DISTRIBUTION A:
Approved for public release; distribution is unlimited.

Document created: 1 December 05
Air & Space Power Journal - Winter 2005

According to the Report of the Commission to Assess United States National Security Space Management and Organization, released on 11 January 2001, “the security and well being of the United States, its allies and friends depend on the nation’s ability to operate in space.” The commission concluded that, in order to sustain a level of distinct superiority in space, we must “create and sustain a cadre of space professionals.”¹ This article focuses on one of the three areas the commission identified as having a high priority in terms of the requirements to reach this goal: education—specifically, the status of formal space education within the United States Air Force as regards its historical development, current status, and future needs.

Space-related education, coupled with technical expertise, plays a critical role in developing and sustaining a space cadre. One might well argue, however, that too many current leaders of space organizations do not have the necessary background in technical education. Without leadership to verify or challenge subordinates’ recommendations, problem solving often focuses on the short term, thus deferring creative, forward-looking solutions to the next—hopefully more technically knowledgeable—commander.²

The areas in which space professionals work are defined as “all specialties that research, design, develop, acquire, operate, sustain or enhance our space systems including communications, intelligence, maintenance, logistics, weather and a host of others.”³ Approximately 25,400 active duty military personnel and civilians as well as 14,000 contractor employees perform these missions, thus earning them the designation space professionals. The space cadre consists of scientists, engineers, program managers, and operators who have the primary responsibility of taking space systems from “concept to deployment,” including approximately 7,000 active duty officers and enlisted members as well as 3,000 civilian, Guard, and Reserve personnel. Air Force Space Command (AFSPC) has identified prerequisite space-education, training, experience, and certification requirements for the space cadre.⁴ However, after more than 22 years of existence, the command still lacks an adequate strategy to ensure that its officer corps possesses the necessary technical expertise, particularly with regard to space-related graduate education.

Historical Perspective

Culturally speaking, the Air Force has often neglected space power in much the same way the US Army neglected airpower in the 1920s and 1930s. Pilots are regarded as quintessential “operators.” In contrast, space professionals evolved not from the warrior culture but from the science and engineering fields. The space-operations career field, from its ballistic-missile origins at the end of World War II, housed a potpourri of science and engineering disciplines—the nature of advanced technology demanded it. The inherent technical approach of space professionals almost preordained a natural tension between the air and space cultures of the Air Force.⁵

Since its inception on 1 October 1982, AFSPC has provided space systems to enhance the effectiveness of the war fighter. After the space shuttle Challenger disaster in 1986, civilian and military confidence in the space program found itself in a state of crisis. Numerous studies and reports reassessed the nation’s space program. The Air Force Blue Ribbon Panel’s assessment of national and Air Force space policies in 1988 yielded the recommendation to “operationalize” space—that is, focus space activities on operations rather than research and development. The operationalization of space began in earnest, and AFSPC took the lead. In 1989 the requirement that new space-operations officer accessions have a technical undergraduate degree fell by the wayside, in keeping with the thinking that the operationalization of space would emphasize documented procedures and checklist discipline and that technically educated individuals no longer needed to perform rote actions. Thus, space operations could begin to rely purely on good training, sound procedures, and strong logistics.⁶

In 1991 Operation Desert Storm, frequently termed “the first space war,” provided space operators an opportunity to prove their worth to the war fighter. Entering the war, technically advanced and complicated space systems and the capabilities they offered remained a mystery to the mainstream Air Force.⁷ However, the ability of space personnel themselves proved ultimately impressive. At the outset of the Gulf War, very few space systems, designed during the Cold War to satisfy strategic requirements, could provide needed support to the war fighter. Nevertheless, technically educated space professionals took advantage of Operation Desert Shield’s five-month duration to totally reorchestrate space and ground segments to create supporting inter- and intratheater infrastructure. Due to their efforts, “space” became known as a force multiplier by war’s end. To meet the challenge of supporting the war fighter, Air Force leaders recognized the need to modernize space infrastructure, continue technical improvements to space systems, and extend space awareness throughout the Department of Defense (DOD).⁸

In 1993 intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) forces and personnel merged with AFSPC. The ICBM career field, as an operations specialty, traditionally had not required its personnel to have technical education. The new era of budget austerity severely hampered efforts to develop new-generation systems as well as a responsive space-launch capability.⁹ Reductions in the number of military personnel and an enticing technical job market for civilians set the stage throughout the 1990s for a mass exodus of technically educated space operators from the Air Force. Over the next 10 years, in combination with the notion of operationalizing space, the community lost much-needed expertise.

