Year. You are here to help us understand this new element that is part of the Defense Authorization bill calling for the development of space corps. What is that . Guest the idea here is to create a separate military service like the navy, the marine corps, army, and air force. There would be a space corps that focuses specifically on the space domain. It would align authorities and resources under this organization and they are focused on developing and operating military space capability. Host what is behind the development of this . Why do we need it and why now . Guest the argument has actually been going on for decades now that space has been a stepchild within the military. Most of our military Space Capabilities are under the air force, but not all of them. The navy actually builds and operates its own fleet of military communication satellites. The army has some Space Operations as well. The idea is that space has been so fragmented that we are not able to effectively coordinate the development of Space Capabilities, some members of congress have been pushing over the years for the military to reorganize and get its Space Capabilities more in line, to streamline authority. The military, for various reasons, has tried things, but it has not worked as some in congress have hoped. Now this is the next step as congress is saying, you know what . Its tryin time to create independent space capability. Host what are we talking about satellites that have military or weaponize stability . Weaponize ability . Guest our main capabilities are things like gps, which civilians use as well. Theres a separate encrypted military single that the military uses in gps that we do not have access to. Theres also a lot of Different Military satellite indications networks, including Satellite Communications networks that are protected against jamming and other interference. We use those for nuclear commandandcontrol. We also use satellites for Missile Warnings, to detect things like a north Korean Missile launch or a launch from russia or china headed at the united states. Satellites would detect that. Obviously we do surveillance and intelligence collection from space, not just imagery, but signals as well. We take up signals from space. We use space for a wide array of military applications. It has become a critical enabler to the way our military fights today. Host Todd Harrison is our guest. The issue is space corps, part of the Defense Authorization bill in consideration in the house today that they will be debating the next couple of days. Is a broad outline of what it would include. It creates a new fighting force within the air force and it would establish u. S. Space command as a fourstar position under u. S. Strategic command, and its leader would be a member of the joint chiefs of staff. The joint chiefs of staff is now four generals. It would add a fifth . Guest theres already a fifth from the national guard. Host dont want to forget the national guard. Guest congress added that a few years ago so there would be a 61. It would be the commander of the space corps. Host is there any potential conflict . You talked about potential missile launches. These are already being spotted by our air force command i would assume. Any potential conflicts with creating the separate branch and usurping or at least taking responsibility away from previous units . Guest it would take that part of the air force doing the functions and realign them under a new organization, the space corps. They really would not be any misalignment or duplication. It would be moving things in the order of the chart. The real purpose of this is looking forward. 5, 10, 20, 50 years down the road how our Space Capabilities are developing and how the way we are using space is evolving and expanding, i think most people would agree that at some point we are going to need an independent military service that focuses on this domain. The question is really one of timing and how do we make that transition. Congress wants to do it sooner, at least some in congress. They want to focus on the future. Take Missile Warnings for example. There has been a push for many years for the air force to rethink its Missile Warning satellites, because right now, we have a relatively small number of satellites that are very large and expensive. If we lose one or two of them, that is a severe impact on her Missile Warning capability. People are pushing the air force to rethink their architecture. Instead of a small number of large satellites, what about a large number of small satellites that can do the same mission . If you lose one or two of them, its not a big deal because you have dozens. The air force has been resistant to that. The airthe reason is force their attention is split. They are focused on air power and air dominance. Space has traditionally been a secondary priority. If you created a separate space corps, the thinking is that the space corps would focus on space as the number one priority. Fasterd do more and move to make our military space capability more resilient in the future. Host we welcome your comments and thoughts on this new addition to the military. Todd harrison is our guest. We welcome your thoughts at 202 7488000 for democrats, 202 7488001 for republicans, and all others 202 7488002. Send us a tweet as well at cspan to bwj. You have a bachelors and masters from m. I. T. So this fits right in your wheelhouse of expertise. How does that inform what you are looking at in terms of this proposal for the Defense Authorization bill . Guest having worked in the space industry and the small satellite industry in