SPACECAST 2020 was a chief of staff of the Air Force-directed space study,
challenged to identify and conceptually develop high-leverage space technologies and
systems that will best support the war fighter in the Twenty-First century. The study was
composed of officers, airmen, and civilians from institutions within Air University and
assisted by outside advisory groups made up of the Air Force major command vice
commanders, senior retired military officers and distinguished civilians, and technical
experts throughout the Department of Defense and civil/commercial laboratories. This is
the second of four monographs: Executive Summary, The SPACECAST 2020 Process,
The World of 2020 and Alternative Futures, and Operational Analysis.
DISCLAIMER
SPACECAST 2020 was a study done in compliance with a directive from the Chief of Staff, Air Force to
examine the capabilities and technologies for 2020 and beyond to preserve the security of the US.
Presented on 22 June 1994, this report was produced in the Department of Defense school environment in
the interest of academic freedom and the advancement of national defense-related concepts. The views
expressed in this report are those of the authors and do not reflect the official policy or position of the
United States Air Force, Department of Defense, or the United States government.
THE
SPACECAST 2020
PROCESS
Air University Air Education and Training Command United States Air Force
Maxwell Air Force Base, Alabama
The SPACECAST 2020 Process
Introduction
When I do a tradeoff study, I have absolutely no idea where it's going or what I'm going
to learn. If I knew what I was going to learn, that means I already knew the answer, so
why am I doing a study? Everything's got to be rubber, nothing's hard, when you do
tradeoffs. Don't get worried. When people asked me where I was headed or what I was
concluding, Id tell them that I didn't have a clue where I was headed or how I was going
to get there, but I knew Id get there.
Col John R. Boyd (USAF, Retired)
Given the right conditions and using the right process, it is possible to harness the
creativity of individuals in small group settings. What follows is a description of how
military officers used creative techniques and an innovative process to envision the space
systems that would provide the capabilities required to support US national security
objectives in the middle of the twenty-first century, the years 2020 to 2050.
"SPACECAST 2020" was the name given to the study. It centered on 114 officers
and civilians attending the Air Command and Staff College (ACSC) and the Air War
College (AWC) at Maxwell Air Force Base, Alabama, during the 1993-1994 academic
year. Gen Merrill A. McPeak, the chief of staff of the Air Force, requested the study.
The study chair was the commander of the Air University, Lt Gen Jay W. Kelley. Under
General Kelley's supervision, Air University personnel had to devise the process that
would produce new ideas. They also had to execute the study both to produce and
validate those new ideas. All this had to be accomplished within the confines of the Air
University academic year. The guidance issued required that the study: (1) be
characterized by unconstrained creativity, (2) remain detached from redefining service
organizational structures or redefining the assigned roles and missions of the armed
forces, (3) be centered on generating a vision of the military space capabilities our
country would require in the far future, and (4) not interfere with the core curricula of any
of the Air University colleges. This last requirement mandated that the study be
completed by the end of June 1994. Additionally, and although not part of the study's
original mandate, General Kelley created two oversight groups apart from the Air
University to advise the study participants and evaluate their progress and findings.
General Kelley defined a key requirement of his role as study chair as "being the only
person involved in the study with the power to say 'no'."
The Process
The Right Conditions
The essential prerequisite for success in any creative effort is an architecture that
affirms the creative activity of the people stretching to create. The architecture has to
organize people in collegial, creative-peer relationships that are relatively free of a rigid
hierarchical structure. Initially the process has to aim more for idea generation than for
idea assessment. Study participants must be bright and committed males and females.
As a group, participants should be cross-generational and come from many different
backgrounds. Moreover, and at least initially, having fewer "experts" in the area of
inquiry or idea-generation is better than having many experts. Experts possess as many
unconscious prejudices as they possess elements of certain knowledge. Experts usually
are less open. Experts normally prejudge new ideas more often than nonexperts or those
who are inexpert. All the attributes necessary for a successful creative study, including a
shortage of space experts, existed within the student body and faculty of Air University.
The SPACECAST 2020 study process was devised to take advantage of the best features
of the Air Command and Staff College and the Air War College.
All the study participants were volunteers. Each participant consciously rejected the
time-honored tenet: "Do not volunteer." A revolutionary 1993 and 1994 core curriculum
change affected the more than 70 study participants from the Air Command and Staff
College. The new curriculum was designed to demand superior scholarship and to place
a premium on individual accountability for learning and group research. Air Command
and Staff College students, for example, had to read approximately one full book every
three days to complete their core curriculum requirements. The Air Command and Staff
College also had introduced dramatic changes in the school and curriculum structure.
These included: (1) the elimination of "departments" and their replacement with
interlocking "teaching teams," (2) reduction in lecture hall mass meetings, (3) shifting the
accountability for learning from the teacher to the learner, and (4) the introduction of
multimedia courseware, requiring each student to have a laptop computer. As a
consequence of these and other changes aimed at empowering the learner, the Air
Command and Staff College intended to produce a number of the most intellectually agile
and well-educated officers in the history of military education. These officers helped
form the creative core of the SPACECAST 2020 study teams.