The Space Commission noted that, among 150 personnel serving in key operational space-leadership positions 19 years after the creation of AFSPC, fewer than 20 percent of flag officers possessed a space-career background (fig. 1).¹⁰ In fact, these primarily nonspace flag officers had spent an average of just two and one-half years in space or space-related positions. Furthermore, among officers commanding space wings, groups, and squadrons, only about one-third had space-career backgrounds—and that experience averaged less than four and one-half years in space-related positions. Given the fact that a new military community usually requires about 20 years to develop its own leadership base, the current percentage of field-grade officers with a space background represents a continuing shortfall.¹¹ This situation highlights the lack of institutional professional career development within the space community.

Graduate Space Education and
Training Programs

The Air Force sponsors opportunities for graduate education through the Air Force Institute of Technology (AFIT), the Naval Postgraduate School (NPS), or selected civilian institutions. Both AFSPC and Air Education and Training Command (AETC) manage space-related training programs.

Established in 1919 as the Air School of Application, AFIT started the Astronautics Program—later renamed Astronautics Engineering—in 1958, beginning a long tradition of providing leaders to the space community. The Engineering Council for Professional Development accredited the program at its inception. In the late 1970s, Space Operations Engineering emerged within Astronautics Engineering, and in 1987 it became an 18-month program in its own right, designed to prepare officers for leadership and operations roles involving the use of space-engineering principles and scientific-management techniques in planning, executing, and evaluating space operations.¹² In addition to space education, the program emphasized operations research, probability and statistics, system simulation, effectiveness/trade-off analyses, contracting and acquisition, and operations planning.¹³

In response to AFSPC’s development of the Vigilant Scholar Program in early 2000, in the fall of that year AFIT initiated the 18-month Aerospace and Information Operations Program, which prepares students for management and analysis roles in planning, executing, and evaluating space operations, particularly as they relate to the flow of information, while retaining the technical foundation of space science and engineering.¹⁴ AFIT admits an average of five students per year to the program.

In 2003 AFIT’s Astronautical Engineering Department restructured its Space Operations Program to form a Space Systems Program, concentrating on space sciences, operational sciences, space engineering, and systems engineering. Each student tailors sequences in systems engineering, information warfare, or operations research.¹⁵ During the same year, the Air Force instituted the Force Development Program with the goal of “[making] that investment in all career fields and all ranks more deliberately than we do today in order to better prepare us for the future and better meet . . . expectations” and assuring that leaders at all levels have the necessary skills and a deep perspective within functional areas to excel in a rapidly changing Air Force.¹⁶ Intermediate developmental education (IDE), part of the Force Development construct, now constitutes more than just professional military education (PME) insofar as it offers opportunities to combine the PME experience with graduate-level education. In response to the new IDE program, AFIT has developed and now offers master’s degrees in a 12-month structured program. AFIT recently developed several nondegree graduate-certificate programs in the areas of systems engineering, directed energy, information security, and measurement and signature intelligence, each of which significantly affects efforts in space and education research.¹⁷

Since 1958 AFIT has graduated more than 14,000 students with degrees in astronautical and space operations and many with master’s degrees in astronautical engineering and space operations (fig. 2).¹⁸ The number of graduates drastically declined in the early 1970s, following the cancellation of the Apollo program, and in the early 1990s, which saw the removal of the technical undergraduate degree from the space-operations career field. Consequently, fewer officers had the qualifications to enter technical graduate-education programs during subsequent years.

