but I think that was a great roll up.

The important thing that you said right there at the end, that the appropriators do not wanna cede any of their authority. I think that’s [00:06:00] why they’re gonna be motivated. And Laser lays out a nice timeline and, yeah, I know we’re gonna talk CR stuff here in a minute.

But, the 20th of November is really the important date. And whether it’s the authorization bill or the appropriations bill, the big difference between the two, there are some policy differences, but it’s the difference in the top line spending numbers. And you know, if you wanted to just do an average the Senate’s about $20 billion higher.

Then the House in both authorizing and appropriating and in the background, there’s gonna be a lot of staff level activity to try to reconcile the differences. So what, when they do come out of the dark side of this or the end of this tunnel, we’re in a position that we can get legislation passed before the end of the calendar year.

Heather “Lucky” Penney: Wow. That would be good. Rowli, what, what got?

Jeff “Rowli” Rowlison: Well, the great thing about going third in this group is that I don’t have to say much. So, you know, I think that at the end of the day, most people are gonna be concerned about what’s coming with the CR and the contingency plans coming from, any sort of government shutdown.

So I think [00:07:00] these two guys have covered it perfectly we can go on to the next big topic that everyone’s concerned about.

Heather “Lucky” Penney: Well, Rowli, you mentioned government shutdown and that’s exactly what everyone’s thinking about right now. ’cause to this today is Monday the 29th, and so the world’s gonna move forward.

And I don’t know that we expect really to get a CR between now and the end of the fiscal year. So how would a government shutdown factor into defense activities?

Anthony “Lazer” Lazarski: I’ll jump out first. I’m not gonna stay completely optimistic. There is a way ahead. There’s another, they’re scheduled right now.

There was a meeting scheduled with the president just between Democratic leaders and the president. A week or so ago that got canceled. There’s another meeting today with House and Senate Republican and Democrat leaderships with the President. That’s not necessarily gonna resolve anything, but at least it’ll get them talking.

What we have is the Democrats want subsidies. They want a couple of things, but the bottom line, if you look at healthcare subsidies, they [00:08:00] want healthcare subsidies added. And so there were two bills. There was a House pass bill. It was a clean continuing resolution. It was sent over to the Senate and then they left town.

So they, the House put the burden all on the Senate to figure out what to do and get something passed before the government shuts down. Tomorrow there is a Senate bill the government, the Republican bill that was passed essentially out of the House continues funding for seven weeks. The 21st of November, the, in the Senate side, the Democrats put up a bill that will fund.

The government through the end of October, which is four weeks, but they added on some additional credits, but specifically extending the subsidies for the Affordable Care Act. That is the priority. The problem that we’re running into is we don’t have time to get everything resolved, as you said, by tomorrow.

So can we get some sort of guarantee between the Republicans and the Democrats and President Trump that we can go ahead and not shut [00:09:00] down the government, try to work out the differences. All the way using the Clean CR through November, and I’m not sure what’s gonna happen. I don’t know if we can get that guarantee there is mistrust between the Democrats and the administration and the Republican party on way to go forward.

But what is the plan right now is. Those two dueling bills, the Senate Democrat Bill continuing resolution, and the House passed Republican, they’re both going to get voted on tomorrow. They tried to vote on ’em in the past on the 19th. They both failed. And it’s just really, everybody knows what the way ahead.

There’s gonna have to be some deal made with these subsidies, but can they come to an agreement in the short term so we don’t shut down the government by tomorrow? And I just don’t know yet.

Todd “Sledge” Harmer: Yeah, I’m almost, well, we will know when this airs, but I’m willing to predict that there will be a government shutdown.

And for this reason the only way to avoid a shutdown is for the Senate to pass what was passed in [00:10:00] the House. I mean, they passed the bill the short term CR for seven weeks. Take us to the 20th of November. They pop smoke and left town. So, unless the Senate passes the identical bill before midnight Tuesday there’s gonna be a lapse in funding.

I just don’t, and there are enough disagreements in priorities, policies that

Heather “Lucky” Penney: substantive disagree disagreements.

Todd “Sledge” Harmer: Yeah. I mean the president’s meeting with the Big four today, and unless he can convince leader Schumer and Leader Jeffries that he has an ironclad promise to address some of their concerns at the end of the CR, they’re not gonna agree to anything.

Now, I will caveat that with Senator Schumer is not directing the Democrat caucus in the Senate how to vote. He will vote no on whatever goes to the floor regardless. But if there are seven Democrat, Senator. That do not want to see the government shut down then we won’t have a shutdown. But I don’t see us getting to seven before midnight Tuesday.

When you’re gonna [00:11:00] start seeing those seven come live is when we’re into a shutdown. And public opinion is, whoever takes the blame for this shutdown when it gets beyond the threshold of pain, I think then you’ll see, some type of an agreement that comes up and they’ll get it.

But I’m not optimistic here, but time will probably prove me wrong, I hope.

Heather “Lucky” Penney: Well, one of the concerns, that we have for the government shutdown is how it, it affects defense related activities, specifically with the workforce production lines and so forth.