The 30 study participants from the Air War College had a much different core
curriculum. While Air Command and Staff College students studied the "science" of
warfare at the operational level, the more senior Air War College students studied the
"art" of warfare at the strategic level. The Air War College curriculum highlighted
"themes" and "principles, processes, and application" to educate senior leaders on the
complex interactions between the armed forces and society. Understanding the process of
national security decision making and the role of the political process in crisis resolution
were important features of the Air War College curriculum. Unlike the students in the
Air Command and Staff College, the class members of the Air War College routinely
confronted questions that were unanswerable. Like Air Command and Staff College,
there were no "school solutions" to the more complex issues raised in Air War College.
The students at Air Command and Staff College are majors (and Navy lieutenant
commanders) or major-selects, with about 12 years of military service, and an average
age of 32 years. Air War College class members are lieutenant colonels (or Navy
commanders) or colonels (or Navy and Coast Guard captains) averaging 42 years of age,
with around 17 years of service. Because "air" officers dominate Air University, Air
Force officers and air crew members comprised the bulk of the students and the majority
of the study participants. Nearly 80 percent of the study participants were from the
operational "line" of their service. Less than 5 percent had either space or scientific
backgrounds. The distribution of participants by military specialty is indicated in Table
1.
Table I
Student Backgrounds
Thus, the volunteers formed a team that was both cross-generational and
multidisciplinary. Relatively conservative, staid, and sedate senior officers became the
colleagues of less conservative, more enthusiastic, and sometimes ardent junior officers.
What the more senior officers (long experienced in surviving in a hierarchical system)
lacked, the more junior officers provided. Whatever experience of the "real world" the
junior participants lacked, the senior officers provided. Included in the study group were
a member of the clergy, personnel officers, accountants, intelligence officers,
communications officers, Army helicopter pilots, naval antisubmarine warfare pilots,
logistics specialists, computer experts, and a very large number of Air Force aviators.
The study participants cut across service boundaries, spanned a significant portion of the
military grade structure, and represented nearly every "product division" of the corporate
armed forces. Moreover, the students represented the very top percentage of their
commissioning year groups. They were the best and the brightest, competitively selected
to complete the mind-expanding, career-enhancing professional military education
schools in residence.
The commandants of the Air War College and Air Command and Staff College were
both supportive of the study effort and their commander, who was the study chair. Study
participation counted as the required group research for Air Command and Staff College
and fulfilled the elective and advanced study course requirement in the Air War College.
Both schools generously contributed space, faculty advisors, and equipment to the effort.
The SPACECAST study aimed for the creation of "new products" related to military
space operations. Consequently, the participants needed to be armed to fight in the new
product development arena. Few of the participants thought of themselves as creative.
Few participated in studies searching for new products in the past. None previously
participated in studies unaffected by service advocacy for equipment, roles, missions, or
functions. The conditions at AU made it possible to craft the right process.
The Right Process
The process of producing new ideas is always an iterative one. Because executing the
study process was more important than producing a product initially, the research
methodology took the form mandated by the study's primary function. That is, it focused
initially on the process of generating creative thinking. This process intended to prepare
the participants to think creatively within the possible operating environments of the far
future.
Air University, like most colleges and universities, has a superb library containing
hundreds of books and thousands of journal articles on the subjects of innovation,
creativity, and creative thinking. Air University also hosts the Air Force Quality
Institute, an additional source of information on innovation. The challenge was to
research the subjects of creativity and innovation and devise a system that unavoidably
resulted in the creation of new things. The study process had to (1) capitalize on
individual creativity, (2) link idea-generators in small and interactive teams, (3) somehow
compensate for a shortage of technologists and scientists, and (4) produce an abundance
of new product ideas that could be winnowed to select the best ideas. Moreover, it had to
overcome some of the perceived barriers inherent in military organizations. These
included hierarchical organizational structures, specialization, and what others have
called the pecking order and associated dominance-submission behaviors sometimes
imposed by military grade. The tendencies to support conservatism and eschew maverick
thinking were consequences of these barriers.
The study participants had each spent years "coloring inside the boxes." The
participants had built their successful military careers on being good followers, on
executing the ideas of others. The study process had to capitalize on the participants'
abilities as followers, but it also needed to take advantage of their potential as innovative
leaders. The study process had to be regimented enough to expand the participants'
comfort zones ever so slowly, but not so regimented that it stifled creativity. To do this,
the study process had to be continuously iterative, with built-in due dates for deliverables
and their evaluation. The evaluations or assessments had to begin as "hidden" so as not
to stifle creativity, but become increasingly "open" to refine the ideas.
The study customer, General McPeak, and the study chair, General Kelley, made it
easy initially. Both saw the heuristic value of the effort as sufficient justification to
undertake the study. Although General McPeak wanted new product ideas, he
appreciated that this might not be possible from a group of nonscientific officers
grappling with "space," the domain of scientists and engineers. Thus, even with the
motivation provided by serving the most senior military customer in the Air Force, the
study was nonthreatening to the participants. General Kelley, echoing General McPeak,
also knew that the study outcome would be unpredictable. He too wanted new products
and new ideas. "One or two" were the numbers he most often used, but the study
participants were under no compulsion by General McPeak to produce any new ideas or
products. Thus, from the beginning, the whole effort had the characteristics of a win-win
arrangement. Even so, all involved knew that a 10-month effort resulting in no new ideas
would have been less valuable than it might have been and should have been.