particular, it does help to work in understanding the types of systems we are talking about and space in many respects is a very different domain. When you study things like orbital mechanics, you work reae that a lot of things that happen in not really intuitive. Manyike space debris people dont necessarily realize that this is a big problem and its a growing problem. Blowupu do things like someone satellite in space, there have been tests to do that, but no one has done that and more. That creates debris and i could linger for centuries. Host you think that this proposal is clear enough on the delineation of what nasa is responsible for and what the space corps would be response before . Responsible for . Guest i do. We have made a pretty Clear Division between our civil Space Capabilities that are the job of nasa and noaa and others to run human space stations and Science Missions and whether settlements. Weather satellites. That is distinguished from a military Space Capabilities that the long in dod and other agencies that run the systems. That division would still remain very clear. Host heres what part of our director of National Intelligence said about the space threats. We assess that russia and china perceived the need to offset any u. S. Military advantage derived from military, civil, or commercial Space Systems and are increasingly considering attacks against settlor systems as part of their future warfare doctrine. What is your assessment of what the chinese and russians are capable of . Guest i fully agree with that. As i was saying before, our military space capability really a large part of what gives our military and advanced today. Potential adversaries reckon is that it recognize that. If they want to negate u. S. Military advance, they have to go after our space i c uses system. Not just russia and china, but other countries are developing counter systems. The biggest threats i think right now are nonkinetic weapons that can be used against our Space Systems, things you would not think of as a weapon, like jamming, just interfering with the signal from a satellite. It has the same effect. It causes you to lose use of your satellite. Serious threats and its a lot easier for countries to acquire that technology and capability. We are seeing jammers proliferating, even nonstate actors. Host hacking falls under that as well . Guest ciber is a big threat to our Space Systems as well. Host lets hear from allen in brooklyn. Caller good morning. Im all for your attitude about potentialinking of organizational changes needed for how the space situation will look decades from now. I just dont understand how this or any administration can come from the lies compartmentalize their attitude about forward thinking from this particular realm from there generally troglodyte attitude the problems around climate and interplay with that around any kind of space program. If we are looking at the longterm predictions of warming of the planet, it changes the density of the atmosphere over time. It changes the parameters for any kind of spaceflight. It changes the ionization of the atmosphere, the kind of storm systems that would affect Space Operations. Theres also the problem of great asymmetry. You are talking about china and the u. S. And since we have a more advanced system of satellites already, they have a far greater ability to do damage to us with any kind of kinetic attacks on our existing satellite system that would create debris that would interfere with some much of the infrastructure we have up there. They would suffer far less because their infrastructure is not as developed. Two moreis point forward thinking on all fronts, including climate, and the effort to protect space from authorization instead of moving willynilly toward militarization and no forward thinking on anything else going on . Host thats allen in new york. Guest he raises a great point that there is an asymmetric vulnerability in space because we have so many more advanced disabilities for the u. S. Military and for the u. S. Civilian economy, that we have much more to lose than other countries, which is all the more reason that we need to think more carefully about how to protect our space assets going forward. What gives us an asymmetric military advantage is also an asymmetric vulnerability. Thats a great point. In terms of forward thinking and the Trump Administration, so far what the Trump Administration has weighed in on this proposal is that they are against it. The secretary of the air force has come out pretty forcefully, saying she disagrees with this idea. So has the chief of staff of the air force. Its not too surprising that the air force would disagree with this because this is pulling parts of the air force out on creating an independent service. Thats really what we have heard from the Trump Administration so far that they are against it. Host who are the biggest proponents in the house . Guest its not a partisan issue. Theres many defense and techie policy issues. Representative mike rogers in the house has been a proponent of this. Representative cooper from tennessee, those two cosponsored this part of the ndaa. So it seems to have bipartisan support within the House Armed Services committee. That is where it has been considered so far. Floor, wemes to the will have to wait and see how both lineup. Host lets go to the independent line in florida. David, hello there. Caller this is really coincidental. I just read an article from Popular Science two days ago written by david x, who writes for the defense of technology international. Fly s entitled semper marines in space. It turns