And so you have industry that’s going to have to either go out on risk to keep their. Keep their production lines, their workforce funded to continue to stay on schedule. And of course, schedule means budget as well.

Todd “Sledge” Harmer: Yeah. And to that the department, and this is just defense, related here.

Heather “Lucky” Penney: Yeah.

Todd “Sledge” Harmer: The department sent out a memo this morning that outlines their priorities in the event that there is a government shutdown. And they list the highest priorities as operations secure the US southern border. Middle [00:12:00] East operations, Golden Dome for America depot, maintenance ship building, and critical munition.

So that’s kind of the focus. Those will be considered essential. And then we’ll see where the rest falls.

Jeff “Rowli” Rowlison: And Lucky and one interesting thing on that guidance that Sledge was just talking about, they use the reconciliation funding, the big beautiful bill funding as a bit of a backstop.

And so it’s gonna be really interesting to see how they’re using that, $150 billion, backstop to continue operations in line with those, six categories that sledge laid out. And it, they can absorb some pain that they probably would not have been able to do, had that reconciliation funding not been available.

So we’re in a really interesting timeframe right now because of that big, beautiful bill funding. That is a little bit of a safety valve for the short term. But, and this is my perspective, I don’t think, I think that’s why we haven’t seen a spend plan, [00:13:00] but the administration may have been anticipating this.

Once the CR resolves and we know exactly how much of that funding has been absorbed via the shutdown costs, then I think we’ll see a spend plan go over to Congress over.

Heather “Lucky” Penney: So that’s a

Anthony “Lazer” Lazarski: And Rowli,

Heather “Lucky” Penney: oh, go ahead.

Anthony “Lazer” Lazarski: And Rowli brings up a really good point. I mean, ’cause the continuing resolution is not applicable to reconciliation.

Reconciliation funding is mandatory appropriations, which is not the way we deal with the discretionary that we do you know, day-to-day on these bills. And then there is no language, either in the House or the Senate, Democrat continuing resolution that would have any impact on reconciliation.

So Rowli you’re correct. And the one other thing I’ll bring up is pay. we had tried several times, I think Sledge remembers this, of putting a legislation that would say, Hey, listen, if we shut down you, you will continue to pay for the military. And the reason why they don’t [00:14:00] pass all these is because they don’t wanna shut down to be easy.

They want it to be difficult. So members will not shutdown.

Heather “Lucky” Penney: They’re deterred.

Anthony “Lazer” Lazarski: Yeah, they’re deterred.

Lt. Gen. David Deptula, USAF (Ret.): You mean sort of like sequestration was?

Anthony “Lazer” Lazarski: Yeah. Yeah.

Heather “Lucky” Penney: So ultimately Rowli and Laser, what you’re saying is that the reconciliation is a fund that they can use for these priorities put out in this memo, and then they’ll sort of reverse engineer the spend plan in reconciliation.

But anything that’s not within that memo is not going to be funded.

Anthony “Lazer” Lazarski: Absolutely.

Heather “Lucky” Penney: So general

Jeff “Rowli” Rowlison: that’s exactly right.

Heather “Lucky” Penney: So General Deptula, media reports that General Wilsbach is going to be nominated to serve as the Chief of Staff of the Air Force. So this is the other big news, right? The one that’s really showing in the face is the shutdown, and the other is who is going to be the next chief of staff for the service.

So what are the biggest challenges that would be waiting for General Wilsbach? Should he be nominated or, whoever Congress confirms as chief.

Lt. Gen. David Deptula, USAF (Ret.): right. Well, the bottom line is whoever it [00:15:00] happens to be is gonna join the secretary in facing an incredible array of challenges. So let’s review those real quickly.

So by every meaningful measure, whether it’s age, size, or readiness, the Air Force has declined to levels that frankly imperil its ability to prevail in major conflict. If we take a look across the entire aircraft aircraft average over 30 years old, I mean, that’s across the entire inventory and two thirds of the inventory.

We’ve said this before, but it’s amazing to me to bring it up again. But I have to, ’cause people tend to blow it off. Two thirds of the inventory first flew more than 50 years ago then it’s combat forces are less than half the size They were at the end of the Cold War [00:16:00] and the Air Force possesses only about one third of the fighter capacity, it fielded in its last major conflict. Readiness rates are so low that only a fraction of its pilots, fighters and bombers are available on any given day. So the incoming Air Force Chief of staff must act decisively. His task will not be to manage decline, but to reverse it.

Now he’s not gonna have the time to fix this Air Force crisis, but he can initiate a recovery and that will require a solid multi-year plan. Anchored on three imperatives. One halting the decline of the Air force. Two, rebuilding cap capability and capacity. And three restoring readiness.

Heather “Lucky” Penney: And let’s be clear, I mean, the crisis that the Air Force is in has been [00:17:00] decades in the making.

It’s not going to be solved in months or even. Perhaps the one administration, right? It’s going to take multiple years to get the service healthy again.

Lt. Gen. David Deptula, USAF (Ret.): Standby an op-ed on that and a 10 year plan for recovery that maybe the next chief could find of use.

