Gen. Chilton Outlines Three Wishes for Space

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (Nov. 3, 2009) — The opening speakers at this week’s Strategic Space Symposium discussed – from multiple perspectives – how critical space is to the nation’s defense and how important space is to a much broader range of endeavors, including natural resource management, policing drug trafficking, monitoring space debris, and keeping businesses running throughout the world.

Featured Speaker Gen. Kevin P. Chilton, USAF, talked about his “wish list” for space.

His first “wish” is improved space situational awareness through more data from better sensors, more tools to fuse the data, more displays to make decisions based upon the data, and better intelligence support and expertise to analyze the data.

His second “wish” is to stop managing the gaps and to build back robustness in launch and acquisition capabilities and strategies to ensure that capabilities are always available.

His third “wish” is to fuel new tools that allow his troops to exercise, experiment, and practice their craft so that they are always ready to protect our assets.