In 1982 the NPS established its Space Systems Academic Group, which developed two 24-month programs: Space Systems Engineering, focusing on acquisition, science and technology, and research and development, and Space Systems Operations, emphasizing requirements and operations. Since then, the NPS has graduated over 560 Navy, Marine, Army, and Air Force officers. The Navy and Air Force formed an alliance between the NPS and AFIT through a memorandum of agreement, signed on 4 December 2002, which spelled out the means by which the two institutions would “meet the advanced education requirements of the Armed Forces of the United States” and created the Space Professional Oversight Board (SPOB), chaired by the director of the National Reconnaissance Office.¹⁹ The board’s objectives include ensuring that officers receive graduate education aligned with service and national-security space needs, preventing unnecessary duplication within curricula, and enhancing joint educational environments regarding space. A working group of the SPOB, the Joint Space Academic Group (JSAG) develops coordinated action between the NPS and AFIT from the board’s recommendations and provides an integrated vision of graduate-level space education.²⁰

Only a very few civilian institutions offer graduate-level space-operations degrees, typically in space studies, air and space studies, or space science: University of Colorado–Colorado Springs, Webster University, University of North Dakota, George Washington University, and Johns Hopkins University. Developed in the mid-1980s, most of these programs sought to attract new space-operations officers pursuing a degree related to their careers. Additionally, schools such as MIT, Purdue, Ohio State, and UCLA offer aeronautical/-astronautical engineering degrees.

On 11 January 2001, the Commission to Assess US National Security Space Management and Organization published its report, concluding that the United States needed a new and comprehensive approach to national-security space management and organization to promote and protect the nation’s interest in space. Based on this report, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld tasked James Roche, secretary of the Air Force at that time, to prepare a comprehensive plan for space-career management.²¹ Accordingly, AFSPC’s Space Professional Management Team developed a plan of attack for the Space Professional Development Program to identify the space cadre and define its unique skills; institute stronger, technically oriented space education and training programs; implement a robust, three-level certification program to measure progress throughout an individual’s career; determine education, experience, and certification requirements for each space-cadre billet; coordinate guidance for space-career development with force-development teams; and establish a permanent Space Professional Management Office.²²

The National Space Security Institute (NSSI) oversees a new educational curriculum for space professionals, which includes such courses as Space 100, Space 200, Space 300, Advanced Space Training, and Space Support.²³ The NSSI works with the Space Education Consortium (SEC), comprised of civilian universities, to provide interdisciplinary research and education for AFSPC as well as other DOD organizations. This collaboration offers a great opportunity to establish a mechanism for cooperation among DOD, national, and civilian academic organizations. As of May 2004, the SEC consisted of the University of North Dakota, University of Colorado–Colorado Springs, George Washington University, and Johns Hopkins University. Although the NSSI will award only professional-certification levels, the consortium plans to award academic degrees at both the undergraduate and graduate levels. Gen Lance Lord, commander of AFSPC, has proposed basing the SEC at Peterson AFB, Colorado.²⁴ Using the Acquisition Professional Development Program (which emphasizes education) as a model, AFSPC has developed a Space Cadre Certification Program (which focuses on experience) in an effort to answer shortfalls identified by the Space Commission while maintaining the integrity of the force-development requirements.²⁵

Analysis

Of the more than 2,000 13S billets within AFSPC, only 13 carry Air Force specialty codes requiring an advanced academic degree (AAD), with just 52 so coded in the entire Air Force (see table). The lack of 13S AAD positions clearly reveals that we perform the operational space mission without the benefits of graduate-level technical education. Unit-level commanders have difficulty maintaining incumbency in AAD billets due to assignment restrictions associated with these positions, while simultaneously fostering career-development growth for officers. Often commanders have chosen not to recertify AAD designations to allow more flexible and successful assignment actions, even as they acknowledge the continued requirement for technical expertise. According to the Space Commission, this trend produces a space-community culture unable to sustain a cadre with the necessary technical education to meet demanding technological advances. Research in progress at AFIT to address the shortcomings of the current process used to manage AAD billets proposes the introduction of a more flexible and responsive inventory-management approach.

Air Force doctrine makes a key distinction between the concepts of education and training. Air Force Doctrine Document (AFDD) 1-1, Leadership and Force Development, defines education as “instruction and study focused on creative problem solving that does not provide predictable outcomes. Education encompasses a broader flow of information to the student and encourages exploration into unknown areas and creative problem solving.” In contrast, the document defines training as “instruction and study focused on a structured skill set to acquire consistent performance. Training has predictable outcomes and when outcomes do not meet expectations, further training is required.”²⁶ On the one hand, graduate-level education, taking from one to two years to complete and often culminating with an original research endeavor, prepares individuals for careers and includes practice in critical thinking that will last a lifetime. On the other hand, training takes days to weeks to complete, culminates in a certificate of training, and prepares individuals for their current or next job.

