WASHINGTON: The House Armed Services Committee is certainly no friend to today’s Russia as ruled by Vladimir Putin, but even they now support the Pentagon’s plans to use 18 Russian-made RD-180 rocket engines. The HASC approved by voice vote an amendment by Rep. Mike Coffman of Colorado to the National Defense Authorization Act that would… Keep reading →

COLORADO SPRINGS: Declaring the words in the headline, a junior congressman from Oklahoma who has stepped into a void of space leadership in the House, Rep. James Bridenstine, boldly told a jaded audience of senior space officials, diplomats, enthusiasts and the aerospace industry today that America “must forever be the preeminent spacefaring nation.” Bridenstine unveiled his American… Keep reading →

CAPITOL HILL: Who buys the bandwidth? Today the military has two separate, unequal, and inefficient systems for acquiring communications. But Congress is pushing hard to consolidate — probably at the expense of the Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA). “I have been in situations where we needed to have SATCOM [satellite communications] and we didn’t have… Keep reading →

UPDATED: Corrects Cost Per Plane To $3.8M; Holmes “Misspoke;” Adds Enhanced Mode S Upgrade CAPITOL HILL: The law is the law. But the law must be written and it must then be interpreted in practice. Ay, there’s the rub. Add the National Guard, local politics, aging C-130s, and a wobbly defense budget in which hard choices must… Keep reading →

CAPITOL HILL: Despair, distrust, and sequestration dominated yesterday’s House Armed Services Committee hearing on the Pentagon’s 2015 budget request. Almost everyone on HASC hates the automatic budget cuts, and the president has proposed a way to bypass them, but comments from committee leaders and backbenchers alike showed how political gridlock makes any solution look far… Keep reading →