Heather “Lucky” Penney: So Sledge and Lazer, what questions do you think members of the Senate Arms Service Committee should ask General Wilsbach, or any nominee who’s anticipating becoming the next chief?

Todd “Sledge” Harmer: So I, I would, I guess I would ask you a question back. Lucky. What should they ask or what will they ask?

Heather “Lucky” Penney: All done. Yeah. I don’t, yeah, well done. Well done.

Todd “Sledge” Harmer: Well, first of all, I, you know, this, this is, if, if Wilsbach is nominated, this would be his third confirmation hearing as a four star.

So there aren’t gonna be any surprises about him, and I think it’s an opportunity for them to look at substantive issues. I was gonna. Make some of the points General Deptula did previously, and I, I think that’s it. how do you halt a decline and how do you restore readiness? That’s really what needs to be asked.[00:18:00]

Heather “Lucky” Penney: Well, I think budget’s gonna be part of that too. Oh, I mean, we, it’s resources. No box, no Buck,

Todd “Sledge” Harmer: Roger. So Yeah, exactly. Absolutely.

Heather “Lucky” Penney: Laser. Yeah. I,

Anthony “Lazer” Lazarski: yeah, I, I, agree a hundred percent what, Sledge said, but I looked down, you know, the, questions, they’ve been asking ’cause there’s a difference between what they should ask and what they will, and,

Heather “Lucky” Penney: yeah.

Anthony “Lazer” Lazarski: You’re right. Budget and ability to execute wartime, requirements for structure. I mean, what does the force structure look like? What’s the impact of all these civilian firings on Air Force operations? You talked about readiness, size of the force, number of general officers, you know, did we go back to the six we were joking about at the very beginning spectrum.

I mean, that’s another big one I know that’s gonna ask an impact on DOD operations. And then we start looking at. Our supply chain, our industrial base, access to critical, materials, all of that’s gonna come out. And then standard China, Iran, you talked about Golden Dome, nuclear triad, munition.

Stockpile, another big one, [00:19:00] that’s out there. And then I guarantee the use of National Guard in US cities. I guarantee, even though that’s not directly him, but, it’s gonna come out.

Heather “Lucky” Penney: Laser. That’s a really great summary. If the service is going to be healthy, we have to focus on readiness and everything that, both of you talked about is gonna be crucial towards the Air Force’s War fighting lethality.

So, General Cantwell and General Deptula, we just wrapped up the Air and Space Force Association’s, airspace and cyber conference and as usual, it was the place to be for all things air and space power. The secretary, really made a good point of emphasizing the need to improve readiness.

And Mitchell, we’ve championed that, especially released of JVs newest report. What are your thoughts on what you heard about readiness of the service?

Lt. Gen. David Deptula, USAF (Ret.): Heather, I think the cause of the decline in Air Force readiness is straightforward. Simply put, the Air Force has been underfunded for over three decades and as it tried to accomplish all that, it’s tasked with, [00:20:00] it continued to seek efficiencies and ultimately had to cut flying hours, spares, as well as aircraft.

So readiness declined in proportion of those cuts. The reality is there are no more efficiencies to squeeze out of the Air Force. This is not something we can fix by doing more with less. It can only be fixed through increased funding. Money to buy the flying hours the aircraft needed to fly them and the spares required to keep those aircraft flying, period.

Failing to modernize Air Force Aircraft at the proper rate has led to increasing maintenance bills. Remember, and everyone here knows this, but I guess some people don’t. Older jets cost more to maintain and are available less often to fly. That just exacerbates the readiness issue. [00:21:00] So the new Air Force chief has got to hammer home to the Department of War leadership, the consequences of underfunding the Air Force that put it in this decline.

Now, not just in a speech or two, but on a weekly basis. He’s gotta have the fortitude to become an irritant. Until the security leadership of the nation takes action to stop the decline and rebuild the Air Force. For decades, the Air Force has been the bill player for the other services, and now if there’s not gonna be an appreciable top line defense budget increase, the Department of War is gonna have to shift significant budget share from the other services to the Air Force to recover.

Heather “Lucky” Penney: Yeah. I mean, as you said, sir, it all comes down to resourcing and, if we don’t have those resources, we’re not gonna be able to fix this. It’s just simply saying that we’re lethal and saying that we’re ready doesn’t necessarily make it. So you have to put the [00:22:00] work behind it.

Brig. Gen. Houston “Slider” Cantwell, USAF (Ret.): Yeah. Lucky I think Secretary Mink was clear. He said when he started his speech. He was surprised at the depth of the readiness challenges. ,And he also said he was surprised at how quickly China was advancing. Those are two of his main points when he started off. On the readiness, if you haven’t read JVs, most recent paper, winning the next war, it outlines a lot of these readiness challenges in detail.

Heather “Lucky” Penney: Yeah. And it has data. It puts the numbers behind there. Exactly.

Brig. Gen. Houston “Slider” Cantwell, USAF (Ret.): It’s got data. The scary thing is some of that data, I’m not certain is showing the depths of the challenges that we actually face.