Volunteer study participants were organized initially into three teams under the
general supervision of a research director: (1) creative activity teams (CAT), (2) realistic
assessment teams (RAT), and (3) a Technology Team made up of engineers and scientists
at Air University's Air Force Institute of Technology (AFIT). The CATs comprised
about 80 percent of the study team. The CATs initially organized in small group
"seminars." The seminars later became "teams." The RATs were the assessors or
evaluators responsible for assuring that new product ideas made sense. The RATs also
ensured that ideas did not unintentionally violate any laws (including the laws of physics)
or treaties. The ideas also had to be scientifically sound. Finally, the RATs guaranteed
enough understanding of the ideas for later rank-ordering in tradeoff analyses. Initially
and by design, the CATs were separated from the RATs. Later both groups would work
closely together to bring the descriptions of the new products to completion. The role of
the Technology Team was to provide the necessary scientific and technical linkages
requisite for the study's credibility.
Phase One: Preparation
Graham Wallas and others describe creative thinking as a serial process that
progresses through several stages. The four stages are: (1) preparation, (2) incubation, (3)
illumination or insight, and (4) verification. The stages or phases of the SPACECAST
study process corresponded with the stages necessary for creative thinking. The first
stage, preparation, began with an introduction to the art of creative thinking.
Although military officers actually are quite creative, they usually do not associate
their own problem-solving abilities with creativity. They view problem-solving as the
science of getting things done in the face of resistance. Creativity, on the other hand, is
the art of envisioning things that might never be done. Problem-solving is a necessity for
military officers, but military officers often see creative thinking as a luxury. By not
viewing themselves as creative, most military officers lack confidence in their creativity.
The first challenge was to structure a study process that guaranteed a creative output. The
Center for Creative Leadership suggested that the study architects make contact with Rolf
Smith at the Office of Strategic Innovation in Houston, Texas. Smith, who retired from
the Air Force as a colonel, was familiar with the challenge in general and with innovative
studies in particular. Smith was one of the first of many pro bono contributors to the
SPACECAST study. He remained among the best contributors. He described the
SPACECAST charter as one that required "doing things that had not been done" as
prerequisite to "doing things that cannot be done." It was impossible to fulfill this charter
without participants confident in their creative ability.
Thus, the immediate challenge was to devise a way to convince the study participants
that they were creative and competent for the task. That task fell to Dr Roger von Oech
and Bob King. Two of the more readable and popular books on creative thinking are by
Roger von Oech, A Kick in the Seat of the Pants and A Whack on the Side of the Head.
SPACECAST invited Dr von Oech to Air University to conduct a half-day workshop,
filled with idea-generation exercises, for the study participants. Dr von Oech, using his
books as a benchmark, described the four facets of creativity as roles. Creative thinkers
had to embrace the role of Explorer, Artist, Judge, and Warrior. Explorers sought new
ideas or fundamental truths, even to the point of "slaying sacred cows." Artists
recombined old ideas or envisioned new things. Judges accurately assessed the new
constructs to determine whether or not the new ideas or products were valuable and
useful. Warriors, convinced that a new idea was meritorious, worked and fought to see it
implemented. All these facets or faces of creativity must be present to make important
new discoveries.
With the study participants encouraged and vitalized by the workshop, Bob King of
QPC (Quality, Performance, Competitiveness) Gold reinforced von Oech's insights into
creative thinking and added techniques for critical thinking, Mr King was a consultant
under contract to the Air Force Quality Institute. Small group idea-generation exercises
and small-group idea evaluation exercises exposed the team to exciting new methods for
unlocking their creative faculties. A key point was that analysis, or what an. other
consultant, John Boyd, called "destructive deduction" had to precede synthesis, or
"creative induction." Thus, one element of creativity was the process; of fragmenting
"wholes" into their component parts and reorganizing these parts into new combinations
or wholes. Those creative and critical thinking skills learned, if not mastered, it was next
necessary to immerse the study participants in a study of the future, Figure 1 roughly
approximates the blueprint for the study process.
Figure 1. Year In Review
The focus of SPACECAST 2020 was on devising ways--including the introduction of
hardware--that space systems could provide the capabilities necessary to support national
security in the far future. Hence the next part of the preparation effort aimed at looking
into the future. Neither the Air War College nor the Air Command and Staff College
curriculum specifically focused on the far future. The objective of this portion of the
preparation period was to better understand the unknown and the unknowable. This
required answers to such questions as: What will "national security" mean in the next
century? What forces will likely affect it? and How can space and operations in space
help us provide for it? To answer these and other equally difficult questions,
SPACECAST created what amounted to a separate and virtual university within the Air
University, specifically structured to focus on the future. This, in turn, required a slate of
lecturers capable of focusing the study participants on specific aspects of the future. The
SPACECAST project director stepped up to the monumental task of inviting the selected
guest lecturers to Air University, arranging their transportation, and serving as host when
they arrived.