The Space Commission report also correctly makes a distinction between PME and technical education, noting that “the core curriculum [of PME] does not stress, at the appropriate levels, the tactical, operational or strategic application of space systems to combat operations.”²⁷ Although the NSSI addresses this shortfall with the Space 100, 200, and 300 courses, these initiatives fall short of the expectations of the Space Commission’s explicit recommendation to recruit technically oriented personnel for space-related career fields and maintain them.²⁸

Who within the space cadre needs a technical education? Clearly, scientists and engineers should have technical undergraduate and graduate degrees. In accordance with the idea of operationalizing space, command policy has not required that operators have such degrees. Part of the rationale is that well-documented procedures dramatically reduce the risk of errors that might put lives in danger or disable expensive, one-of-a-kind assets. Moreover, integrating space operations into the joint-warfare environment demands an ability to communicate requirements and war-fighting contributions in a language that leaders and operators can understand and relate to. Engineering technical approaches and terminologies did not seem useful in “bringing space to the fight.”

But has this attitude gone too far? The Space Commission thought so, stressing the importance of a formal technical education as a basis for comprehending and incorporating new, advanced systems as well as strategic and tactical operations into Air Force doctrine. For example, although procedures and checklists ensure a predictable and verifiable response to actions, the very nature of space operations—most notably satellite operations and space launch—precludes hands-on verification of system responses. Verification often requires interpretation of secondary (e.g., satellite telemetry) or tertiary (e.g., combinations of indications) sources. Oftentimes, non-routine operations create a need for creative and insightful measures.

One should also note, for example, that pilots gain a high degree of practical, hands-on experience with their respective aircraft. They learn to “feel” the aircraft, intuitively sensing subtle changes in performance. Space operators must find alternate approaches to compensate for this lack of practical experience. Since the Gulf War, one approach has called for utilizing contractor personnel with substantial credentials in technical education. A decade of experience, as well as the conclusions from the Space Commission report, testifies to the inadequacy of this approach. Contractor experience, for example, does not imply operational savvy. No other Air Force mission contracts out such a substantial portion of weapon-system expertise as does space operations. In fact, proposing such an approach for aircraft operations (e.g., contractor pilots) would be considered indefensible.

Because AETC is primarily responsible for the professional education of Air Force personnel, one would expect the command to involve itself intimately with AFSPC’s effort to meet the Space Commission’s taskings with respect to investing in training and education. In response to the commission, AETC redesignated Undergraduate Space and Missile Training as the Space 100 course, with some minor courseware adjustments, and will continue to teach it. However, no other substantive changes have occurred in the relationship between AETC and AFSPC with respect to space education.

Recommendations

Although AFSPC is making significant strides in career development and training, the command needs to improve its efforts with respect to education. Toward that end, this article proposes the following recommendations:

The Air Force’s primary institution for “provid[ing] graduate and professional continuing education, research and consulting programs to keep the Air Force and DoD on the leading edge of technology and management,” AFIT also manages officers enrolled in civilian universities, research centers, hospitals, and industrial organizations through its civilian-institution programs.²⁹ AFSPC should provide representatives to the SPOB and JSAG, thus taking into account the needs of AFSPC during initial education-planning activities. The AFSPC representatives will then have direct insight into and influence over all space-related programs and curricula.

The Space Commission specifically recommended that “career field entry criteria should emphasize the need for technically oriented personnel, whether they be new lieutenants or personnel from related career fields. In-depth space-related science, engineering, application, theory and doctrine curricula should be developed and its study required for all military and government civilian personnel.”³⁰ AFSPC should incrementally increase the total proportion of accessions with technical undergraduate degrees recruited into the space-operations career field through 2010, after which space-operations accessions should be required to hold a technical undergraduate degree in any of the engineering disciplines, physics, chemistry, mathematics, computer science, or space operations.

