Air University Review, January-February 1977

National Military Space Doctrine

SPACE DOCTRINE within the United States Department of Defense is evolving slowly. It is being born with all the pains that attended the birth of air doctrine in the 1930s. It is a controversial subject.

The best summary of what our national military space doctrine consists of today is contained in one sentence: "Space is not a mission; it's a medium."^l This essentially negative comment falls considerably short of delineating a positive doctrine or approach to a military potential of inestimable value. Military space needs a very positive direction, a direction of utmost foresight and imagination to ensure that it is developed speedily and intelligently. Space could be a vital factor in military confrontations of the future.

According to recent official speeches and writings on space doctrine, there are four basic reasons for using space systems for various military support functions.²

Uniqueness -Some functions essentially can be done only from space; for example, a near real-time warning of a ballistic missile attack.

Economics -Some functions, such as long-haul communications, are done more economically from space.

Functional effectiveness -Some functions, like meteorology, are done more effectively from space.

Force effectiveness enhancement -Some space functions can greatly enhance the effectiveness of terrestrial forces.

These four principles shed some light on the basic utility of space systems. However, even this expanded rationale only gives superficial understanding to a subject of great importance and complexity. These principles all apply to existing space systems to varying degrees. No space system can be pigeonholed into just one of the four principles to the exclusion of the others. In sum they lead one to view space as a medium which is used primarily, if not exclusively, for the enhancement of terrestrial forces. This leads us right back to the thinking of the 1930s when the roles and missions of the Air Corps were to provide direct support to the ground troops and direct support only.

Historians painfully recall that on the eve of the Second World War the top military leadership still held that strategic bombers (the B-17) were not required per the existing and sanctioned air doctrine. Only the grim and immediate realization of the inevitability of World War II forced a change to this unimaginative, "not invented here" official party line, where doctrine was overtaken by events. Not until the Air Force had been created as a separate service was air doctrine properly recognized and allowed to grow.

The parallels between our approach to space today and our approach to air power yesterday are too obvious to ignore. Perhaps the most surprising part is that neither Department of Defense (DOD) directives nor Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) publications address space doctrine. The formal mission statements for the Air Force in DOD Directive 5100.1 and JCS Publication # 2 do not mention space or aerospace. They state in summary that the Air Force mission is to organize, train, and equip forces for combat operations in the air. There have been attempts to change this mission statement to include the space mission, but apparently such changes are hard to effect.

The Air Force was the executive agent for DOD space efforts prior to the September 1970 revision of DOD Directive 5160.32. This directive establishes policies and assigns responsibilities for the research, development, test, and evaluation (RDT&E) of space systems. DOD Directive 5160.32, prior to September 1970, made the Air Force responsible for the research, development, production, and deployment of space systems for all three services. The Air Force is still responsible for all space booster launch vehicles including the conduct of launch operations and providing most orbital support services. The existing DOD Directive 5160.32 essentially makes the medium of space the preserve of all three services with their efforts supported by the Air Force as required and/or requested.

Unfortunately, the total rationale for this change in DOD direction is not documented, and one can only speculate on the reasons why.

If one uses precedent for an argument, then surely the basic rationale for a separate army, navy, and air force should be as compelling an argument for a separate space command. All three existing services are built around the requirement to exploit to the fullest the ground, water, and air media. It is recognized that the technologies and operational procedures required to operate effectively in each medium are unique. It requires a separate, unique, and dedicated effort to ensure that each is used most effectively. The services' roles and mission in space have become obscure, creating overlaps and allowing certain other potentials to be ignored.

Despite the lack of overall DOD direction on space, the Air Force has recognized that its vital role in this fourth medium is a logical extension of air operations, and it has led the way in exploiting the perceived potentials in space.

Air Force Manual 1-1 does address the space mission. In spite of the lack of direction from DOD or the JCS regarding the medium of space, AFM 1-1 includes both air power and space power. In chapter 1 the essence of paragraph 1-7, "The Space Environment," holds that the underlying goal of the United States national space policy is that the medium of space must be preserved for peaceful use for the benefit of all mankind: It further states that there is a need to ensure that no other nation gains a strategic military advantage in space. This is "tender treatment" of what admittedly is a sensitive question.

In chapter 2, "Characteristics, Capabilities and Employment Principles," the treatment of space is limited to a brief reference to surveillance systems. Chapter 3, "Aerospace Forces in Modern Conflict," addresses space in more detail. "Space Defense," paragraph 3-5, e(2), is an excellent one-paragraph statement of the space mission.

BEYOND these directives, publications, and manuals, there are still unanswered doctrinal questions, however.

First is the question of organization. The Space Shuttle is only three years away from its first launch, and no real organization or employment doctrine has been developed. At present, the Air Force Systems Command (AFSC) is responsible for the checkout and launch of DOD satellites. AFSC also operates specific space systems and provides the orbital command and control capabilities for other "users." The Aerospace Defense Command operates a large, sophisticated space detection and tracking system. The Strategic Air Command operates a meteorological satellite program of very advanced capabilities. The Navy, with the Air Force, is developing the Fleet Satellite Communications System (FLTSATCOM) that in fact will support all three services. The NAVSTAR Global Positioning Satellite (GPS) program is designed to provide tremendously improved navigation support to all three services as well as to certain civilian users. GPS is an Air Force program. The Space Shuttle, among other uses, is designed to support literally all space programs.

