Space And National Security

The Aerospace Industries Association plans to hold a "policy discussion" next week on Capitol Hill "on the importance of space to national security," according to an AIA statement released this morning.

Principal Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Policy James Miller will provide the Sept. 28 keynote address, the statement reads.

Following Miller, AIA will hold a panel discussion featuring Pentagon industrial policy director Brett Lambert, retied Air Force Lt. Gen. Trey Obering and Steven Miller, division director of advanced systems in the Cost Analysis and and Program Evaluation office at DOD.

"The panel will discuss national security space industrial base and acquisition issues as they relate to DOD’s efforts to increase efficiency," according to the statement.

Additionally, AIA is releasing a new report titled "Tipping Point: Maintaining the Health of the National Security Space Industrial Base" that outlines the factors that the association believes "are making the U.S. national security space base increasingly fragile."

Marion Blakey, the head of AIA, gave a speech last week at the Air Force Association's annual conference in which she warned about the projected lack of qualified aerospace graduates as they face an upcoming wave of retirements in the field and a lack of jobs following recent program cancellations.

A lag in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) education in the United States could cause problems because half of the aerospace workforce will retire in the next 10 years, Blakey said. Not only that, young people also may see a "roller-coaster environment" in the field following large-scale layoffs in 1990s after factories closed, Inside the Air Force reported. Further:

"We do not have enough homegrown talent coming up through those disciplines," Blakey said, during a Sept. 15 speech at an Air Force Association conference. "I stress homegrown because, as you know, we have got to have security clearances for those jobs. This is a big issue for us."

The Air Force needs to do a better job of paying attention to the aerospace industrial base, she said. She believes that the base has only been taken into account in a very analytic way in recent years.

"That analysis of capabilities is something that has to be done together with industry," Blakey said. "We know how we may be able to maintain things. But when those factories go away, they are gone. It is like cutting down the redwoods. It is over. And it takes a very long time to build them back."