By Debbie Gregory.

Just how much should be budgeted to create the Space Force military branch championed by President Trump? The estimates offered up by senior defense officials are not even close.

Deputy Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan believes the price tag will come in a “single digit, not a double-digit” billions of dollars. “It might be lower than $5” billion, he said, although he did not specify what time frame that estimate would cover.

But Air Force Secretary Heather Wilson has estimated that standing up a Space Force and a new combatant command for space warfare would cost about $13 billion over five years.

“Our cost estimate that we gave to a lot of people in the Pentagon in September was the cost of a fully-fledged, stand-alone department and also a unified combatant command,” Wilson said. “The president is going to be making some decisions to put forward a proposal in concert with his fiscal year 2020 budget proposal that will go to the Congress in February. The costs will be really based on what are the elements in the model in that proposal.”

Todd Harrison, director of defense budget analysis and senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, estimated it would cost the Pentagon an additional $1.5 billion to $2.7 billion over five years to stand up a new service, based on the assumption that more than 96 percent of the cost would be covered from existing budget accounts within DoD. Harrison’s numbers, however, are hard to compare directly with Wilson’s because they do not include costly items that she put into her proposal, such as a Space Command and additional programs and people needed to fight rising space rivals China and Russia.

By Debbie Gregory.

The U.S. Space Force,  a proposed branch of the United States Armed Forces which is intended to have control over military operations in outer space, will include uniformed service members drawn from the Air Force, Army and Navy.

According to a Department of Defense proposal, the Space Force would absorb Air Force Space Command, the Army’s 1st Space Brigade, the Navy’s Space and Naval Warfare Systems Command and Naval Satellite Operations Center.

Installations and facilities would remain within their current services until the Space Force achieves an appropriate operating capability.

The National Reconnaissance Office would not be immediately merged in, although integration could gradually occur.

The missions of the Space Force would include space situational advantage; battle management command and control of space forces; space lift and range operations; space support to nuclear command and control; missile warning; satellite communications and position, navigation and timing.

Six recommendations laid out by Deputy Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan,  the Pentagon’s point person responsible for formulating a plan to implement a Space Force, include language that:

• Guides the creation of a unified space command to be known as U.S. Space Command
• Gives direction on an legislative proposal for a Space Force
• Calls for creating a funding plan in the fiscal year 2020 budget for a Space Force
• Outlines an interagency authorities review
• Establishes joint Space Development Agency for technology procurement
• Strengthens the relationship between military space and the intelligence community

Air Force Secretary Heather Wilson, who formerly opposed separating the Air Force’s space functions from the service, now says she supports Trump’s Space Force plan.

The National Space Council is chaired by Vice President Mike Pence.

By Debbie Gregory.

Deputy Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan believes that increased communication with defense contractors is a step in the right direction in order to optimize the Pentagon’s relationships with industry. The Defense Department’s No. 2 civilian, Shanahan manages the Pentagon and oversees the acquisition and budget efforts.

In a March 2 memorandum entitled “Engaging With Industry” Shanahan wrote: “Conducting effective, responsible and efficient procurement of supplies and services while properly managing the resultant contracts requires department personnel to engage in early, frequent and clear communications with suppliers.”

As the Trump administration sought to deepen relations between private industry and government, last April Defense Secretary Jim Mattis encouraged expanded Pentagon-industry relations.

The push for more Pentagon-industry communications comes after other top leaders have ordered restrictions on talking with the public and the press. Most recently, on March 1, U.S. Air Force leaders suspended all interviews, embeds, and base visits for media organizations “until further notice.”

Prior to that, in March 2017, the Chief of Naval Operations cautioned his people to be more careful in what they say in public, saying that he did not want to give adversaries useful information.

“Industry is often the best source of information concerning market conditions and technological capabilities,” Shanahan wrote. “This information is crucial to determining whether and how the industry can support the Department’s mission and goals.”

Shanahan believes that complying with ethical and legal limits “should not” cause defense and service officials to be reluctant to engage industry.

“The department’s policy continues to be that representatives at all levels of the department have frequent, fair, even and with industry on matters of mutual interest, as appropriate, in a manner that protects sensitive information, operations, sources, methods and technologies,” Shanahan wrote.