The study's unequaled extended and global "faculty" interacted with the study
participants in person or over two-way, interactive video telephone piped directly into the
lecture hall and classroom. Table 2 identifies some of the members of the SPACECAST
"faculty." This faculty included-but was not limited to-Alvin and Dr Heidi Toffler
(Future Shock, Powershift, The Third Wave, War and AntiWar); Dr Edward Teller (one
of the world's leading physicists and "the father of the hydrogen bomb"); Professor
Martin van Creveld (Command in War, The Transformation of War, and many other
works); Sir Arthur C. Clarke-addressing study participants via satellite-linked. video
telephone from Sri Lanka-42001: A Space Odyssey, How the World Was One, and many
other works); John Boyd ("Creation and Destruction," A Discourse on Winning and
Losing, and "The Conceptual Spiral"); Dr John Arquilla ("Cyberwar is Coming!");
science fiction writers Dr Jerry Pournelle and Joe Haldeman; Col John Warden, the
commandant of Air University's Air Command and Staff
College and author of The Air Campaign and the one who envisioned "The Five
Rings: Strategic Centers of Gravity"; Dr Lowell Wood (a senior scientist from Lawrence
Livermore labs and the creator of "Brilliant Pebbles" for the Strategic Defense Initiative);
Col Simon ("Pete") Worden, Air Force Ballistic Missile Defense Office (AFBMDO)
Tech Chief; Dr David Webb; Dr Wendel Mendell; Carl Builder (The Masks of War and
The Icarus Syndrome); and others. Dr George Stein and Dr Armin Ludwig of the Air
War College presented forecasts of the future. Representatives from the Central
Intelligence Agency, the National Security Agency, the Defense Intelligence Agency, and
the United States Command gave highly classified presentations. Dr Carl Sagan
(Cosmos, and many, many other works), addressing the study participants by video
telephone from Cornell University, was the final speaker. Participants also read Paul
Kennedy's Preparing for the Twenty-First Century, and Samuel Huntington's 'The Clash
of Civilizations."
Table 2
Guest Lecturers
THINKING ENVIRONMENT/CONFLICT AND SPACE (AUTHOR) (SCIENTIS7) (NASP) (CONSULTAN7) (AWC) (AFBMDO TECH CHIEF) (MAVERICK THINKER) (AUTHORS) (SCHOLAR) (SCI-FI AU7HOR) (RAND) (SCIENTIS7) (SCI-FI AUTHOR) (CYBERWAR) (SPACESTRATEGIS7) (SCI-FI AUTHOR) (FUTURE WAR) (SPACE POLICY) (MOVIE PRODUCER) (FU'RURE CONFLIC7) (SCIENTIS7) By the time the preparation period ended, the participants had interacted with over 40
different lecturers and spent over 100 hours focusing on space, technology, and conflict
in the future. This investment of time was in addition to the time devoted to completing
the requirements of the Air War College and Air Command and Staff College core
curricula. Even so, SPACECAST participants were out-performing their classmates in
the rated areas of the core curriculum. Those on the colleges' faculty who thought of the
core curriculum as valuable attributed this exceptional performance to the fact that the
best minds had volunteered to participate in the study. Others ascribed the anomalous
performance to the unique SPACECAST preparation curriculum, the relative lack of a
rigid structure within the SPACECAST seminars, the multidisciplinary fusion of
information that the nondirective and open-ended process encouraged, or the
empowerment of the adult learner treated as an adult and colleague. Which of these
explanations was actually the case was less important than the fact that SPACECAST
participants became totally immersed in their studies of the potential operating
environment of the far future. Moreover, the SPACECAST participants were able to
articulate the forces that could or would affect US security and military operations in the
far future.
While the strategic purpose of the preparation period was to introduce creative
thinking and provide insights into the challenges anticipated in the far future, it also
provided an essential tactical advantage. The tactical advantage was that it bought time.
Even as the preparation phase was underway, the SPACECAST support staff, under the
general supervision of a project director, was very busy. Administrative support tasks
included ordering supplies, buying and leasing office equipment (copier, facsimile
machine, an answering machine, laptop and desk computers and printers, and software),
ordering books, establishing security and document control procedures, and building a
network connecting the Air Force Institute of Technology at Wright-Patterson Air Force
Base to science and technology nodes nationwide.
The Air Force Institute of Technology, a subordinate unit of the Air University, is the
accredited postgraduate, degree-granting science and technology school for the Air Force.
Staffed with civilian faculty and military PhDs, the Institute fulfilled the Air Force's
critical need for in-house scientists, engineers, and analysts. Since both the CATs and the
RATs lacked scientists and technologists among their numbers, one value that Institute
participation added was that it possessed and was able to make available scientists and
engineers in abundance. Two, then three, and eventually four Institute personnel worked
on the study full time. Their roles included: (1) superintending a call for papers, (2)
condensing or abstracting information in the papers received, and (3) putting the
condensed information into an electronic filing system. A unique feature of the electronic
filing system was that all information in it was accessible by subject area and key word.
The Technology Team also (4) evaluated the abstracts (using criteria including feasibility,
time to fruition, and a gross estimate of technological challenge). The team (5) created a
network encompassing labs and university research centers nationwide. Lastly, (6)
Technology Team members sat on RAT assessment panels whenever these met.
