The Air Force’s science and technology (S&T) efforts have been disproportionally impacted by sequestration budget cuts because the service’s researchers are disproportionally civilian, the Air Force’s new chief scientist said yesterday.
With Defense Department civilian furloughs beginning this week, Air Force Chief Scientist Mica Endsley said activities taking place in the S&T world will be “chilled,” or slow to progress.
 |
| Air Force Chief Scientist Mica Endsley. Photo: Air Force. |
“They have not been able to attend technical meetings, which are significant to them in being able to do the business of research and development,” Endsley told an Air Force Association breakfast in Arlington, Va.
Because of sequestration–the $500 billion in automatic decade-long defense cuts–Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel is requiring roughly 85 percent of civilian workers to take one day of unpaid leave each week until Sept. 30, the final day of fiscal year 2013. The Pentagon estimates furloughing more than 650,000 workers will save $1.8 billion, Pentagon spokesman George Little told reporters Monday. Sequestration started in March and is expected to tap $37 billion from the FY ’13 defense budget.
Endsley said one benefit S&T can bring to the Air Force in an era of budget tightening is finding ways to make things more efficient.
“But when you cut back S&T at the same time, then you don’t have the opportunity to pursue those opportunities,” Endsley said. “But that’s a tough argument to make when we have people not flying airplanes.”
Endsley, the Air Force’s first female chief scientist, said her office is examining budgets going into fiscal years 2014 and 2015 and looking for ways to avoid further S&T cuts.
On Capitol Hill Monday some Democrats and Republicans decried the furloughs, while pointing to their existing–yet clashing–plans to stop sequestration. (Defense Daily, July 9).
Endsley also discussed the results of the Air Force’s recent Global Horizons study, which was led by previous chief scientist Mark Maybury. The study examined how the Air Force’s core functions within the domains of air, space and cyberspace can be sustained, and enhanced, by using S&T amid a rapidly changing world, according to a service statement.
One interesting finding in the report discussed the increasingly congested world of space. Since almost any country can procure launch services and easily access space, according to the report, the amount of space debris, or objects sized 10 cm or greater, has grown by almost one-third over the last 10 years. The report said contested space is also illustrated by the increasing vulnerability of high-value space assets and overload electromagnetic (EM) communications spectrum.
On the other hand, these challenges present opportunities for the Air Force to revamp the way it provides space services, the report said. Contested space issues are opportunities for international cooperation to improve Global Positioning System (GPS) accuracy, develop protocols for cyber cooperation and open up new EM spectrum for communications and control, according to the report. The Air Force could also revolutionize space architectures by using hosted payloads and launching smaller, but more affordable, satellites.
“One of the key findings was that in space, we’re not going to be operating with impunity necessarily,” Endsley said.