The Aerospace Industries Association called Tuesday for a national space management and coordination body that reports to the U. S. president as part of a strategy to address significant issues that threaten national security as well as the domestic economic standing.
The recommendation is among a half-dozen actions sought by the industry group in a 44-page report, Tipping Point: Maintaining the Health of the National Security Space Industrial Base. The top recommendations echo those from previous AIA reports, including the January 2009 AIA study, The Role of Space In Addressing America’s National Priorities
A coordinating body, sensitive to the aerospace industry’s role in the security and economic arenas, should have broad authority for management, budget and acquisition policies across the range of government agencies responsible for space-related activities, according to the Arlington, Va.-based industry group.
“With management, budget and acquisition authority for space programs currently spread across a variety of competing agencies, no one is in charge,” the AIA concluded in Tipping Point. “A coordination body that is inclusive of U. S. industry would provide the strategic, comprehensive and effective decision-making to the space industry.”
Without strong leadership and a long-term focus, U. S. economic as well as national security interests will be challenged by the growing numbers of nations now active in the field, the report concludes. The total counts 60 nations, including Russia, members of the European Space Agency and up and comers India and China. The threat is amplified by an increasing reliance on satellite communications, navigation and remote sensing assets for economic activities essential to domestic well being. They include financial transactions, aircraft navigation, agriculture, weather forecasting and response to natural disasters.
Tipping Point also calls for more attention to a looming shortage of experienced engineers and poor classroom performance in the STEM disciplines, Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics. An overdue overhaul of export policies is necessary as well to re-open global satellite markets vital to manufacturers and suppliers that also service national security requirements, the AIA concludes.
In 1995, the U. S. dominated the global satellite market, with 70 percent of sales. Three years later, stricter controls of technologies that could be used against the United States by an adversary triggered a decline. In 2005, the U. S. share of global satellite sales had dropped to 25 percent.
Some 70 percent of U. S. eighth graders lack proficiency in math and the sciences.
At the same time, NASA is unable to attract top talent with historical lure. The space agency’s average workforce, which peaked at an annual average of 222,000 between 1991 and 1995, has slipped to a modern five year average of 172,000.
” With competitors making rapid advancements in acquiring or exploiting space capabilities, American leadership in space is no longer guaranteed and the security of its space assets is no longer assured,” according to the AIA. “Given the growing U.S. dependence on space systems and their contribution to the global economy, our nation cannot afford to lose its pre-eminence in space. We need to maintain and in some cases restore the vitality of our space programs to prevent irreparable harm to our national economic and security interests.”
The report endorses a significant objective of the Obama Administration’s revamped national space policy earthier this year.
Tipping Point urges greater cooperation between the Pentagon and NASA in the mitigation of space debris and the threat it poses to essential U. S. satellites. While the Pentagon actively tracks more than 21,000 pieces of orbital debris, the estimates for the amount of small space junk, still large enough to threaten the safety of astronauts as well as military and civilian spacecraft, has grown to more than 600,000, according to the AIA.