Heather “Lucky” Penney: Cause it’s several years old. Yeah, because it was

Brig. Gen. Houston “Slider” Cantwell, USAF (Ret.): open source. It’s all open source. And he was sharing in his paper roughly 50% mission capable rates.

But I’ll tell you one of the great things about these AFA conferences is that you bring the war fighters in from around the Air Force. And I got to talk to lots of them. And I’m here to tell you [00:23:00] the pilots are having a hard time getting flying hours and the maintainers are having tremendous difficulty maintaining these aircraft.

I heard it from the war fighters talking to folks from around the Air Force and the challenges are real and they’re not going anywhere soon.

Heather “Lucky” Penney: well said. So we beat the readiness drum tremendously, on this podcast. So we’re gonna shift a little bit because the other thing about the air and space forces. Conference is that there’s a space force. So, Jen and Rowli, a rapid fire space round because there was a tremendous amount of space content not only at the conference, but in the news recently. And the first thing was that we heard about a new force design for the space force At ASC, what are the main things that we should know?

Boots. Let’s start with you.

Jennifer “Boots” Reeves: Awesome. Well, there’s a couple of things that the CSO General Saltzman announced in his state of the Space Force keynote on Tuesday morning, and he is going to be, he and the Space Force are gonna be putting out two big documents and he [00:24:00] has been targeted for before the end of the year.

The first one is called the Future Operating Environment, and it’s really going to be looking at the state of the space domain five, 10, and 15 years into the future. And so what this will do is it will. Provide this assessment to direct investments and requirements for planning for the Space Force, which is pretty exciting, right?

It’s going to include sort of, well, what new mission areas the Space Force is tasked with. What things they will no longer. Be doing what the threat environment is now, what it could be at those, milestones in the future, and how technology is progressing domestically both with our partners and what we’re seeing from our adversaries.

So that we can prepare to actually meet that operating environment, which goes hand in glove perfectly with the other document that they are providing. And again, these documents are the representation of [00:25:00] the research and the assessments and the decisions that the leadership of the Space Force is actually making.

So the second document is called Force Design and it will forecast what the capabilities and resources the service will need to counter those future threats and meet that future operating environment that will be detailed in that first document. The CSO said that it’ll ensure our operations and our programs are synchronized and that we are all working towards the same goal to build the force that we need now and into the future.

And I think this is really spectacular for such a young service to come together and not only be dealing with everything that it has to do today and right now, but at the same time look forward so that we can build the space force into what it needs to be based on that assessment about what the future will be.

So I think it’s tremendous and I can’t wait until we see these documents come out, hopefully before [00:26:00] the end of the year.

Heather “Lucky” Penney: Yeah, no, it’s gonna be great. But we also, again, it comes down to the money, right? Because the Space Force, their budget was smaller this year than it was the previous year. So they’re really gonna need to have the resourcing necessary to be able to field that new force design raw.

What do you got?

Jeff “Rowli” Rowlison: Well, I think you mentioned the news that was coming out from, the two events that, that have gone on in September. The Amos, space situational awareness conference and then obviously the, AFA conference in which, you know, Space Force and certainly General Saltzman made some great announcements regarding.

Industry partnerships and really pushing the envelope to make sure that the space domain awareness, space, situational awareness community understands that they are now part of the solution. And so there’s been a lot of angst in the industry over. Recent years about commercial involvement and where that’s gonna play.

And I think, general [00:27:00] Salzman laid that to rest and said, Hey, we’re going to make a very concerted industry partnership push and make sure that industry’s part of the solution, not just a component of an aggregate, selection of collection capabilities. And so I think there’s some real excitement building on that.

And I think. Putting that out formally while also reorganizing and re vectoring the space. And the now Space Force front door is an exciting opportunity for industry to engage with our Space Force. And so they’ve very deliberately renamed it from the SSC front door to the Space Force front door, which kind of opens the aperture on the offerings that the industry can come into.

So I think there’s some real, momentum bill behind what was the commercial space strategy that was released a couple years or about a year and a half ago. And I think we’re starting to see that start to get materialized. And like you just mentioned, it all comes down to [00:28:00] budget, right?

We’ve been very slow to actually budget in the palm process for commercial capabilities. We’ve been sustained by commercial actions or congressional actions over the last couple years. And if the Senate mark holds the Senate appropriation mark, the COMSO office will get about $160 million to do some really innovative commercial stuff.

So I think there’s some really interesting developments out of the last two conferences. And like you said, let’s just hope that we start to see that materialize. Both in action and in future budgets.

Heather “Lucky” Penney: Now, what you mentioned Rowli, about being able to leverage the partnership with commercial is really important because that way the service it makes it more affordable for the service to be able to achieve and receive the intel and the data and the effects that they need.

Without fully burdening them with the cost of ownership. But one of the things you mentioned Rowli, about space situational awareness and boots you had mentioned about the future operation environment is the threats in space. And so we need to be able to track those, [00:29:00] help our audience understand the key points on those.