The point is that space has become an amalgam of systems and users. The interrelationships of the systems from a technical standpoint are complex as are the interrelationships of the developers and users. These relationships are at present developed on an ad hoc basis, there being no overall organizational fabric to hold them together.

The need for a separate space command within the Air Force, then, seems obvious. This command could well develop into a space force when future requirements demand such a specialized and large-scale effort.

The space command would resolve two glaring problems. It would bring some coherence to the organization and operation of current and projected space systems such as the Space Shuttle. Second, it would allow the Air Force Systems Command to return to its primary mission of research and development. R&D funding and effort within DOD have suffered during the Southeast Asia conflict and continue to need more emphasis. The Air Force Systems Command should not have to expend money on what essentially are operational systems. This practice only blurs and diffuses its primary mission of R&D and the development of new systems.

The same line of thought is evidenced in recent congressional hearings concerning the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). The National Academy of Sciences National Research Council has recommended that Congress establish a space applications council to direct the applications of space flight and space technology to the domestic needs of the country. This council concluded that "there exists at present no institutional mechanism that permits the large body of the potential users of space to express their needs and to have a voice in matters leading to the definition of new systems."³

NASA has also recently recognized the need to get out of the communications satellite business and let private enterprise step in and continue systems development deployment and operation of more advanced systems. NASA feels that its more basic R&D mission is being compromised by continued efforts in systems that have been well developed.

Finally, with the present organizational approach to space, one of the most important potentials is being nearly ignored. The present approach requires that any new space system be economically and operationally justified by one of the existing services or service commands. This is in line with the earlier argument that space has been constrained to support exist and/or terrestrial mission.

What this approach negates is the proposition of military man in space and the recognition of the need for space superiority analogous to today's air superiority mission. There is little doubt in the minds of those familiar with the potentials of space that manned military systems, over and above the Space Shuttle, will be an indispensable part of our nation's defense.

Former Secretary of Defense James R. Schlesinger, while with the Rand Corporation, Wrote:

If the only way to justify advanced developments is to link them with specific requirements or objectives, then some worthwhile projects are certain to be eliminated. Insistence that missions be specified prior to developmental work will lead to too narrow an R&D menu. As others have noted, prior to the use of the wheel people might have been hard pressed to spell out important requirements for it. We could appropriately tie R&D proposals to recognized missions, if missions could be fully spelled out. But given an ignorance of the future, two missions that ought to be recognized are (1) acquiring information and (2) hedging against contingencies. Both should be written in every cost effectiveness study in capital letters, because in real life they are among the most important military requirements or objectives.⁴

IT IS an interesting and valuable exercise for all of us to imagine ourselves watching the first flights .of the Wright brothers. How well would we have predicted the future of military air at that time? The first request by the Army to purchase aircraft was almost refused because of the lack of a well defined mission. Perhaps Benjamin Franklin put it best when in 1783 he witnessed the first public launching, in Paris, of a hydrogen balloon. A skeptic asked Franklin, "Of what possible use is this new invention?" and he replied, "What is the use of a new-born child?"

Our nation needs to start developing a real military-manned space capability soon. The astronauts of Skylab have testified to the synergistic effect man has in operating space systems. Man's powers of observation in a surveillance role are superior in many respects to automated systems. Satellite inspection appears to be a manned role as well as the repair and refurbishment of space systems. The need to be able to construct larger systems in orbit appears to be essential. The ability to erect larger antennas or simply to mate modular space systems into larger units of greater capability is also a certain eventuality.

A final note on the organization of our military space efforts is provided by General Jacob E. Smart, USAF (Retired). He says:

… presently there are multiple agencies of the U.S., government engaged in space related activities, each pursuing programs to fulfill its own missions, This of course is proper but points up the question: Does the sum of the individual agency's perceived roles adequately fulfill the total national need? There is no central policy coming from the top, guiding and coordinating these efforts. ⁵

The only way that our nation will aggressively pursue the development of a manned military-space operational capability is to assign the space mission to an operating command. The Air Defense Command could realistically expand and assume the DOD space operations responsibilities, or a separate space command could be formed to integrate this fractured effort.

In any event I would like to leave the reader with the thought that "Space is a mission and not simply another medium only to be used to augment existing military roles and responsibilities." Greater foresight is required in space doctrine, and the first essential is a reorganization of Air Force command responsibilities to give proper recognition to the potentials of military space, manned and unmanned.

Air War College

Notes

1. This statement is often heard in conversations within the Pentagon.

2. Remarks by Brigadier General Henry B. Stelling, Jr., Director of Space, DCS/R&D, Hq USAF, at the twenty-first annual meeting of the Astronautical Society, Denver, Colorado, 26 August 1975.

3. Aerospace Daily, 24 July 1975, p. 129.

4. James R. Schlesinger, "Defense Planning and Budgeting, The Issue of American  Centralized Control," Rand Corporation, 1964.

5. General Jacob E. Smart, "Strategic Implications of Space Activities," Strategic Review, Fall 1974, p. 21.

Colonel Morgan W. Sanborn (M.S. Louisiana Tech University) is assigned to the Office of the Director of Space, Hq USAF, Commissioned in 1955, he has flown the F-86D, F-102, T-33, T-29, T-39 and OV-10 flying tour in Southeast Asia. Other assignments were with the Aerospace Test Wing, Vandenberg AFB, California, and as Chief, Space Transportation System Division, Space Test Group, Patrick AFB, Florida. Colonel Sanborn is a graduation of Air War College.

Disclaimer

Air & Space Power Home Page | Feedback? Email the Editor