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.”

“Of all people, it’s the ‘space warmongers’ doing the most to try to sustain the (space) environment,” one DoD official said.

“As long as we get an appropriation by the beginning of the calendar year, I think we’ll be okay,” the Army’s chief of budget planning said.

“Gen. Raymond has asked me, in particular, to make sure that we are incorporating all aspects of space warfighting … into our curriculum.”

“We are the ones that say this is what needs to be done” to build a next-gen space architecture, says SDA Acting Director Derek Tournear. Except when they don’t.

The Space & Missile Systems Center’s Space Enterprise Consortium has been so successful at providing competitive prototypes, fast, that SMC wants to expand its scope dramatically.

“But make no mistake…if in fact a war starts or extends into space, everyone loses,” Air Force Chief of Staff David Goldfein told the AFA 2019 conference. “I don’t see any winners.”

The official decision about the headquarters of SPACECOM isn’t likely until mid- or late October.

Virgin founder Sir Richard Branson hopes that his LauncherOne airborne launch system’s capability to rapidly launch smallsats “will be a deterrent to an enemy state, that is to not attack satellites in the first place.”

If the US receives intelligence that Russia is prepping a strike against a US satellite, does SPACECOM task a drone or a B-21 bomber to take it out before it launches? Or does Gen. Raymond choose to simply maneuver the targeted satellite out of the way?