An Example Of What Is Wrong With Defense Policy Thinking

We continue to advocate failed programs and ignore critical successes.

I just read this opinion piece in SpaceNews:

And did it ever make me mad! This opinion piece is so bad.  It is an example of everything that is wrong with the status quo people who know what we need.  And ignore the reality of today. And this SubStack is going to explain why

The most important things NASA and DoD can to to truly create a winning strategy for Space in all aspects is:

[1]  Funnel all the money it can find anywhere into SpaceX for their Starship and Starlink programs.  AND all of their political resources to minimize artificial barriers to SpaceX speed of development.  In what world of national security does the Fish & Wildlife Service get a vote?

Starship is the ONLY near term path to launch costs dropping by 2 orders of magnitude and high tempo launch cadences (one or more launches per day).  100 to 150 tons anywhere on earth in a little over an hour.  50 SM-6 like anti ship missiles launched into the Taiwan straight by a single Starship mission.  The ability to get always ready kinetic weapons into space economically ("Rods from God").  Starship represents a capability that others just can't copy if the USA pushes development hard.  Hard as in the Manhattan Project or the B-29 development.

Starlink is the key to persistent battlefield communications.  A couple of satellites providing comms can be attacked.  We know this.  And we know that 20,000 satellites in space is more than any adversary is prepared to handle.  And with Starship, as fast as satellites can be knocked down, replacements can be launched.  And Starlink is proof that many ‘cheap’ satellites are going to be more effective and more resilient than a few expensive satellites.

[2]  War consumables need to be produced and stocked at WW2 scale.  And we need two orders of magnitude reduction in production costs.  An SM-6 costs around $5 million and a Tesla Cybertruck around $100 thousand.  I wonder which has more parts and more computing power.  Artillery shells cost as much as $100,000 and an iPhone around $1,000.  Every war consumable is overpriced and underproduced.  Star Wars and the military buildup of the 1980s broke the USSR (financially, militarily and politically).  Besides imagining Starship and Starlink, imagine a USA with massive stocks of highly capable weapons that cost a few percent of today’s equivalent.  It would likely destroy China as a military adventurer and will certainly stop Iran and Russia and just about every other second world dictator.  But only if we move quickly.

The existing supply chain needs to be destroyed including DoD procurement processes.  We need to get people like those in SpaceX, Texla, Apple and a dozen other companies to take on the task of defending the USA.

[3]  Protect Elon Musk.  Ask yourself what happens to the urgency of SpaceX if Musk dies and SpaceX becomes just another company.  I’m not sure I’d let him out of continental USA.  I recognize that reality is he will have freedom of movement but DoD and the rest of the US Government should do everything to reduce the risk that other countries see an obvious solution to one of their biggest problems.

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Over the last 20 years what has the vast NASA and DoD organizations done to use space to make the USA more safe in the next 50 years.  Then ask the same about SpaceX.  The Falcon 9 alone is more accomplishment than any other space activity in this period.  Low cost, reuseability, high cadence, reliability and a dozen very specific technical advances (like merlin engines).  

Success involves going with your strengths, not continuing to use failed systems and approaches.  The tens of billions spent on Artemis, B-21 and scores of programs that are technologically worthless in the age of SpaceX Starships should be redirected to SpaceX and other programs that could make a difference.

This article is evidence of a serious national security problem.  We should understand this and work on the right programs.