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Opening
Statement of Chairman Terry Everett
Hearing on
the Department of Defense Space Programs and
the Fiscal Year 2005 Budget request for Space
Activities The Strategic
Forces Subcommittee meets today to receive
testimony on Department of Defense space
programs and the fiscal year 2005 budget
request for space activities.
I want to
welcome Under Secretary Peter Teets who is
testifying today as the head of National
Security Space Programs. I also want to
welcome, seated behind Secretary Teets, the
Service Space Program heads:
•
representing the Air Force, General Lance
Lord, Commander, Air Force Space Command;
• For the
Army, Lieutenant General Larry Dodgen,
Commander, Space and Missile Defense
Command;
• the Navy,
Rear Admiral Rand Fisher, Commander, Space
and Naval Warfare Systems Command;
• and
finally Brigadier General John Thomas,
Director of Command, Control and
Communications (C4), and Chief Information
Officer (CIO) for the Marine Corps.
Following
Secretary Teets’ remarks, I invite you to join
him at the witness table as committee members
ask questions.
We have a great
deal of ground to cover today, and I want to
allow each of our members as great an
opportunity as possible to ask questions, so I
will be brief. Likewise, I would ask you Mr.
Secretary to be brief with your prepared
remarks – the entirety of your written
statement will be entered into the record.
This is the
second gathering of this panel, led by Under
Secretary Teets. He is the first person to
serve as overall head of National Security
Space Programs. Consolidation of space
activities under a single executive agent was
a strong recommendation of the Space
Commission. On the one hand, the Secretary
oversees an area of technology that is rapidly
growing in importance, and on the other hand,
he has inherited many space programs that have
experienced cost growth and schedule delays.
These issues are of paramount concern of this
committee and this Congress as an institution.
When we last
met, one year ago, we were at the lessons
learned stage coming off of a major conflict:
Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan.
Now, we’ve come full circle and have further
applied these precious space resources to
another conflict, Operation Iraqi Freedom. Our
success in these difficult missions would not
be possible without the spaced-based
capabilities used by the witnesses who appear
before us today.
The Secretary
faces the institutional hurdle of better
integrating military and intelligence
community space activities, which promises to
benefit both user communities, as well as
provide more value to the taxpayer. Are we
using these resources to the best of our
abilities, and if not Mr. Secretary, I ask you
today, how is it that the Congress can better
help you?
Further,
Secretary Teets is faced with the difficulty
of maintaining assured access to space while
transitioning from legacy space boosters to
the new family of Evolved Expendable Launch
Vehicles during a period when reduced
commercial launches places added financial
pressures on both suppliers.
Finally another
challenge, highlighted almost daily in the
press, is the planned transition from existing
space-based communication systems to a new
transformational communications system based
on laser interconnection. That system is to
provide the increased information handling
capability our future forces require.
The bottom line
is that it is very difficult to see how, with
the constrained resources available, we will
be able to adequately fund maintenance of
existing capabilities while simultaneously
fielding Future Imagery Architecture and
developing expensive future systems like Space
Based Radar and the transformational
communications satellite system.
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