Report from the 27th Annual National Space Symposium
April 13, 2011 By: Don Jewell
Monday, April 11, 2011
General William L. Shelton (USAF), the newest Commander of Air Force Space Command (AFSPC) officially opened the 3rd Annual Cyber 1.1, A Space Foundation Event, in Colorado Springs at the Broadmoor Resort this morning. Yes it is 1.1 and also the third such event. You see space and technical geeks count like this: the first event counted is 0, then 1.0 and then 1.1, so naturally this is 1.1. Simple right? So next year, the 4th Annual will be Cyber 1.2.
This event has grown by leaps and bounds each year as Cyber and Cyber Warfare become more and more prevalent in our world. General Shelton made the salient point that since we have worked so hard for and hopefully achieved a significant Space Situational Awareness (SSA), we now need to put our efforts into doing the same for Cyber Space Awareness or CSA.
General Shelton kicked things off by making the point that "...at one time a virtual presence meant an actual physical absence" Today that is just not the case as we can virtually be almost anywhere with the power to make our virtual presence felt. General Shelton also made the point that in the US Air Force domains of Air, Space and CyberSpace, two of those domains now reside within Air Force Space Command and space plays a significant supporting role in the Air domain. General Shelton in a light hearted moment compared he and his vice commander, Lt Gen Mike Basla (USAF), to Donnie and Marie Osmond and their theme song that indicates one is a little bit country and one is a little bit rock and roll. That may be a fun way to describe the Command Leadership at AFSPC, but General Shelton indicated that he worries about space matters while General Basla mainly concerns himself with communications and cyber matters and this makes for a good combination.
Then it was Lt Gen Basla's turn to speak and the good hearted comments continued. During the introduction of Gen Basla, Elliott H. Pulham, the mornings moderator and the CEO of the Space Foundation noted that General Basla has a long and distinguished career in communications and a Masters Degree in Teleprocessing. That was a new one on me. Like General Shelton, General Basla is a great speaker only a bit more animated and dare we say a bit more country.
General Mike Basla made an interesting observation during his Cyber comments and then drew on that theme for the remained of his remarks. I thought the observation was very relevant to our maturing understanding of the Cyber Domain. Mike pointed out that there are Air, Land and Sea domains which have existed since God created the Earth but the Cyber domain is purely a man made construct and therefore it is by nature different and challenging. Mike made the observation that the Cyber Domain changes every day. It was different this morning from yesterday and will again be different tomorrow etc. You can't stand still and hope to keep up in the Cyber race.That is a good thing. So Cyber 1.1 got off to a roaring start and tonight are the opening ceremonies for the 27th Annual National Space Symposium, also at the Broadmoor Resort. The two events have been co-located for the last three years and are both organized and evented by the Space Foundation which does a tremendous job every year.
Tuesday, April 12, 2011
I attended a upbeat media dinner last night at the Penrose Room at the Broadmoor Resort, courtesy of Raytheon, and managed to learn more about how well the GPS OCX program is really progressing. Regular readers will recall my interview with the Raytheon OCX Program Manager Robert (BoB) Canty in March 2011, which subsequently appeared on line at GPS World webzine and also appeared in the April print issue of GPS World. The food, service and camaraderie were outstanding, as you might expect. The wine wasn't bad either. But it did make for a late night and an early start this morning. And there were considerable crowds as this is the largest National Space Symposium to date. Official numbers will be out later this week but the event has obviously grown in scope and depth, as well as in sheer numbers of attendees, but still it is easy to maneuver to get from event to event. The Space Foundation and the Broadmoor Resort have this event well in hand.
One added technological touch this year is that instead of handing your hand written and maybe legible questions for speakers to roving question takers during the presentations, you can now just text your questions, while the speaker is speaking, (check out the agenda at Space Foundation.com), to 719.799.0766. A huge improvement and a timely move but it has occurs to me that now the questions are no longer necessarily anonymous or for non-attribution. After all now they know where the question is coming from, but hey you should never be embarrassed to ask a question. There are no stupid questions, right?
On my way to some meetings this morning I was actually able to stop and spend sometime with one of the X-37B Space Planes which is a Space Autonomous Vehicle (SAV) the USAF is now flying. The latest X-37B, a Boeing product, is an autonomous mini shuttle type space (USV) that actually flew in space for about six months and then returned autonomously to Earth and landed successfully on a runway. The vehicles are reusable and much cheaper than the shuttle, plus they do not require humans-on-board for a successful mission and because the SAVs are not man rated, more weight can be given to mission requirements and fuel.
There are so many exhibitors this year that I know I won't have the chance to get around and see them all. Three days is just not enough time. I feel strongly that this Symposium may need to grow by a day. Both Space and Cyber are critical to our future on this planet and to the future of GPS of course so how can we not be interested. More tomorrow. Now to bed.
RSS
Become a Fan
Join our Network
Follow Us
Please send any technical comments or questions to our webmaster.