Debt, Deficits, and Defense: A Way Forward. Report of the Sustainable Defense Task Force, 11 June 2010.

June 22, 2010 at 9:46 am | Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a comment

by Sara M. Langston with the blog faculty

Source: The Sustainable Defense Task Force

3 Selectively curtail missile defense & space spending.
Save $55 billion from 2011–2020.

Missile Defense, formerly known as “Star Wars,” is the
most expensive Pentagon project ever launched. The
Obama administration cut the Missile Defense Agency
budget by 14% – from $10.9 billion in 2009 to $9.3 billion
in 2010 – canceling or scaling back costly and
unworkable systems such as the Multiple Kill Vehicle.
However, FY 2011 saw a marked increase in missile
defense with the Administration requesting $9.9 billion
for the agency. This covers proposed increases to a
multitude of current programs, including AEGIS and the Patriot
terminal defense system. It also funds the development
of three new initiatives: the land-based SM3
missiles, the Precision Tracking Space System (PTSS),
and directed energy programs.

The Congressional Budget Office calculates that scaling
back US missile defense could save approximately
$40 billion over the next ten years. It also says freezing
new program development until current systems are
proven would save approximately $1.2 billion per year.
CBO’s estimate would eliminate programs including the
Far-Term Sea-Based Terminal Defense, Sensor Development,
the Missile Defense Space Experimentation
Center, and “Special Programs.”26 Together, these cuts
amount to a total savings of approximately $51 billion
over ten years. This number accounts for enacted cuts
previously included in the analysis of the CBO.

There is substantial overlap between missile defense
and defense-related space spending. For example, PTSS
will replace the Space Tracking and Surveillance System
(STSS), which was created to detect incoming ballistic
missiles. The Space-Based Infrared Systems (SBIRS)
is also intended to provide initial warning of a ballistic
missile attack, although the program has undergone
significant delays and cost overruns.27 The poor performance
of programs like SBIRS indicates the need
for a “distributed architecture” that fields many smaller,
cheaper satellites instead of huge mega-satellites. For
that reason, the program should be truncated and the
final “blocks,” known as the GEO-5 and GEO-6 satellites,
eliminated for a savings of $2.1 billion.28

One example of a non-missile defense space program
also suffering from endemic cost overruns is the
National Polar-Orbiting Environmental Space System
(NPOESS), a joint program of the Air Force, NASA, and
NOAA built to track global weather and climate patterns.
The program was restructured this year to split
procurement between the three agencies, allowing
DOD to eliminate the C-1 spacecraft platform used
for the system’s afternoon orbit for a savings of $1.7
billion.29...more