The services are collaborating as never before, officials said, as they outsource non-combat networks through new “IT as a service” contracts.

One space expert, with no skin in the NSSL game, opined that for the most part Blue Origin’s protest is “simply whining,” and characterized SpaceX’s lawsuit as “sour grapes.”

“We need that partnership with customers on the DoD side where they’re willing to take a step forward with us in understanding that neither one of us knows the ultimate answer.”

The threat of long-range missile launchers in the Russian enclave is driving the Air Force to develop new tactics for multi-domain attack and dispersed defense.

“There is no other option at this point,” explains Todd Harrison, the director of the Aerospace Security Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). “The Air Force needs new tankers, and Boeing is the only one making them.”

Oh yes, we at Breaking D are delving into a murky realm that is not usually covered by defense publications: semantics and etymology, the study of the meaning and the origin of words and phrases including idioms.

In a massive simulated conflict, the human players adapted rapidly to futuristic technologies and tactics. But their command-and-control software couldn’t keep up.

“I believe we need the Space Force, in fact, in my opinion, a domain-specific service to organize, train, and equip space forces is overdue,” Air Force Secretary nominee Barbara Barrett said.

Phil Clay, a former Navy test pilot for the Imminent Fury/Combat Dragon close air support experiments, says the Air Force should purchase “at least a wing” (20 planes) of the Light-Attack Aircraft for SOCOM and the so-called foreign internal defense (FID) mission to combat insurgencies. 

“Right now space is a supporting element to a geographic [component command] … but that paradigm is going to flip over time, where the supported command — the primacy, where the actions will happen first — is going to be space,” says Lt. Gen. Joseph Guastella, head of Air Force Central Command.