Jeff “Rowli” Rowlison: I’ll jump in real quick. Yeah. The environment has dramatically changed and so is our rhetoric surrounding it, right? And I think Laser even mentioned in one of his comments about the evolving threats that we’re having to adjust to both from an error in space force. And so I think we are starting to see even solicitations that come that are coming out that are the things that we just haven’t been able to talk to. Maneuvering in space, maneuvering to and from targets that with a collection sensor suite and a propulsion capability, that to do sustained operations in a way that enables a whole new mission set. And so I think what we’re starting to see more and more is the realization that the threat is driving the capability and commercial, much like some of the new solicitations that are out.

Commercial is the first one that can adapt to that quickly at scale, at cost, and deliver on a [00:30:00] timeline that is actually operationally relevant. And I think we’re starting to see that transition from everything from what Space Force is doing. We certainly will see a thrush of activity going into the Golden Dome for America efforts. You know, on the heels of the MDA shield or MDA industry days. So I think there’s a lot going on and, you know, we’re starting to see commercial really respond to that in force.

Heather “Lucky” Penney: No, most excellent. It really just highlights the need for the space force to have those commercial partners. ‘Cause they can oftentimes move faster, than the government can. and that’s gonna provide them those war fighting capabilities, which boots. I’m gonna pivot over to you because the Space Force made it public that guardians played a key role in Midnight Hammer through their spectrum warfare capabilities.

And so I think this begins to bring the picture all together that the Space Force is an essential component of air and space power. So what were your key takeaways from their announcement?

Jennifer “Boots” Reeves: Well, it was a very exciting amount [00:31:00] announcement in my mind, Lieutenant General Miller. He talked about the Space Force’s role in midnight Hammer and I think we can probably all put it together, right?

Dealing with threats in the electromagnetic spectrum is something that we’ve always done right? The signals that are coming in that, are either helping the enemy or doing something nefarious to us. They always have to be dealt with. We’ve known that and we’ve done that certainly in the air layer for years and years.

But I think what is exciting about what happened and got said out loud is that there was a significant space role in dealing, with the spectrum and what the Iranians were doing. To protect their own assets as we went in for Midnight Hammer, and it was very exciting. Right? Certainly.

We probably did things like jamming and spoofing and other techniques that probably helped scramble Iranian defensive systems, letting those B-2s roll in and conduct their mission without fear of being attacked. But if these things have happened in the [00:32:00] past, they certainly haven’t been talked about.

And not in a public forum like, the AFA conference. So it was very exciting that General Miller was actually able to acknowledge this. And talk about it. And yes, space is part of these big muscle movements that are happening in other domains. Right. I think that’s really the takeaway is

Heather “Lucky” Penney: The integration of air space power.

Jennifer “Boots” Reeves: Absolutely integration of air and space power and that it’s part of everything these days. So, it was really exceptional to hear about that straight from General Miller.

Heather “Lucky” Penney: Yeah, no, very exciting. But I would also argue that similar to the air side where Midnight Hammer was a single operation, that we could not have gone in and done it the next day.

That argues for the need for more air power. We also need to have more space power because the demand for those Space war fighting capabilities around the globe we have to anticipate is going to only grow. so Rowli SDA launched the first 21 operational satellites of Tranche One.

First for audience. Remind folks what that means and why it’s a big deal. [00:33:00]

Jeff “Rowli” Rowlison: Well, the Space Development Agency is, you know, launching space vehicles in a iterative fashion. So Tranche one was, part of a very deliberate plan to get the PWSA, the proliferated war fighter space architecture, instructed and you know, sourced with all of these various satellites. And so this was a significant event in the progress of the SDA to get these launched and on time and after the departure of drier as the lead for SDA the team was really kind of on its heels, it seemed.

And so getting this, you know, having these vehicles in space performing, reportedly really well so far is another feather in their cap. And as one of the most well-funded programs within the Space Force architecture, this is a credibility issue. The Space Development Agency has been moving methodically [00:34:00] towards these launches. And so it’s just really good to see that they’ve got ’em up and they’re moving on.

So the next, we’ll see how they do tranche three tracking layer. And there’s been some, some budget issues with that, but I think, you know, as we get through the end of this legislative cycle into the next, I think we’ll start seeing some more clarity with SDA. Boots,

anything to add on that?

Jennifer “Boots” Reeves: No, it’s very exciting that we’re moving forward, right? We’re seeing where industry is going with these proliferated architectures. And the space force is not being left behind, but they’re doing it in a manner in which we can take advantage of what industry is learning and incorporate that into some uniquely military missions. That happen in space and it’s just a really exciting time.

Heather “Lucky” Penney: Yeah. Sometimes there can be a benefit to being the second mover. You can move more quickly because if you can learn from your, the first mover, then that allows you to be able to avoid those errors. Getting back to the integration of air and space boots, we learned about a successful space to aircraft, Laser communication effort, [00:35:00] and of course, proliferated architecture is gonna be a crucial portion of that. Explain what’s going on here.

Jennifer “Boots” Reeves: Well, first ladies and gentlemen, space Lasers, who’s not excited about space Lasers? Am I right?

Heather “Lucky” Penney: Yes!

Jennifer “Boots” Reeves: Okay.