out that a big pusher retired for me lieutenant. He works for the schafer corporation. Its a military tech corporation. Thatpears in this article the air force is quite cool on this concept, but its actually the marine corps pushing this concept. May i have your opinion on this . I have not heard the marine corps officially weigh in on this one way or the other. For the most part, it does not concern the marine corps directly. It is not their capabilities. It is not their people that would be sectioned off. This would be affecting the air force more than any other service. Broader issue than just the air force because all the services use military space capability. Host john raymond testified on capitol hill a month ago talking about the potential for space as a domain for war. I want to give you look at that. Heres what he had to say. [video clip] what exactly does this all mean in terms of our military and what do you need when you come to see us in order to fight that battle . All, we dont talk about a war in space. We talk about a war that extends into space. This is in space we are facing. Is that something unrealistic . Is it conceivable that we could actually have war and space . Could our satellites be the first target . Once you take out our satellites, you are basically destroying our effective to medication maya mcguines comn mechanism. Could it not be m a first line of defense against us . Our potential adversaries talking about a full range of capabilities everywhere from reversible jamming of can indication and gps satellites communication and gps satellites that we have seen all the way 2007. Hina an in our posture is that we want to deter that. We have no interest in fighting that fight. One way to do that is to prepare for the. We develop partnerships and plans and the concept of our operations and the training needed to be able to respond. Host with general raymond, his command, would that go away under the space corps proposal . Guest it would just move over. General raymond may very well be the chief of staff of the space corps. I think he would be one of the people in the running for it. I would respond a little bit to what he said in that line of questioning. The distinction between a war in space and a war that extends into space is not an important distinction. Beginct could very well by action in space and then extend to something on earth. It could start on earth and extended to space. It really doesnt matter which way it begins. I would take exception with the idea that this is something that may happen in the future. War already extends into space today. We are already seeing attacks on our space system. Whenever we use our military Space Systems and conflict, we are using space for military purposes. Host like gps. Guest lake gps guided bombs. When we use gps to got a bomb to hit someone, dont you think they are going to negate that gps system . We are already seeing that. Today north korea is using gps jammers to basically deny the gps signal over large parts of their country and the ocean adjacent to them. Insurgents ineen use jammershanistan to mess with the military communication satellites. We have found that some insurgents have been able to intercept our site like indications and get video feeds from our drones. Space is already being attacked in different ways. Host 202 7488000 for democrats, 202 7488002 for republicans. All others, 202 7488002. We are looking at the inclusion in the defense bill of this new command, space corps. We hear from arthur next in colorado springs. Good morning. You are on the air. Go ahead. Caller yes, i think Space Command would be an excellent idea. Remember years ago when the air force separated from the u. S. Army, and there has been proven to be a good idea. Host this would be the first break since then, right . Guest that would be and thats a good point that there is historical precedent for this. With our nations founding, we started with an army and a maybe. The navy had a marine corps. It was not until 1947 until we had a new service and that was the air force. It did not happen right away. As we started to develop aviation capabilities in the 1930s,rough the we started to realize airpower was more than supporting ground forces. It could be used for other purposes. Thed war ii really proved utility of strategic airpower. Was after world war ii that the nation basically came to the conclusion that this is a separate war fighting domain. It is not just something that supports ground forces. It is a separate and distinct war fighting domain and it needs a separate military service. We did that. How the air force broke up from the army. The question now is are we at the same point when it comes to our space forces . Point where to the it is a separate war fighting domain and we need to break it out as an independent service . Host the debate later today will be on the Defense Authorization bill. It lays out pentagon programs and policies for the next fiscal year and sets some of the budget numbers as well. Some of those include the overall topline spending level 688 billion for defense. If i billion dollars more than the white house requested 25 billion more than the white house request and 70 billion more than the current level. This is a proposal from the house. How about in the senate when they take up their own authorization bill . Are they as eager as house members are to have this space corps . Guest not so far, it doesnt appear. It is a draft piece of legislation essentially. It has passed the committee in the house and has to go to the full floor. The senate has their own version of the Defense