TOO EXPENSIVE FOR MILITARY TO GO INTO SPACE

CAN'T WE JUST ELIMINATE ALL FOOD STAMPS, STOP FED. $$ FOR CANCER RESEARCH, ABOLISH ALL REGULATORY AGENCIES THAT COST MILLIONS?  SURE, THERE' WILL BE MORE PLANE CRASHES, CHEMICAL SPILLS THAT DESTROY OUR WATER SYSTEM, PEOPLE DYING FROM POISONED FOODS, STOCK MARKET CRASHES, ETC.  BUT ISN'T THE COST OF MILITARIZING SPACE WORTH IT?  WE KNOW THAT THE ONLY REAL SOLUTIONS IN FOREIGN RELATIONS ARE MILITARY ONES.  (NEVER MIND THAT THE U.S. HASNT WON A SHOOTING WAR SINCE WWII.  WE'VE GOT TO KEEP TRYING!) THAT'S GOT TO BE THE CASE IN OUTER SPACE.  WE CAN'T LET THE CHINESE OR RUSSIANS GET THE JUMP ON US!  WE MUST MAKE HUGE SACRIFICES FOR THE AMERICAN FATHERLAND.  PERHAPS RAISING TAXES ON MIDDLE CLASS AND WORKING AMERICANS WOULD ALSO BE PART OF THE SOLUTION.  I'M, OF COURSE NOT SUGGESTING THAT THE RICH AND CORPORATIONS PAY THEIR FAIR SHARE.  WE KNOW THAT "TRICKLE DOWN" ECONOMICS WORKS SO WELL.

It's Becoming Too Expensive for the Military to Go Into Space

SPACETECHNOLOGY

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Launching military assets into space – a “core element of national security” – is becoming too expensive and bureaucratic and could render the Pentagon’s space program “ineffective,” warns the director of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency.

"I think we're in the middle of a self-inflicted surprise in some senses in space today, it’s a very different kind of surprise but it’s one that is rendering us ineffective and putting us in a place where we simply cannot afford to be," DARPA Director Arati Prabhakar said Monday at the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics SciTech 2014 conference.

AUTHOR

Kedar Pavgi is a digital producer/reporter at Defense One. He joined Government Executive Media Group summer 2012 as an editorial fellow. He previously worked at Foreign Policy magazine, and has written for The Diplomat, The World Politics Review and the Foreign Policy Association. He received his ... Full Bio

Per-launch costs have soared into the tens of millions of dollars, and take years to plan and execute. The biggest barriers to cost-effective military spaceflight: a shortage of launch locations, and an inability to use existing infrastructure and takeoff points.

"There's also something going on inside the national security community in space that's actually quite troubling,” Prabhakar said. “That has to do with how slow and costly it is for us today to do anything we need to do on orbit for national security purposes.

(Related: Why the Military Needs Commercial Satellite Technology)

Prabhakar said the agency is investing in programs like the Airborne Launch Assist Space Access program, which could bring the price of taking cargo into outer space down from $30,000 a pound to $10,000.  The agency is working with scientists and engineers to make the construction and maintenance of satellites more cost-effective.

 “As we develop those capabilities at [geosynchronous orbit], we believe we’re going to start changing the fundamental dynamics, and the economics, of what’s going to be possible with satellite capability,” Prabhakar said.

Listen to Prabhakar’s full speech below at 16:00.

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