Advertise with us
Where the defense community gets down to business.
Show Coverage
Looking for more? Check out this year's full list of upcoming show coverage.
Conferences
View exclusive coverage of the best minds in Defense - military, government and industry.
Colorado Springs, Colo. - Lt. Gen. Michael Hamel, commander of the U.S. Air Force's Space and Missile Systems Center in Los Angeles, called on the attendees of the 24th National Space Symposium here to take up the case for developing a codified, clear national space policy, something he says the nation lacks as it moves into the next 50 years of space programs.
"Doing this is not exactly a remarkable thing, nor is it unprecedented," Hamel said April 9. "We have had very steady space policy dating back ... to President Eisenhower."
But in recent years, the focus that national space policy once enjoyed has waned, he said, and the space community has ended up "living off investments and infrastructure of the 1950s, making for an uncertain and cloudy future."
National security should be the driving force behind space policy, he told convention-goers, and it is up to the entire industry as well as government to help develop and keep that focus.
"We must make space protection and defense the top priority for what it is we do in space," said Hamel, who is set to retire soon. "In many cases, we look at security with far too narrow a lens."
A modern space policy must come from the top, he said - the White House, with the support of Congress. But it also has to be developed with the support and input of the industry, emphasizing better education, work-force development and sustainment, and cooperation across government agencies.
"This is indeed an extended family," he said.
Help
