U.S. lacks roadmap for space security: U.S. auditors

By Jim Wolf

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. military and U.S. intelligence have failed to produce an overarching roadmap for spending billions of dollars on the use of space to protect national security, congressional auditors said on Thursday.

Without such an integrated guide to decision-making, the United States faces possible "gaps in some areas of space operations and redundancies in others," the Government Accountability Office said.

The Air Force, the Defense Department's lead buyer and operator of space systems, is seeking $11.9 billion for its space efforts in the coming budget year, not including classified projects, up from $11.3 billion in fiscal 2008, service officials said in February.

Total Pentagon spending on space paired with the intelligence community's may be as high as $30 billion a year, including "black," or classified programs, according to Theresa Hitchens, who heads the private Center for Defense Information in Washington and its space-security project.

She said friction over control of key space assets such as a constellation of radar satellites may help explain the lack of a top-level architecture.

The absence of a plan has taken on new importance since China used an aging satellite for target practice in January 2007 and the United States shot apart a satellite of its own last month, boosting fears that space could one day become a battleground.

An overall roadmap could entail big trade-offs

for multibillion-dollar programs carried out by such companies as Lockheed Martin Corp, Boeing Co, and Northrop Grumman Corp.