Authorization bill. It passed the committee. The senate bill so far does not include the creation of the space corps. They do something that goes into a tangential direction. They give more Space Authority to an office they call the chief Information Warfare office. They are not creating a separate military service. They are doing something thats really different and addressing a different set of issues. If that bill will presumably go to the senate floor for a vote, may be soon as august if they stick around because it looks like a are, then they will have to go to a committee. They will go to conference and they will work out differences. If a ghost of the Conference Committee, the way the two bills are written right now, theres going to be a huge amount of white space to negotiate. I suspect that what comes out of the Conference Committee may look very different than the proposals that we are seeing right now. Host what year from murphy in illinois lets hear from murphy in streeter, illinois, republican line. Caller im a lawyer from illinois. Host go ahead. Caller am i live . Host you are. Caller all right. Im from the law offices of my ike hunt. Host go ahead. Caller good morning and thank you for taking my call. A quick comments or thoughts that i had about this is i think this is a totally ridiculous idea. We couldbe something look at 100 or 200 years from now. What we are spending on the defense or what is being proposed. Is only going to bankrupt this country. We just threw away all the plans. Researchion just on and development. Now the government has contracted to thousand of the at billionof them at 130 130 million apiece. Guest it would almost be budget neutral because youre reallocating resources and people within the existing budget. You would be creating a new Headquarters Staff to support this. We are talking a few hundred people to do that out of a department that has over 200,000 sorry, 2 million employees. Have to address the f35. He is right that the total price tag for the f35 was a little over 400 billion. Thats not just the research and development. That includes the procurement of over 2400 of those planes. That is the total price tag including procurement. Host a couple of comments on wj. Tter at cspan t we can even Fund Programs that make sure children are fed. How can you justify this . Will nasa be phased out of the rocket business . Spacex has been proven to be more effective. What are your thoughts on that . Guest it always goes back to a guns versus butter debate. And the president s budget request frames it very much as a guns versus butter debate. Defense budgets that are you on the nondefense side of the budget. That is a policy decision for congress to make. I do not think they want to allocate resources between defense and nondefense. Thats a broader policy consideration. In terms of nasa, this would not affect nasa in any way. This proposal would not. Nasas job really is exploration and science. Nasa will continue doing that. It is true that we are seeing a lot of advances in commercial space launch Companies Like spacex. Some of the incumbents are making advances in their space launch capabilities. That will supplement what nasa does an asset is already buying from these companies. Space launch is a commercial item. That will continue, but nasas core job will remain one of exploration and trying to push the boundaries of human knowledge. Host but in another call from felix in florida. Isler all right, my comment president before reagan wanted to put platforms for Nuclear Weapons which he called star wars, the russians had already come up with a satellite that went around destroying their satellite, which made reagans idea totally ignorant. Capabilityy have the to destroy satellites. Host lets get reactions from Todd Harrison. We have not talked about the whole idea from the Reagan Administration on the socalled star wars defense. That the star wars system reagan proposed lis was to intercept missiles. The star wars part of it was spacebased receptors. Interceptors. They did not have Nuclear Weapons. The orbiting of Nuclear Weapons is banned by treating. Anyone from orbiting weapons of mass distraction. That was not proposed. It was just missile interceptors. That russianse back as early as the 1960s, the russians were working on a space based antisatellite system. It was a satellite that would go into space and it would track and follow other satellites and close in on them. Host do they have that capability . Guest presumably they still have that capability. We assume the chinese test most recently where you will launch a missile from the ground and it hits another satellite. Temper some of the space debris that we see today as a result of that one chinese test years ago. Theses. Has developed antiselect systems in the past. The last can edit test back in 2007 was actually a u. S. Test back in 1985 or 1986. They launched a missile off an airplane. Host did it work . Guest yes, it worked and it created a bunch of debris. Host Todd Harrison keeping an eye on the debate on the space corps. Thanks for being with us this morning. Guest glad to be here. Host that debate is later today in the u. S. House muscle look for that here on cspan. Next up, we will hear from represent of mark walker, joining us to talk about more broadly the budget and the proposals of a raising the debt ceiling. We will hear from congressman Bill Pascrell from new jersey, here to talk about how he thinks democrats can take back the house in 2018. This weekend on book tv on cspan2, saturday at 7 00 p. M. Eastern, former chess champion Garry Kasparov talks about his deep