National Defense And The National Space Program Essay

National defense will always be a priority to the national space program. With critical systems like secure communications, early warning, surveillance, intelligence, reconnaissance, positioning satellites requirements never going away as long as there is a threat to the way we live. Space is the ultimate high ground and the U.S. must maintain its dominance in this domain to stay on top. These systems need to be responsive while at the same time reliable and sustainable. There is however, several obstacles that the U.S. must overcome to maintain its dominance in space from a national defense perspective. Trying to progress in a fiscal constrained environment can be challenging, however, the military has to start looking at this problem from a practical stand point. Another obstacle is actual physical space. With every passing day and new launch space is getting more crowded. This puts U.S. military assets at risk of being hit on purpose or accident. Next, is the challenge is to stay technologically in front of other countries. With almost 60 nations and a larger commercial space industry in the world technology is changing faster than one nation can keep up with. Additionally, U.S. government processes like Program of Record and the acquisition process are obstacles as well that need to be changed. Programs and processes like these need to be completely overhauled or our military space capabilities will suffer.
Within the military there is also a need to…