In order to ensure each can deliver two ships per year. Today the lcs program is on budget and blows the congressional gao to actually read the gao report which is not a friendly one. They conclude cost isnt the issue. Strategically, what are we talking about . Why do war fighters keep asking for it . It is not only an ideal platform from which to employ Unmanned Systems to increase important in the future, it can go places tanker ships cant. The commander of logistics in the western pacific said they can go places and do things no other american ships can with flexible large payloads that enable easy integration with Regional Navy for mandatory missions. There are 50,000 islands across the philippines to sri lanka. Larger ships can visit 50 ports, the lcs can darken 1000 ports. Admiral harris was invoked, in a meeting with chairman thornberry, myself and many members of the delegation who had to leave for no fault of your own told us the lcs is playing an increasing role in the pacifi
Greater insight into it. No one expects that respects admiral syring more than i do. He is caught between imaginations of congress were read force them to take Critical Systems to pay for other Critical Systems and i think you would like to try to avoid that. But this is certain mr. Chairman our near adversaries are capable of attacking her critical space assets. This debate is no longer academic and the question now before this committee is what shall we do about it . These adversaries have taken note of the immense multiu. S. Force thomas provides our military and observed our space estimates. If we are to abandon future battlefields without a fight it will be our military who suffers the consequences as they find themselves cut off in fighting in an austere environment far from home. China has clearly demonstrated an operational direct antisatellite missile capability and proven data can reach from zero synchronous orbit to low orbit, earth orbit. Russia has also tested a direct dec