Lt. Gen. David Deptula, USAF (Ret.): Wasn’t there a movie about that? Was it Space Balls?

Jennifer “Boots” Reeves: But this is the most exciting thing because this is for real. This is not Space Balls. That’s the exciting thing. So this is really incredible technology and you, so you’ve gotta put it all into context, right?

So, we’ll stop joking, and put it into context. Okay? So with these big tranches of large architectures of proliferated, satellites in space. What we have to do is we have to have a way to get large amounts, I mean, almost unimaginable amounts of data from space back to terrestrial resources, right?

Ground stations or aircraft or things. Ships that are in the ocean, [00:36:00] on the ocean, that type of thing. Okay? Large amounts of data. Previously unimaginable. So in the past we’ve always used radio frequency communications. People have heard about RF, right? Which includes SHF and EHF and UHF.

But the issue is there are genuine limitations to what the radio frequencies can do for us. And bandwidth is one of them, right?

Heather “Lucky” Penney: Yeah.

Jennifer “Boots” Reeves: So when we’re going after much larger data. Flow with much larger amounts, we have to have something different, right? Additionally, radio frequencies are very vulnerable to jamming.

They’re particularly easy for a adversaries to exploit our comms, or at least them from getting to the intended recipients. And so optical communications. Which includes Lasers is the technology that is gonna help us limit the risks that we see in RF, and it’s gonna take our data capacity to a whole other level.

Now, recently we’ve seen some tests that have happened from [00:37:00] satellite to satellite, right? So we’re staying in space. A little bit easier than actually moving, getting Lasers communications from space through the atmosphere down to the ground. Additionally so not only is that problematic going through the atmosphere, but additionally a challenge-

Heather “Lucky” Penney: an airplane that moves fast. Its maneuvering..

Jennifer “Boots” Reeves: An airplane is moving. Exactly. And so we’ve got a, it’s coming from a satellite in low earth orbit that’s moving very fast. Down to an airplane that’s moving fast as well inside the atmosphere. So there are so many challenges that are here and what an exceptional, exciting time because they made it work. And

Heather “Lucky” Penney: Well, not only was it technologically challenging, I mean being able to know where to point the laser, right?

Because it is directionally oriented, which reduces the adversary’s ability to know that it’s happening as well as. Interfere jam. Or listen in on those comms. But importantly, as we look towards a [00:38:00] future of ground moving target indication, air moving target indication, if we want to integrate that space layer, of observational capabilities to directly target aircraft, this is an essential first step.

Jennifer “Boots” Reeves: Yes, absolutely. It absolutely is. And I think there’s one other thing that we’ve been talking about that also overlays onto this and that is that the supplier of what was in space and the supplier of what was on the airplane were two different companies. And what happened was SDA

Heather “Lucky” Penney: different companies talking to each other. It’s amazing standards.

Jennifer “Boots” Reeves: Exactly. They put out OCT standards, OCT: Optical Communications Terminal. They put out the standards the Space Force did, and then companies are building to that and then, holy cow, it worked! It’s very exciting. And our friends at GA, at General Atomics EMS said that our team achieved a proof of concept milestone, and that is absolutely true.

They completed pointing, [00:39:00] acquisition, tracking, and lock with the tranche. Zero compatible satellites, transferred data packets to validate the uplink and downlink capability. It is absolutely designed to close the communications gap, enabling secure, robust data transfers to support tactical and operational missions.

Heather “Lucky” Penney: Yeah,

Jennifer “Boots” Reeves: it’s a very exciting time.

Heather “Lucky” Penney: No, this is,

Jennifer “Boots” Reeves: congratulations to

Heather “Lucky” Penney: Yeah. Congratulations to those industry partners and

Jennifer “Boots” Reeves: absolutely.

Heather “Lucky” Penney: The technical hurdles for them to be able to do this are essential. I’m curious though, as we look into the future, how the policy is gonna follow up with that.

But we’ve gotta pivot now because General Deptula, we’ve gotten word that the new National Defense Strategy might prioritize Homeland Defense over everything else. And of course we’ve talked about Homeland Defense in past ndss, but it’s kind of been lip service. And we’ve always been looking at those pacing threats.

China, China. What are your thoughts on what this might portend for the Air Force?

Lt. Gen. David Deptula, USAF (Ret.): Well, Heather, like you say, Homeland Defense is critical. And guess what? It always has been. The issue [00:40:00] is that the defense leadership has been too focused, well, let me put it this way, it’s been focused too little.

Heather “Lucky” Penney: Yeah.

Lt. Gen. David Deptula, USAF (Ret.): On Homeland Defense as we got distracted by the counterinsurgency efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan. That recall pack that, I mean, that took the breath out of everything when it came to defense wide focus during, Bob Gates, tenure and afterwards as well. The reality is we now live in a world where the US is becoming more vulnerable to both air and missile threats.

So we need to invest more in domain awareness, both from space and air, while securing the ability to defeat the most probable threats and build our infrastructure that it too is resilient to both lethal as well as non-lethal threats. That [00:41:00] said you know, and this is extraordinarily important if we wanna deter conflict.