In the near term, the space cadre should have the opportunity to pursue advanced education as soon as possible. Expanding AFIT’s IDE program for the space cadre offers an ideal means of addressing the shortage of technically educated midcareer officers. Further, extending this policy to civilian personnel within the space community would effectively mold that workforce. If the estimated 71 percent of government employees eligible for either regular or early retirement by 2010 actually left the workforce, their departure would profoundly drain our civilian resources.³¹ We now have the opportunity to tailor the right mix of education and skills to align both the military and civilian workforces with the Air Force’s strategic priorities.

Because a significant number of Air Force personnel obtain advanced degrees through civilian institutions, the service should use its leverage to influence the curricula of these institutions and thereby complement development of the space cadre. Under the SEC umbrella, the University of North Dakota, University of Colorado–Colorado Springs, George Washington University, and Johns Hopkins University have already expressed an interest in working with the Air Force to develop their respective curricula. Moreover, panels from AFSPC, US Northern Command, US Strategic Command, the National Reconnaissance Office, and other organizations with an investment interest in the space cadre should help tailor program curricula at AFIT and the NPS and share their efforts with civilian institutions that want to partner with the Air Force. The goal here involves educating the military space cadre by establishing and sustaining credible, applicable programs that civilian institutions understand and recognize, and that complement as well as support AFIT- and NPS-based programs.

The SEC has tremendous potential as an affiliate source of space education, but it should not replace AFIT and the NPS. These two institutions provide education and research programs oriented toward defense and offer direct access to space-defense issues, including classified data and research, that no civilian institution can match. Officers converge at AFIT and the NPS from all career fields, possessing a myriad of educational and operational backgrounds. We would lose a tremendous synergy between air and space professional students by isolating one group at a separate institution. Finally, geographically separating graduate education in space (e.g., locating the SEC at Peterson AFB, Colorado, as General Lord advocates) would reinforce the erroneous perception that space operations are a separate war-fighting endeavor rather than part of a larger joint campaign.

The foregoing recommendations address the education of the space professional. However, the current definition for membership in this cadre omits key contributors to the space--operations mission. Peter Teets, former undersecretary of the Air Force, observes that “space power represents a decisive, asymmetric advantage for the US government and, in particular, for military and intelligence organizations.”³² Space and intelligence are so inextricably woven together that separating them would be a grave mistake. Any changes to policy or education within AFSPC should include intelligence considerations. Recent developments growing out of the findings of the 9-11 Commission may directly affect AFSPC and the space cadre, insofar as 80 percent of the intelligence budget lies within the DOD.³³ We need to remain especially mindful of the potentially huge effect that intelligence reform might have on space operations and its intelligence-gathering sector. Furthermore, since it is easy to overlook logistics considerations during the development and integration of new doctrines, we must address those issues in advance rather than resolve them in hindsight.

Conclusion

In a letter to Secretary of Defense Charles Wilson in 1955, President Eisenhower stressed the importance of science and technology to the security of the nation: “Because scientific progress exerts a constantly increasing influence upon the character and conduct of war, and because America’s most precious possession is the lives of her citizens, we should base our security upon military formations which make maximum use of science and technology in order to minimize numbers in men.”³⁴ Forty-six years later, the Space Commission advanced that thought, concluding that our nation’s security relies in no small part upon our ability to technically educate a space cadre that can effectively operate in an environment of new, highly complex, and advanced space systems. We must expand our commitment toward securing this “high ground” of space via advanced professional education.

[ Feedback? Email the Editor ]

Notes

1. Report of the Commission to Assess United States National Security Space Management and Organization: Executive Summary (Washington, DC: The Commission, 11 January 2001), 18, 47, http://www.fas.org/spp/military/commission/executive_summary.pdf.

2. Lt Col J. Kevin McLaughlin, “Military Space Culture” (prepared for the Commission to Assess United States National Security Space Management and Organizations, 2001), 19, http://www.fas.org/spp/eprint/article02.html.

3. Col Cal Hutto, “Space Professional Update,” 15 July 2004, 10, https://midway.peterson.af.mil/spacepro/Documents/STW%20Website_files/frame.htm#slide0176.htm.

