Guest: Robert (Sam) Wilson; Topics: "Leveraging Commercia Space For National Security." Read and download the paper at https://aerospace.org/sites/default/files/2020-11/Morin-Wilson_Leveraging_20201113.pdf.
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We welcomed Sam Wilson back to the program o discuss his Space Agenda 2021 paper, "Leveraging Commercial Space For National Security" Download and read the paper at the above link under Guest or you will find the link also on the blog. Our program was a one segment 93 minute discussion regarding the use of commercial space launches, hardware, software, off the shelf items for national security purposes. Early in the discussion our guest brought up and discussed the tradeoffs national security departments and authorities must go through to decide on using components from the commercial sector. We talked at length about the risk reward, cost benefit, redundancy benefits, safety and national security so don't miss this early part of the program.
Additional discussion topics included commercial market considerations, national security commercial space acquisitions, even placing national security assets on a foreign satellite. Sam told us about the Norwegian satellite being the first even for this type of national security use. Also discussed was the use of foreign commercial launcher for national security launches. Later when talking about the commercial markets, our guest was asked if increased national security use might delay or crowd out commercial market uses. Don't miss Sam's reply because he said it might actually drive more commercial use.
Much was said during the program about spectrum allocation and usage. This included NOAA and space weather concerns, imaging, hyper-spectral channel usage, cheaper LEO comms, and more. This brought up space situation awareness which is a growing field with both commercial and national security developers and users. The same for space traffic management. This discussion led to an email question from Linda who wanted to know if the government could takeover a commercial satellite in emergency times. This part of the discussion prompted Sam to mention the fact that we needed to do more commercial leveraging with our allies.
Future commercial market growth seems to be a big part of the desire to leverage the commercial space industry of today with today's national security space industry and agency. Frank from NYC asked Sam if the start-ups and entrepreneurs were using national security customers and markets to help them raise money for their ventures. Sam said yes but listen to his reply because it seems this might be a major marketing tool for commercial ventures seeking capital and/or investors. Later, a listener asked Sam to explain the difference with today's commercial space industry with that of decades ago because even back then the companies were commercial since we don't have government owned businesses in the US. Once again I think you will find what Sam had to say most interesting.
Paula in Chicago asked Sam about cybersecurity with national security and commercial organziations. I asked Sam if anyone had suggested a type of SETI@home model for putting "approved" commercial users into the loop to help with computing power plus to spread it out rather than have it centralized. Don't miss my actual question and then what Sam had to say about the idea.
Ft. Worth John called to talk about issues surrounding the fact that a large percentage of the imaging industry is foreign owned. He mentioned Zoom as an example. Fremont John was the next caller as he wanted to discuss comments reported on by the guest in his paper by General John Raymond re the US Space Force and the need to go commercial with national security. This was an interesting discussion that even had Sam talking about the Biden transition team. Our guest said this was a positive trend. John also talked procurement and inquired about Fig. 4 on page 8 of Sam's paper. In addition, John mentioned the X-37B wireless power demo coming up. Listen to their discussion on these latter topics.
After fielding a few more listener email questions, Sam summarized our discussion. Before ending, Gene from Pasadena called at the last minute to talk about the N-G SSP project plus he wanted to know more about traditional companies converting to commercial for certain national security projects. Don't miss Sam's answer plus his final concluding comments.
Please post your comments/suggestions on the blog for this program. You can reach Sam Wilson through me or through the Center for Space Policy and Strategy.
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