Then we must be capable of projecting power around the world to the degree that our adversaries realize that they simply cannot succeed in aggression. And that means while homeland defense, of course, is number one priority, we can’t take our eye off the ball in Europe, Asia, or the Middle East because adversaries are gonna be probing for weakness and lack of resolve, and any vacuum will simply increase.

The likelihood of war with both US interests and credibility on the line. So increasing appropriate attention on homeland defense and sustaining our global security commitments is a smart way ahead. I’d also like to make the point that air power and space power are [00:42:00] fundamental to success in every region of the world.

That’s simply not true of either sea power or land warfare. The Department of War has gotta get its priorities correct.

Heather “Lucky” Penney: Laser, Jeff and Sledge. How do you all think the Hill will respond to this shift in priorities in the NDS?

Anthony “Lazer” Lazarski: Yeah, I think it’ll be, again, it’ll be attacked, but I think overall it’s gonna be accepted.

They understand the national security environment is continuously evolving and changing, as are the threats. And also, again, stating the obvious, the large oceans and friendly neighbors that insulated us in the past from threats and attacks at his long pass, and the ability for enemies to attack our homeland continues to increase.

I think China, as you said, China’s still gonna be a national security interest, but again, putting that homeland defense, and it’s just not borders, but it’s our hemisphere. Because we can’t wait till they’re at our doorstep in our hemisphere or inside [00:43:00] our borders because we have to defer and defeat them.

And we always prefer away games. We don’t want to play home games against these people. And I think general dipole, you know, you mentioned that, you know, you can’t be everywhere. However, our enemies get to choose the place and time of the engagement. And we have to be ready. And I think you’re exactly right.

If you look at what we need to do for a strong homeland defense engagement in the hemisphere, forward presence a whole bit, and the ability to respond, it’s using air and space power.

Todd “Sledge” Harmer: Yeah, I think Laser stuck the landing there. I really like the the part about, it’s not just the homeland, it’s the hemisphere.

I think that’s why you’re gonna see, you know, a lot of the Greenland, the Panama, the Venezuela. The things in the area, outside of our geographical borders polar ice breakers for the Coast Guard. I mean, things like that are gonna play into this. But, you know, at the end of the day.

You know, it’s resources are allocated against, security concerns. And you need a villain to justify having a [00:44:00] lot. And I don’t think the big villain that we’re concerned with right now is going away anywhere. So Homeland Defense is gonna be balanced against that threat there.

Heather “Lucky” Penney: Yeah, it has to be.

I mean, if you can’t deny an adversary the benefit from attacking the nation, then that doesn’t provide you any deterrent, capability. So we have to be able to secure the homeland. But I also don’t think going to a Monroe doctrine or spheres of influence where we scope our interests down very tightly to our borders or even our hemisphere is going to be sufficient to really, have the world that we want to live in and the benefits our nation and our economy.

Okay, so Slider. You know, we’re talking about Homeland Defense and you’ve looked at this issue all year long with your Northern Tier Homeland Defense Project, and you just recently hosted our NATO allies to discuss this problem and solutions moving forward. And you even had the deputy commander of NORAD here to offer his thoughts.

In addition to the panel that you hosted at ASC with our top allies, what would you have to say for our listeners?

Brig. Gen. Houston “Slider” Cantwell, USAF (Ret.): Yeah, Heather, we were fortunate just a couple weeks ago, [00:45:00] we brought eight nations together and the NORAD deputy commander here to our headquarters to discuss Arctic domain awareness.

What are the challenges that each of the countries are facing? How can we look at this as a collective challenge? I’ll just hit a couple high points, Canada shared some tremendous news. And so finally we got some good news coming outta the department. They are rapidly increasing their military spending.

In fact, they’re increasing it so quickly that it’s actually becoming a challenge to try to absorb all of this growth to ingest and obligate all at once. Exactly. And one of their main investments is the over the horizon radar. And this is gonna be a very important component, huge as they move forward to fill in a lot of the gaps that exist as we look to the high North.

Secondly, they’re also considering, I am hoping that they will look closely at the E7 wedge tail, and hopefully that will gain some traction because that would be an excellent compliment to the over the horizon radar. But unfortunately, as I’ve [00:46:00] discussed this with various allies around the world.

Unfortunately many of our American made weapon systems are falling out of favor with some of our allies. Because of, I’ll just say, political reasons. And so that’s definitely an uphill challenge that, that we all have to face. Secondly, the workshop highlighted the importance of breaking down information, stove pipes, whether that’s between countries.

Between various commands or different departments. We’ve got to break down these information stovepipes and give our decision makers maximum time to make these very timely and important decisions. We brought Amazon Web Services, Dell Federal, Palantir, all together discuss these challenges. And there’s some tremendous success being made with the Maven Smart System across combatant commands now with NATO.

And I think that this is a very good step forward as we try to break down many of these in information stove pipes.

Heather “Lucky” Penney: Yeah. Because if we can, turn that over to [00:47:00] machine to machine to be able to vet the information, ensure that has the appropriate classification and shareability, but honestly, we need to, I think, maximize the shareability.

