Text Fwd: CATCHING UP ON [THE RECENT SPACE NEWS]

* Image source: same as the below link
'The first test flight of the Falcon Hypersonic Technology Vehicle (HTV)-2 failed '

Bruce Gagnon blog
CATCHING UP
May 4, 2010

* Just back from New York City yesterday afternoon with much to catch up on. Feeling a bit groggy. Might be a second cup of tea morning. The sun is shining and the temperature outside more to my liking - cool. A beautiful Maine day. Our guest Rao has gone for a walk to the local library. Housemate Karen will take him for a ride out to the ocean today while I try to get my backlog of work done.

* Space News reports, "The U.S. Defense Department’s first test flight of a new hypersonic glider ended abruptly as communications with the vehicle ceased mid-flight, a setback in the Pentagon’s pursuit of a highly precise long-range strike weapon. The Defense Advanced Research Project Agency (DARPA)’s Falcon Hypersonic Technology Vehicle (HTV)-2 program is one of three designs in the running to serve as the basis for the Conventional Prompt Global Strike weapon the Pentagon wants to build in order to hit a target anywhere in the world within an hour with a non-nuclear munition. The first of three planned HTV-2 flight tests took place April 22."

"The administration of U.S. President Barack Obama has made clear its intention to maintain the nation’s strategic deterrent while reducing its dependence on nuclear weapons. As such, the New START nuclear arms reduction agreement signed with Russia on April 8 will not constrain any current or planned conventionally-armed ballistic missiles, according to an April 8 fact sheet posted on the U.S. State Department’s website."

The cost of this week's HTV test and a follow-on in 2011, together is $308 million. Your tax dollars in action enriching the aerospace industry and likely ensuring a new, expensive, arms race in space as Russia and China (who clearly understand they will be the targets) feel they must respond.

* I got an interesting email the other day about Obama's effort to privatize NASA and "civilian" space operations.

The article, by Steve Zeltzer, reports, "A full bore campaign is now being waged by the Obama administration to shutdown the U.S. unionized space program and turn it over to 'new age' speculators who want to build a new space program in a 'regulation free zone' in Florida. A key player in this plan is billionaire and former owner of Paypal, Elon Musk."

Musk, has set up SpaceX (Space Exploration Technologies Corporation) which appears to be on the way to running a taxi service for American astronauts. This is just another step toward eventual turning "ownership" of the planetary bodies over to corporations who envision making untold riches from mining the sky in years to come. You, the taxpayers, have paid the technology start-up costs and now the corporate elite will stand to make zillions in profits and pay little back in taxes.

You can see the full article here

* Yonhap News reports, "South Korea's first Aegis destroyer will undergo a comprehensive evaluation of its fighting capabilities near Hawaii in June, a Navy source said Monday.

"The source said Sejong the Great will conduct tests while taking part in the multinational Rim of the Pacific (RIMPAC) naval exercise. Lockheed Martin -- the developer of the Aegis system -- and U.S. Navy experts will act as observers and evaluate the weapons systems during the trial."

This is an indication that the South Korean Navy is now being fully integrated into the command structure of the U.S. Navy and that the Aegis destroyers that would be deployed at the proposed base on Jeju Island will in fact be a part of the larger U.S. military strategy of surrounding China's coastal region in order to create the ability to choke off their importation of oil via ship.

See the recent New York Times article on China's fear and response here.

* I head back to NYC on May 7 for a couple more international meetings including the Global Network annual meeting on May 9.

Text Fwd: Prompt Global Strike: Pentagon Plans Series Of 5-10 Year Wars

* Text informed by StopNATO and Bruce Gagnon on June 6, 2009

Prompt Global Strike: Pentagon Plans Series Of 5-10 Year Wars

http://www.defensenews.com/story.php?i=4123641&c=AME&s=LAN
Defense News, June 4, 2009

Cartwright: U.S. Force-Sizing, Basing Strategy Need Overhaul
By JOHN T. BENNETT

-The Marine Corps general said he has concluded conventionally armed bombers are "too slow and too intrusive" for many "global strike missions."
Cartwright for several years has advocated for a "prompt global strike" weapon, which would be ultra-fast and fitted with a conventional warhead.
Congress, due largely to worries that other nations, like Russia, would be unable to quickly determine whether an in-flight warhead was nuclear, has refused to fund the program.
-The military might need a "hypersonic" weapon that would travel in the exoatmosphere to take out a limited number of fleeting targets....