4. House, Statement of General Lance W. Lord, Commander, Air Force Space Command, before the House Armed Services Committee Strategic Forces Subcommittee, United States House of Representatives, 108th Cong., 2d sess., 22 July 2004, http://www.peterson.af.mil/hqafspc/Library/speeches/Speeches.asp?YearList=2004&SpeechChoice=71.

5. Benjamin S. Lambeth, The Transformation of American Air Power (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2000), 233.

6. McLaughlin, “Military Space Culture,” 10.

7. R. Cargill Hall and Jacob Neufeld, eds., The U.S. Air Force in Space: 1945 to the 21st Century (Washington, DC: USAF History and Museums Program, 1998), 174.

8. David N. Spires, ed., et al., Beyond Horizons: A Half Century of Air Force Space Leadership (Peterson AFB, CO: Air Force Space Command in association with Air University Press, 1998), 260.

9. Ibid., 268.

10. Report of the Commission, 43.

11. William Scott, “Molding Space Warriors,” Aviation Week and Space Technology 7, no. 60 (2004): 60.

12. Air Force Institute of Technology Graduate School of Engineering and Management: Academic Year 1982–1984 Catalog (Wright-Patterson AFB, OH: AFIT, 1982), 46.

13. Air Force Institute of Technology Graduate School of Engineering and Management: Academic Year 1987–1989 Catalog (Wright-Patterson AFB, OH: AFIT, 1987), 62–63.

14. Maj LeWonnie Belcher, “Aerospace Officer Development Moves into High Gear with Vigilant Programs,” Air Force Space Command News Service, 17 March 2000; and Air Force Institute of Technology Graduate School of Engineering and Management: Academic Year 2003–2004 Catalog (Wright-Patterson AFB, OH: AFIT, 2003), 29.

15. Air Force Institute of Technology Graduate School of Engineering and Management: Academic Year 2003–2004 Catalog, 42.

16. Gen John Jumper, “Total Force Development,” Chief’s Sight Picture, 6 November 2002, 1.

17. House, Statement of Dr. Robert A. Calico, Jr., PhD, Director of Academic Affairs, Dean of Graduate School of Engineering and Management, Air Force Institute of Technology, before the House Armed Services Committee Strategic Forces Subcommittee, United States House of Representatives, 108th Cong., 2d sess., 22 July 2004, http://www.house.gov/hasc/openingstatements andpressreleases/108thcongress/04-07-22Calico.pdf.

18. Air Force Institute of Technology Graduate School of Engineering and Management: Academic Year 2003–2004 Catalog, 1–2.

19. Briefing slides, Joint Space Academic Group, 27 February 2004, 3, 25.

20. Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld to secretaries of the military departments, memorandum, 18 October 2001.

21. Ibid.

22. Department of the Navy to Department of the Air Force, memorandum of agreement, 4 December 2002.

23. Gen Lance Lord, Space Professional Strategy, 16 April 2003, 8–9, https://midway.peterson.af.mil/spacepro/ Documents/Strategy.pdf.

24. Lon Rains, “USAF Space Command Creates Education Consortium,” Space News, 7 October 2004, http://www.space.com/spacenews/educate_100704.html.

25. Hutto, “Space Professional Update,” 20.

26. Air Force Doctrine Document (AFDD) 1-1, Leadership and Force Development, 18 February 2004, 74, 76.

27. Report of the Commission, 47.

28. Ibid., 45.

29. Air Force Institute of Technology, http://www.afit.edu.

30. Report of the Commission, 45.

31. Acquisition 2005 Task Force Final Report: Shaping the Civilian Acquisition Workforce of the Future (Washington, DC: Office of the Secretary of Defense, October 2000), 2.

32. Hon. Peter B. Teets, “National Security Space in the Twenty-first Century,” Aerospace Power Journal 18, no. 2 (Summer 2004): 5.

33. “Impact of 9-11 Commission Recommendation to Have a Cabinet Level Intel Czar,” Fox News Special Report with Brit Hume, Fox News Network, 3 August 2004.

34. Hall and Neufeld, U.S. Air Force in Space, 54.

Disclaimer

The conclusions and opinions expressed in this document are those of the author cultivated in the freedom of expression, academic environment of Air University. They do not reflect the official position of the U.S. Government, Department of Defense, the United States Air Force or the Air University

[ Back Issues | Home Page | Feedback? Email the Editor ]