And remove many of the restrictions so that we have the most accurate UpToDate information to, for commanders to be able to make those decisions.

Brig. Gen. Houston “Slider” Cantwell, USAF (Ret.): Exactly. It’s a great start, but there’s plenty of policy challenges that still exist.

Heather “Lucky” Penney: Exactly. Okay, so over to the entire team, a final question, Just to go full circle from how we began the episode, why is it so important that Congress pass a budget? And I’d like to hear from each of you so everyone gets a soapbox to make their case. Sir, we’ll start with you.

Lt. Gen. David Deptula, USAF (Ret.): Yeah. Well, bottom line is without a budget, the military can’t train properly, can’t start new programs, and can’t modernize fast enough to keep ahead of the bad guys.

Every month, the Congress delays. Our pilots fly less, our ships sail less, our troops train less, and our adversaries get stronger. Passing a budget isn’t politics. It’s national [00:48:00] security. So here’s the one liner, no budget, no readiness. Everyday Congress delays, America’s military gets weaker and our enemies get bolder.

Heather “Lucky” Penney: I would say no budget, no lethality. There you go.

Lt. Gen. David Deptula, USAF (Ret.): True

Heather “Lucky” Penney: Slider over to you.

Brig. Gen. Houston “Slider” Cantwell, USAF (Ret.): Look Heather, our military industrial base is stronger when provided stability. No budget. Our military industrial base cannot make the plans that they need to make to invest in contracts, to invest in the parts, in the supplies, the subcontractors that they need to make long-term agreements with. They cannot do it.

When you’ve got CRs, you’ve got short-term reconciliation, bill. One year money with no guaranteed funding in subsequent years does not allow them to make the plans they need to make to provide the most capable weapon systems that our military needs to go win the future wars.

Heather “Lucky” Penney: Excellent point. I mean, the industrial [00:49:00] base relies upon the stable funding, and if we can’t provide that, why are we surprised that we have a weakened and brittle industrial base boots?

Jennifer “Boots” Reeves: Two perspectives. We cannot expect our industry partners to invest long term when funding streams are so capricious. And from the government side, every time we stop, then start, the cost goes up.

Heather “Lucky” Penney: No budget makes everything more expensive. Rowli. Absolutely. What do you got?

Jeff “Rowli” Rowlison: Yeah, it’s the planning, right?

We cannot plan to execute anything, whether it’s the lethality, the staffing, the future projections, the commercial stability, you know, and even those in the equity community, the private and venture capital community they don’t know what to invest in. They can’t see the markers that, provide any sort of vision for how our department is gonna operate.

And so I think it all [00:50:00] comes back down to planning and credibility. And if we can’t do that, then we’re kind of stuck in that one year morass and nothing gets better while our adversaries continue to move forward and make advances. And we’re seeing that on in the battle space right now.

Heather “Lucky” Penney: That’s an excellent point. I mean, we can’t ask venture capitalists to invest in defense capabilities if we’re not gonna turn around and buy them. And you can’t buy ’em if you don’t have budget. So Laser, what do you got?

Anthony “Lazer” Lazarski: Yeah. The fact that we actually have to ask this question is disturbing at its very beginning, but, yeah.

So Congress, has got many duties, right? Makes laws, declares war, regulates commerce, oversight on the executive branch. But article one, section nine, constitution grants Congress, the exclusive control over federal spending requiring it to approve any expenditure, right? So it says, no money shall be drawn from the treasury, but in consequence of appropriations made by law, that is their job and the failure to do so, and you guys have [00:51:00] said it puts our entire nation and its national security at risk. That’s their one job they’re gonna do every year.

Heather “Lucky” Penney: And that they haven’t been doing. Well thank you so Sledge, you get the final word.

Todd “Sledge” Harmer: Keep the distractions to a minimum and focus on the fight.

Heather “Lucky” Penney: All right folks. That’s all the time we’ve got for now.

Thanks everyone for showing up and we’ll see you next month.

Lt. Gen. David Deptula, USAF (Ret.): See you Heather. Thanks.

Brig. Gen. Houston “Slider” Cantwell, USAF (Ret.): Thanks Lucky.

Jennifer “Boots” Reeves: Thanks, Heather. It was fun.

Anthony “Lazer” Lazarski: Thanks a lot, Heather.

Todd “Sledge” Harmer: Great to be here. We see you next time.

Jeff “Rowli” Rowlison: Hey, thanks, Heather.

Heather “Lucky” Penney: With that, I’d like to extend a big thank you to our guests for joining in today’s conversation. I’d also like to extend a big thank you to you, our listeners, for your continued support and for tuning into today’s show. If you like what you heard today, don’t forget to hit that like button or follow or subscribe to the Aerospace Advantage. You can also leave a comment to let us know what you think about our show or areas that you would like us to explore further. As always, you can join in on the conversation by following the Mitchell Institute on X, Instagram, Facebook, or LinkedIn, and you [00:52:00] can always find us at mitchellaerospacepower.org. Thanks again for joining us and have a great aerospace power kind of day. See you next time.