The call for papers went out over multiple computer information networks and
bulletin boards, through announcements to over 150 military organizations, through press
releases, and through advertisements in Aviation Week and Space Technology. The call
for papers and persistence yielded over 400 technology and technology application
papers, nearly 70 technology studies, and sparked the curiosity of a great number of
people. Technology abstracts came from as far away as Moscow in the Russian
Federation, from Norway, and from the Czech Republic. Many came from concerned
private citizens (including students, a real estate agent, and other unexpected
contributors). Most of the ideas and technology abstracts were valuable and some were
extremely valuable.
As the preparation period approached its culminating point, the participants became
increasingly eager to put their ideas on paper. The participants were encouraged to
incubate and pursue insight during this phase, but they were not encouraged to develop
concepts or ideas prematurely. There were two reasons for this. First, the intention was
that the ideas would percolate in their heads, allowing the left and right brains to interact
and sort out things until illumination arrived. Second, the SPACECAST team was not
yet ready to receive the ideas in an organized way.
As the end of the preparation period for CATs and RATs approached, CATs worked
in brainstorming seminars to transform all the information presented into assumptions
about the operating environment of the far future. Brainstorming seminars were small
groups with about six students and three faculty members interacting collegially. Each of
the 14 CAT groups presented its assumptions to a review panel of faculty, drawn from the
RATs. These assumptions, some remarkable, some extrapolations of the present,
approximated the operating environment of the period from around 2005 to 2050. The
assumptions about the operating environment were designed to focus the attention of
study participants on how and why the challenge of providing for the national (or perhaps
by then international) security would change. The assumptions also served as
benchmarks to help understand the novel space capabilities, applications, and systems
that would emerge as the study progressed.
The descriptive characteristics of the operating environment differed from CAT
seminar to CAT seminar. To provide a consensus view of the future, only those
characteristics that all seminars agreed upon constituted the consensus view of the future
operating environment. As a consequence, SPACECAST temporarily set aside
alternative futures and a very fertile rogue set of possible and plausible future
characteristics. The consensus view became known as the SPACECAST future. The
study participants would return to the rogue set to exploit it later.
Student participants organized the assumptions regarding the operating environment
of the far future into six major areas: people, geopolitics, the environment, economics,
technology, and future sources of conflict. The oversight group called the Executive
Board reviewed the consensus assumptions about the operating environment of the far
future and commented on them. The Executive endorsed the process and did not disagree
with any of the characterizations of the future operating environment. The Executive
encouraged participants to look for creative ways to transform all military air activities
into military space activities.
Enthusiasm for the project and its process was high among the senior military officers
who constituted the Executive. Executive Board members are listed in Table 3. After the
initial meeting, several commands represented in the Executive Board created their own
idea generation teams to support and harmonize with the Air University team. As a
consequence of creating their own idea generation teams, the Air Combat Command, the
Pacific Air Force, and. the Air Force Special Operations Command submitted hundreds
of additional ideas to the SPACECAST team at Maxwell.
Table 3
Executive Board
As word of the study spread throughout the Department of Defense, other
organizations became interested in hearing more about what SPACECAST was learning.
Through a growing network, SPACECAST became aware of similar studies. These
included studies underway in the Secretary of Defense's Office of Net Assessment, the
Defense Intelligence Agency, the Office of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Plans and Policy
directorate, and the United States Air Force Academy. Since by this time SPACECAST
offered an already-available vision of the operating environment of 2020, each of these
other organizations joined the SPACECAST network. General Kelley greatly facilitated
interaction with these and other organizations when he authorized these outside agencies
full access to what Air University was learning in return for participation and help in the
effort. As a consequence, Air University was able to greatly expand the talent and
capability of the RATs by creating an expanded realistic assessment team (ExRAT). The
expanded team had participants from all the services, all the intelligence agencies, all the
military space commands, and many of the government-owned and funded research and
development centers. It eventually included over 40 additional participants.
While the CATs were envisioning the operating environment of the far future, the
RATs were building the assessment criteria they would use to evaluate CAT-created
concepts. These criteria required asking 45 very specific questions about each concept.
Among them were such things as: What are the political consequences of employing this
concept? What does this concept contribute to US commerce and industry? and What
maintenance and sustainment requirements does the concept impose? That work done,
two other items were required before the study could move into the next phase. First,
there needed to be a vision of the format for the final product. Second, and more
importantly, there needed to be concepts to manipulate to form the basis of the final
report.
Bob King had exposed study participants to "brain writing" and the Crawford slip
technique for small group creative thinking. Both techniques were proven ways of
capturing new ideas, but neither technique had the traceability necessary for
SPACECAST. New ideas often come in bursts, so it was necessary to devise a method of
capturing these bursts for SPACECAST. SPACECAST developed a one-page concept
paper format as a variant of existing brain writing techniques. The concept paper format
required the originator to: (1) describe the new idea, (2) identify how the idea differed
from present practice or equipment, (3) postulate countermeasures to the idea, and (4)
specify a civilian or commercial application for the idea. Thus every concept paper
included three ideas: the basic new idea, the countermeasure an adversary might use to
defeat the idea, and a commercial or nonmilitary application of the idea.