Over the next few years, the U.S. military is likely to become engaged in a number of hot and cold conflicts, each spanning five to 10 years, meaning the Pentagon must "adjust" its decades-old force sizing and basing constructs, says Gen. James Cartwright, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs.

But the world has changed in major ways, meaning the two conventional war-based approach is no longer a good fit, according to defense officials. Those changes are the reason senior Pentagon officials are examining whether the 2010 Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR) should include a new force-planning construct, as well as a new plan for how American bases, troops and combat equipment are located around the globe.

"It is clear we are going to have conflicts whose character will not be the same" as the ones on which the Pentagon has for decades based its force planning and global basing postures, Cartwright said. "It's clear [U.S. forces] will be engaged in operations that [each] last five or 10 years - and that is fundamentally different that in the past."

Such conflicts are the "most likely" ones the U.S. military will fight in coming years, he said during an appearance at a Center for Strategic and International Studies forum. Senior Pentagon officials are mulling whether these conflicts - not conventional ones against peer militaries - should garner the majority of the military's planning focus.

Plus, he said, officials have concluded that "the level of lethality" potential U.S. foes bring to the fight is no longer tilted so excessively toward conventional threats.

For those reasons, Cartwright said, "it is my opinion … that we have to adjust the balance" between focusing resources and effort on the "most likely" and "most deadly" threats as part of the QDR process.

The QDR will examine what future threats the U.S. military will have to combat, "and how we must be postured to do those things."

Altering the force-sizing construct will affect which weapons the services buy and how the U.S. military is positioned around the world.

Cartwright said QDR study participants must look at the benefits and drawbacks of how American forces and gear are based, including: permanent, prepositioned and rotational basing.

Acquisition "Crossroads"

The vice chairman also said the U.S. military must shift from developing new and expensive weapons aimed at taking out a specific threat to focusing on how platforms fit into "the IT world."

On defense acquisition, "we're at a crossroads" that incorporates all of American society. The nation is fundamentally "an industrial society," but must adjust to a global change that "the competitive advantage is on the IT side."

The same is true for DoD, he said.

"When [the services] build a plane, you build it for a threat," Cartwright said. "You can only update it every four or five years....So the utility of that plane is limited in an IT world."

The model for where the military must go in terms of new weapon systems lies in how it has come to use unmanned aircraft.

Like with UAVs in Iraq and Afghanistan, the most important feature of future U.S. weapon systems will be their "ability to gather information to help solve problems," the vice chairman said. He also touted the ability of UAVs to take on multiple missions, depending on a commander's needs like ISR gathering today and targeting tomorrow.

Prompt Global Strike

Additionally, Cartwright said he continues to press for development of a new weapon that would allow Washington to take out a fleeting target in a manner of minutes.

The Marine Corps general said he has concluded conventionally armed bombers are "too slow and too intrusive" for many "global strike missions."

Cartwright for several years has advocated for a "prompt global strike" weapon, which would be ultra-fast and fitted with a conventional warhead.

Congress, due largely to worries that other nations, like Russia, would be unable to quickly determine whether an in-flight warhead was nuclear, has refused to fund the program.

Cartwright said even congressional skeptics of the idea realize there is a "military requirement" for such a fast weapon to take out fleeting targets.

The requirements for such a weapon are "starting to emerge," he said.

"At the low end," a PGS weapon would probably need to be launched and hit a target within "one hour," Cartwright said. "At the high end," the time frame could be as short as "300 milliseconds."

The military might need a "hypersonic" weapon that would travel in the exoatmosphere to take out a limited number of fleeting targets, he said.

Finally, Cartwright told the audience the Pentagon is examining a new concept, called "extended deterrence," something "we're trying to force into the QDR."

The idea would be to field a weapon so effective that it would dissuade enemies from carrying out a specific activity, while also "not starting a nuclear arms race" and "giving allies comfort."

The options for an "extended deterrence" capability, he said, are not limited to nuclear-armed weapons.
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