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Deputy Secretary of Defense, Patrick Shanahan, and Secretary of Defense, James Mattis, welcome Vice President Mike Pence to the Pentagon on August 9, 2018.

Yesterday, the Department of Defense released its Space Force Report 1601. Following the release, Patrick Shanahan, the Deputy Secretary of Defense participated in a media roundtable on the space force.

“Space force is about concentrating resources so we can go faster. This is how we will retire risk, build standards, grow capacity, and incrementally deploy National Defense Strategy modernization key capabilities.” – Pat Shanahan, August 9, 2018.

Validating, leading, and in alignment were Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering Dr. Michael Griffin, General John Hyten, Lieutenant General Samuel Greaves, and Lieutenant General James Dickenson in their remarks in Huntsville earlier  this week, the Deputy Secretary of Defense – Patrick Shanahan – held a media roundtable yesterday on Space

Here are some key highlights from the media roundtable with Patrick Shanahan.

1601 is about moving even faster in space.  1601 is about accelerating deployment of new capabilities.  I mean if there’s today like there was one thing to take away from all the stuff that we talk about, 1601 Report Space Force is about accelerating the deployment of new capability whether it’s assets or whether it’s people but it’s about accelerating that deployment.

Space force is about concentrating resources so we can go faster. All right the money page, page 6.  This is the most important section and it really centers on the outcomes of the capability development that we want to realize.  So think of this as a roadmap.  This is how we will retire risk, build standards, grow capacity, and incrementally deploy National Defense Strategy modernization key capabilities that I referenced on the previous page. 

The space force isn’t just about space.  It has significant interaction and overlap with the technologies that the research and engineering led by Mike — Dr. Mike Griffin.  So there is real integration overlap with you know, say hypersonic vehicles.  We will talk about space but it’s really important the hypersonic glide vehicles.  It’s very important how it’s integrated into the different service portfolios. 

We’re going to talk about the real need for horizontal integration. People will say like, each of the services need their own equities but if we were going to harmonize the infrastructure across the department, having a horizontal integration approach to infrastructure, ground station, pick the piece of important critical infrastructure, it’s very important that we have standards and that we’re able to scale that infrastructure.

And then also there’s a real tie to the Missile Defense Agency but we’re — why this is so important is this is our roadmap and then it’s what will shape our — our 2020 (palm ?) that we will submit over to OMB at the end of this year.  So that’s — that’s where so much of this will manifest itself.

We had the honor of hosting our 16th Huntsville Breakfast of Champions earlier this week, honoring our missile defense champions of the heartbeat of Missile Defense. At the event, we had the honor to have Congressman Mo Brooks, Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering Dr. Michael Griffin, Lieutenant General Samuel Greaves, and Lieutenant General James Dickenson provide their remarks which were a reflection on space, speed, and missile defense of the future vision.

 It is one team in unifying efforts to expand and win in space!

Mission Statement

MDAA’s mission is to make the world safer by advocating for the development and deployment of missile defense systems to defend the United States, its armed forces and its allies against missile threats.

MDAA is the only organization in existence whose primary mission is to educate the American public about missile defense issues and to recruit, organize, and mobilize proponents to advocate for the critical need of missile defense. We are a non-partisan membership-based and membership-funded organization that does not advocate on behalf of any specific system, technology, architecture or entity.