The mental agility and discipline required to generate new ideas and simultaneously
generate a way to defeat the new idea resulted in more robust ideas than would have
resulted otherwise. Moreover, this process fostered a uniquely valuable way of thinking
for military officers. They quickly learned that some of their best work was evidenced
not in the new idea, but in their own countermeasure to the idea. Likewise, the search for
commercial applications for each idea required that thought be given to the needs and
desires of the average, nonmilitary citizen at every point in the process. Where
commercial applications were easily forthcoming, obvious opportunities for partnerships
were readily apparent. The concept papers were the foundation for everything that
followed and became the building blocks of the final report. Individuals and small teams
produced concept papers.
Because the one-page papers might contain classified information and needed to be
standardized, laptop computers were provided for each team. Each laptop had a concept
paper template loaded into it. The study participants treated the laptops as classified
materials and treated the papers the same way until qualified security personnel
adjudicated them to the unclassified level. At the end of the study, security personnel
degaussed and sanitized the laptops to remove all the information from them. The one
page papers were easy to manage. The one-page papers were easy to evaluate, combine,
and amplify into a more comprehensive and robust product as the study progressed.
After harvesting the initial ideas, and over the December 1993 holiday break,
impaneled RATs evaluated them. RATs categorized, catalogued, and numbered each
concept paper. Each was cross-linked to other similar ideas and to categories of
technology in the technology abstracts. RATs commented on each idea. These
comments deliberately were affirming and supportive, and general in nature.
While the comment, Violates the Outer Space Treaty of 1976, might have been
appropriate for a particular concept paper, the RATs instead asked a question: Is this idea
in compliance with current treaties? This nondirective approach was a planned feature of
the creative SPACECAST process. The approach required the originator of the idea to
think about the question, its implications, and the possible effects of one answer or
another on the new idea. Thus, the originator bore responsibility for any modification of
the idea. No one could direct the originator to amend the idea. Although most study
participants understood and affirmed this approach, a few others found it discomforting.
Those who found the approach discomforting wanted very clear and specific guidance.
The RATs also aggregated the concept papers by general subject area. The selection
of general subject areas was less analytical than it was creative. This categorization
included a number of ideas that logically could reside in more than one category.
Duplicate, or very close to duplicate ideas were not eliminated. Some ideas could not be
linked easily or naturally to an assigned category. Those cases challenged the study
participants to stretch to find a creative connection. When the study participants returned
from the holiday break, SPACECAST was ready to enter the second phase of the study.
Phase Two: Concept Development and
Refinement for Illumination
Considering their interests in pursuing a particular area, the participants in the 14
Phase One seminars were reorganized into 15 Phase Two teams. The teams and their
associated area of inquiry are depicted in Table 4. Each team had a team coordinator,
selected randomly and without regard for military grade. This too was intentional. It was
intended to preserve the peer-creator architecture characteristic of the study process. As a
consequence, colonels were on teams headed by or coordinated by a more junior officer.
Each team also had a faculty member attached as a team player and colleague. The RATs
joined the CATs so that each team had the assured equivalent of left- and right-brain
skills. (Left-brain skills include logical and linear evaluative thinking. Right-brain skills
include more artistic and imagistic thinking.) Each team pursued a particular area of
inquiry. The areas corresponded to a chapter or section of the final product, described
internally and at this point as "the Book." Only two teams explored the same area. At this
point, SPACECAST assigned only one team the chore of inventing creative solutions for
our nation's most pressing space challenge: the lack of inexpensive spacelift.
Table 4
The 15 Teams
The demarcations between areas were neither hard nor fast at this point. All
participants had electronic access to and paper copies of all the concept papers generated
by the study group at large and all the technology abstracts. Each group set about
refining their ideas by combining, amplifying, and improving the concepts generated in
the first phase. A new template, a V,7hite Paper Template, became the outline for writing
and reporting.
Although the research director provided some guidance as SPACECAST Bulletins,
the guidance deliberately was restricted to minimum essential information. This
information included process tips, due dates, the format of deliverables, and
announcements of some coming events. Some participants were anxious because of the
intentional lack of very specific instructions. The objective was to create a study
environment that gave maximum latitude to study participants by providing a minimum
amount of specific instructions. Military officers found themselves empowered to do
their own thinking and schedule their own workload. While uncomfortable for some, this
empowerment and lack of rigid structure was a deliberate part of the process. The result
was approximately 50 candidate white papers, each briefly developing a single idea from
the combination of ideas available.
In addition to the team-authorship of white papers, each writing team had to begin
putting the substance of their white paper into a 10-minute briefing. The purpose of these
briefings, to be given in the latter phase of the study, was to quickly communicate the
essence of an idea to those who had not taken the time to read the paper that amplified the
idea. At this point in the study the papers were so numerous and detailed that a cover-to-cover reading of the entire evolving report required a minimum of 15 hours for a speed-reader. The briefings also placed the writers into the position of having to defend their
ideas to critics. This type of oral defense, usually found only in doctoral programs,
required SPACECAST participants to master additional skills. These skills included
thinking on their feet and selecting support data and graphics that quickly communicated
their ideas. The briefing preparation requirement also sharpened the skills that Dr von
Oech warned that creativity required: the ability to assume the role of both Judge and
Warrior.
