We in Congress recognize that we have tough defense budget choices ahead of us given costs associated with ongoing operations in Iraq, the global war on terrorism, and force reset and modernization. The President wants to eliminate the federal deficit in the next five years and impose greater spending discipline. The Air Force, the predominant provider of military space capabilities, spends roughly 11 percent of its budget on space even though space is one-third of its core missions—the other two being air and cyberspace. Without a significant increase to the space budget top line or realignment of recapitalization and modernization programs, the space portfolio will become unaffordable and unexecutable.

We must strike a balance between continuing with legacy systems and moving ahead with modernized systems. I support a measured approach that overlaps new acquisition programs with continuing legacy programs and one that avoids any drastic changes that could severely impact the delivery of war-fighter capability or affect the stability of the industrial base. This thinking is reflected in the House-passed defense bill, which curtails some new-start acquisition programs such as the Alternative Infrared Satellite System and the High Integrity GPS concept. We provide resources for an additional legacy AEHF satellite to mitigate any risk of a gap to our protected strategic communications and fully fund continuing technology and system development of TSAT. We are responsive to the war fighter’s demand for orders of magnitude increases in communications and Internet-like connectivity across platforms and users.

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Everett, Terry. "Arguing for a Comprehensive Space Protection Strategy." Strategic Studies Quarterly. Vol. 1, No. 1 (Fall 2007): 20-35. [ 6 quotes ] [ page 29 ]