National Harbor, MD: The Air Force will protect and defend the budgets of the KC-46 airborne tanker, the F-35A Joint Strike Fighter and the nascent Long Range Strike Bomber, Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Mark Welsh told a standing room audience of more than 1,200 here.
Oh, and Welsh made clear his view of those arguing we should get rid of an independent Air Force.
“By the way, I’m getting really frustrated hearing this, why do need an Air Force debate,” he said, flashing a slide that listed the number of “airmen” at other services: Army, 34,000; Marines 39,000; Navy 70,000; Air Force 690,000. Just how much does he respect this argument? “Let’s just shoot this one in the head.”
NRO expects even lower National Security Space Launch costs starting in FY25
Troy Meink, NRO principal deputy director, explained that the decline in launch costs is one of two critical factors in allowing NRO to begin to diversify its on-orbit force structure to include both “large and small satellites” using multiple orbital domains.