Rep. Bob Dornan (R-Calif.), a member of the House National Security Committee, vows to press the issue of sustainability of operations during the 104th Congress. Instead of readiness to fight, the real issue is "how long can we hang on to fight," he says.
House National Security Chairman Rep. Floyd Spence (R-S.C.) and Government Reform and Oversight Chairman Rep. Bill Clinger (R-Pa.) teamed up Friday to introduce a second round of federal procurement reform. Their bill would repeal current law which requires that a fee be paid to the U.S. government on foreign sales of products and technologies developed under government contracts.
HUGHES TRAINING INC. said the U.S. Naval reserves accepted the first F/A- 18A operational flight trainer during a Feb. 18 ceremony at NAS New Orleans. The system is the first of four built by Hughes Training under a subcontract from McDonnell Douglas Aerospace. Hughes said the trainers have been upgraded to provide a range of capabilities that had been unavailable on earlier generation F/A-18 operational flight trainers.
Rep. Anna Eshoo (D-Calif.) isn't assured by NASA assurances that the white paper on agency restructuring prepared by top level agency managers is only a starting point for discussion. The draft document recommends sweeping changes that will leave Ames Research Center in Eshoo's district a shadow of its former self (DAILY, Feb. 23, page 277). "When NASA officials tell me nothing is definite, don't worry, I worry," she says in a statement, citing past assurances on Gravity Probe B and wind tunnel construction that rang hollow.
Gates believes the many billions of dollars that the U.S. has spent on satellites over the past three decades have been well worth it. "I think [satellites] have been a major element of our capabilities and my answer is that it has not taken up too much of the budget," he says. "Those systems are just expensive, but the capabilities they have provided over the last 25 years or so have been extraordinary."
Eshoo is one of NASA's friends on Capitol Hill, based on the record she compiled as an active member of the House Science Committee during her first term. The sour start to her second term may bode ill for NASA lobbyists, who have targeted the incoming class of freshmen Republican representatives for Administrator Daniel S. Goldin's powers of persuasion, writing off old enemies like Rep. Tim Roemer (D-Ind.) and counting on supporters like Eshoo to stay in the fold.
Chiles rankles Republicans at the same Capitol Hill hearing when he calls the ABM Treaty an "important building block of many years ago" and say "we must move in a way that the Russians accept." Congressional Republicans are uneasy over Administration "demarcation" talks with Russia on the difference between strategic and theater systems and fear the ABM Treaty will be allowed to blur the distinction, which could block Defense Dept. plans to go ahead with Theater High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) tests.
Space Imaging Inc., the Lockheed-led venture that plans to have a one- meter resolution imaging satellite in operation by 1997, announced it will form a business alliance with Eastman Kodak Co. Under the agreement, Kodak will assist Space Imaging in the development and marketing of imaging products and services. The two companies envision benefiting "from expansion of the market for digital imaging products through the combination of their complimentary technologies and related experience," Space Imaging said in a statement Thursday.
Fundamental changes have to be made in how aerospace companies protect proprietary data before the Defense Dept. can seriously pursue depot privatization, Yates says. While he's "sympathetic that it's their data and their R&D," he contends that sole-sourcing repair work for the 30 or 40 years of a weapon system's life "is not a good deal for the government." Yates doesn't favor giving away proprietary data for free or to "anyone walking down the street. I'm just saying there's a way to do this," he explains. "It's not mission impossible."
Lack of airlift is the biggest challenge to U.S. Central Command's ability to mobilize, Gen. J.H. Binford Peay III, commander of U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) told the House National Security Committee Thursday. The airlift aspect of the mobilization "triad"-airlift, sealift and the prepositioning of equipment-"still needs a scrutinizing of efforts," Peay said. He expressed the same concern in earlier testimony to the Senate Armed Services Committee (DAILY, Feb. 16, page 251).
Four photographs taken by U.S. reconnaissance satellites during the Cold War were released at the CIA Friday-the first of more than 800,000 satellite images taken between 1960 and 1972 that will be made public under a new executive order by President Clinton. Vice President Al Gore was at CIA headquarters here to preside over a ceremony marking the release of the four photos, the first time the U.S. government has released spy satellite photographs.
NASA has exercised an option under the Medium Expendable Launch Vehicle Services contract to launch its Advanced Composition Explorer (ACE) spacecraft on a McDonnell Douglas Delta II booster, the Huntington Beach, Calif.-based company reported. Planned for launch in August 1997, the ACE spacecraft will examine the chemical compositions of the solar corona, the interplanetary medium, the local interstellar medium, and galactic matter.