The ExRATs reviewed the initial drafts of these products while the Senior Advisory
Group met. The scientists and engineers in the ExRATs evaluated each of the 50
candidate white papers. They also studied each of the 200 concept papers fused to create
the white papers. Finally, the ExRATs reviewed each of the 237 technology abstracts
available at that time. (The number of technology abstracts later grew to over 400.) A
universal observation was that, while highly creative, many of the candidate white papers
lacked evidence of close linkage to emerging technologies. Moreover, the rate of
technological change in our country-especially in information technology-was much
more rapid than the study participants had expected. Many of the things SPACECAST
envisioned for 2020 were "already on the street" or would be operational well before
2020. The SPACECAST support staff and RAT captured the comments of the ExRATs
in writing over a weekend. They presented the comments to the teams on a diskette the
following Monday. The next deliverable was due in two weeks. The expectation was
that the candidate white papers would respond to the guidance of the ExRATs and the
advice of the Senior Advisory Group, Table 5.
Table 5
Advisory Group
President & Chief Executive Officer
Aerospace Corp USAF(Ret)
Consultant Information Systems Vice President
AT&T USAF(Ret)
Deputy Assoc. Administrator
Mgmt Sys & Fac, HQ NASA Senior Scientist, Defense & Technology Planning
Department
RAND President, Aerospace
Industries Association, Inc. Chief Executive Officer
Marin Marietta USMC (Ret)
Senior Associate, GIA Inc. Associate Vice Pres. for
Graduate Studies and Research,
University of Notre Dame USAF (Ret)
Consultant Associate Professor, Dept. of
National Security Studies
Air War College Exec Vice Pres. & Gen Mgr.
Launch Systems Group Orbital Sciences Corp USN (Ret)
Vice Pres. of Corp Business
Development, CTA Inc. USAF (Ret)
President
Institute for Defense Analysis USA (Ret)
Vice Pres., Land Systems for Loral Corp Dir. of the Ctr of Business & Gov't
JFK School of Gov't
Harvard University The academic requirements of the core curriculum after the new year frustrated the
process somewhat. Air Command and Staff College students had a four-day long take-home test to complete, followed a week later by an intensive two-day war game. Air War
College participants had a two-week-long regional study trip abroad. Even so, the
available SPACECAST participants filled the gaps as best as possible and produced the
next deliverable by the due date.
Unfortunately, the second drafts of white papers evidenced little more science than
the first drafts did. Admonishment joined encouragement. All knew that when the full
team assembled once again, more brains would get more and better work done. Everyone
understood that the months of February and March-with their remaining iterations of
white papers-would be the most critical months in the entire study. If ideas did not join
technology, and if things did not grow into integrated "systems of things," the final
product would join the ranks of 25 previous space studies done elsewhere. These
previous studies were, in the words of one critic, "Interesting, but not compelling."
The RATs met for three days to evaluate the 50 draft white papers submitted in the
second round of drafts. They made recommendations on each one. In many cases the
recommendation was to make the paper a subset of another paper. In some cases the
recommendation was that no further effort be expended on the paper. The result of the
review was the recommendation that the 50 narrow papers evolve into 17 broader ones.
The review also resulted in the recommendation that more effort be expended to examine
emerging technologies that might provide the technological solutions that the proposed
future capabilities required. Further, it became the right time to transition to a standard
essay-like format for each paper. This would require citing references for the ideas or
technologies in the paper. An essay-like format also facilitated cross-referencing among
the papers. Cross-referencing helped the SPACECAST team to jointly understand and
assess the future space force structure SPACECAST postulated. By the third draft the
papers had to have more granularity and a much higher degree of specificity. This
included important details omitted to this point: for example, such things as the number
of spacecraft comprising a particular system, orbital assignment and analysis, command
and control, and near-term technology requirements or opportunities.
Just as he had at the end of the first phase, General Kelley addressed all study
participants at the culminating point of the second phase. He shared the update briefing
he provided to the Secretary of the Air Force, the Air Force Chief of Staff, and his senior
Air Force colleagues at the CORONA Conference. He told the study participants that the
next several weeks were critical to the study effort. He said that if they could not devote
the effort to the study required to produce a satisfactory third draft, he would work with
the commandants of the colleges to provide relief from some core curriculum
requirements. Finally, he announced that, save for one exception, "The time for creativity
is over. Now is the time for hard work." The exception was a special study he
commissioned at the Air Force Institute of Technology.
Without a doubt, the most serious and obvious shortcoming in the United States'
space program was the lack of affordable and reliable transportation to space. By 2020,
the problem would either have been solved or the nation would be a marginal space
power. For the purposes of our study, it was necessary to assume that it would have been
solved by 2020, and that we would be looking at follow-on systems to those systems that
provided the pre-2020 solution. Of 15 study teams, a solitary SPACECAST team
explored far future lift systems. Committed to the SPACECAST creative thinking
methodology and reinforced by NASA's and Dr John L. Anderson's "Horizon Mission
Methodology," General Kelley intended to exhaust all possible avenues in exploring far
future space lift technologies. He directed the Air Force Institute of Technology virtually
to "shut down for one or two days" and enlist the creativity of their entire faculty and
student body to come up with far future solutions to the lift problem. He made the
challenge immense by requiring that they examine propulsion technologies that were not
dependent on chemical combustion or hypergolics. The question he posed was "How do
you get to space without going on a tail of fire?" They could, he advised them, assume
whatever they chose to assume, as long as their assumptions were explicit and reasonable.