JAPAN'S NATIONAL SPACE DEVELOPMENT AGENCY (NASDA) has set a March 15 launch date for its third H-II booster. The rocket had originally been scheduled to launch Feb. 1 but was delayed because of problems with leaking fuel lines (DAILY, Feb. 8, page 204).
Like Air Force Chief of Staff Ronald Fogleman, Yates is fuzzy on the details about why the Joint Primary Aircraft Training System (JPATS) is moving so slowly. The acquisition process "has been more labored than one would have thought," Yates said. He predicted that it would stay on track for an August contract award. Fogleman said recently that he doesn't understand why the acquisition process is taking so long (DAILY, Feb. 21, page 261).
LOCKHEED F-16 PROGRAM VP Dain Hancock was named Friday to succeed Gordon England, retiring as president of Lockheed Fort Worth. John S. McLellan, Lockheed Aeronautical Systems Co. executive VP, will become president of LASC, replacing for James A. (Micky) Blackwell, who is designated to become president of the merged Lockheed-Martin's Aeronautics Sector. Minoru (Sam) S. Araki will become president of Lockheed Missiles&Space Co., while LMSC Space Systems Div.
The Air Force is relatively unmoved by congressional threats to kill the Technology Reinvestment Project (TRP), the Advanced Research Projects Agency's dual-use technology development program. "To be frank with you, this [program] hasn't changed our lives," AF Materiel Command chief Gen. Ronald Yates says at the AFA conference. "There would be no major impact [to the AF] if it were killed."
Philippine President Fidel Ramos signed a $2 billion law to modernize the country's armed forces, wire services reported from Manila on Thursday. The improvements will include the acquisition of modern fighter aircraft. The Philippine Air Force is reportedly considering replacing its F-5 fighters with U.S. F-16s, Israeli Kfirs, French Mirage F-1s or Russian MIGs. Officials at the embassy in Washington said the bill calls for upgrading the capabilities of all three military services.
Former Director of Central Intelligence Robert Gates believes both human intelligence and satellite reconnaissance can still be supported within today's constrained budgets. "You've had this argument for 20 years about the competition between human intelligence sources and technological intelligence sources," he tells The DAILY. "And the funny thing is it's kind of a stupid argument...Both in my view have to be fairly robust.
The Aerospace Industries Association plans to push again this year for some form of financing support or backing for defense exports, even though last week's presidential directive on the arms trade pointedly avoids the whole topic. "We'd still like to see some kind of loan guarantee mechanism," AIA President Don Fuqua told reporters in Washington yesterday, adding that "we do not see that as an arms proliferation issue."
About a year from now, a unique bipartisan presidential commission will deliver a report to Congress laying out a blueprint for reshaping the vast U.S. intelligence apparatus, now that its main adversary, the Soviet Union, has crumbled.
Lucas Aerospace plans to challenge "vigorously" the U.S. Navy's atypical move to bar the company outright from doing business with the government because of faked tests, accusing the service of trying to put pressure on the company during talks to settle a civil lawsuit stemming from the case.
U.S. Army Chief of Staff Gen. Gordon R. Sullivan has cancelled "Comanche Day," a series of briefings and demonstrations set for March 28 on Capitol Hill that was to have shown the capabilities of the Boeing- Sikorsky helicopter. Sullivan made the move because of concerns the event would be perceived as a lobbying effort, observers said yesterday. While service branches are allowed undertake systems demonstrations, they can not circumvent the chain of command and lobby directly to Congress.
Hughes Space and Communications Co. yesterday won a $481 million contact to supply three next-generation Tracking, Data and Relay Satellite System (TDRSS) spacecraft to NASA over the next 18 years. Hughes beat out incumbent contractor TRW, which has built seven TDRS satellites for NASA dating back to the late 1970s.
Defense Dept. ground controllers using a borrowed NASA antenna have picked up signals from the Clementine lunar mapper, gone forever but apparently not lost after a software error sent it spinning out of control last May.
Boeing and Lockheed have been in negotiations since December to see if they would make good partners in the Joint Advanced Strike Technology (JAST) program, a Boeing official said yesterday. In an interview with The DAILY here at an Air Force Association symposium, Boeing JAST Director Mickey Michellich confirmed that the two companies are talking, but haven't reached an agreement yet. "It could go either way," Michellich said about the status of the talks. "Time will tell."