Excited by the project, the Institute commander promised to provide their findings within
a month. Their remarkable conclusions, including the finding that there was no silver
bullet, joined the SPACECAST final report as a paper entitled Unconventional Lift.
At the same time, three other initiatives were underway: (1) building alternative
futures to give more discernment of the view of the future posited by SPACECAST, (2)
expanding and formalizing the electronic network that glued key partners to Air
University and the SPACECAST effort, and (3) devising the theory of space power that
seemed to be emerging through the SPACECAST effort. SPACECAST levied this last
requirement in an attempt to avoid what Carl Builder described in The Icarus Syndrome.
The syndrome is an affection for technology and hardware divorced from their
contributions to military power and national security.
One of the decisions made at the beginning of our study of the future was that
SPACECAST would use a consensus view and not build scenarios or alternative views of
the future. One of the SPACECAST partners and contributors proposed expanding the
utility of the study effort by taking the wealth of research already done by the study
participants and using it to create other plausible futures. The group proposing the idea
backed its belief with funding. They hired an organization called the Futures Group to
help the SPACECAST team build the alternative futures. Eight plausible futures
emerged from three dominant driving forces of the future. The forces were the will to
operate in space, the "technomic" capability-the combination of technical development
and economic capacity-of potential actors, and the number of future space actors. The
four most fertile comparative futures, in addition to the most likely future postulated by
the SPACECAST team, were: the Space Barons, the Rogue States, Mad Max, Inc., and
the Spacefaring World. A person who was an Air War College faculty member, RAT
member, Air Force colonel, and PhD spearheaded the analytic and creative effort. The
findings were included in the SPACECAST report. Both military and academic
communities will continue to examine and discuss these findings.
The SPACECAST effort gave the Air University a growing network of partners.
These included the distinguished members of the SPACECAST senior advisory group,
the scientists and technologists in the Expanded RAT, military organizations worldwide,
members of the intelligence community, the Office of the Secretary of Defense, and
scholars and intellectuals. Electronic mail and the information superhighway allowed
SPACECAST to communicate routinely with all of SPACECAST's partners, including
such scholars as Alvin and Heidi Toffler and Carl Builder. The SPACECAST
"knowledge network" grew to incorporate scores of powerful contributing nodes.
Although the SPACECAST study was the genesis of this network, the network itself
would endure long after the initial SPACECAST effort was complete. General Kelley
encouraged these linkages and described the emerging network as "a watering hole." The
watering hole was a place where diverse constituencies could come to drink in a safe,
protective, and nonthreatening academic environment.
General Kelley also expanded the network to include over 150 colleges and
universities. He encouraged the commandant of the Air Force Reserve Officer Training
Corps (ROTC) in a letter to bring each college and university ROTC detachment on line
with SPACECAST. This incidental accomplishment, originating because of
SPACECAST-but clearly bigger than SPACECAST-has continuing utility for Air
University and its network of partners. One of the key partners in the network proved to
be Carl Builder of the RAND Corporation.
SPACECAST enlisted Builder, the author of The Masks of War and The Icarus
Syndrome, to help the SPACECAST team consider what might be the theory of space
power in the 2020 time frame. After postulating the theory, military space missions, a
vision of the role of military space forces, and strategies for employing space power
would follow from it naturally. Postulating a theory of space power was no easy chore.
Builder agreed with General Kelley that our studies were finding that space was "more
than a place." The "more" emerging from awareness that it was only from the vantage of
space that the terrestrial limitations imposed by time and position could be overcome.
Builder asserted that the theory of space power must explain how space power worked
and why that was important. He suggested that the key to the theory was that space
allowed simultaneous access or proximity to large portions of the globe and the means to
rapidly change the vantage to encompass other areas. In 2020 space power could provide
unparalleled and simultaneous proximity or access to the earth and the cislunar region for
observation, orientation, force application, and the timely reduction of uncertainty. We
should care because without spacepower we will lose the opportunity for nearly
simultaneous proximity to the earth, thereby impeding observation (limiting surveillance
and weather observation), causing disorientation (degrading communications, command
and control, intelligence, navigation), limiting force application (reducing the threat
engagement envelope) and increasing uncertainty.
If that were the theory, what would be the mission statement, the internal compass, of
military space forces in 2020? The team seemed to think it might be, "To operate in the
transatmosphere and space in order to promote stability and enhance the security and
interests of the United States and our partners." What then would be the missions or
categories of activity that enabled the exercise of space power in 2020? Although other
categories were used at the beginning and midpoint of the study, the final categories
appeared to all be encompassed within three major areas of activity. These were Global
Presence, or global view; Global Reach; and Global Power. With these working
categories, SPACECAST was able to better organize the final product.
The third drafts evidenced considerably more research and technology inclusion than
the previous deliverables. The iterative process appeared to be working. The white paper
format was again amended to require attribution of specific technology abstracts used to
create it or make it more robust. Beyond the effects of moving from encouragement to
admonishment, the process of linking technology to ideas was greatly facilitated by the
Technical Team from the Air Force Institute of Technology. The team graded each of the
technology abstracts and suggested linkages between each of them. The grades were:
existing technology (one that could be applied now), emerging technology (one that, if
developed, would be useful by 2020), innovative emerging technology (unproved, but
apparently scientifically sound, even though it lacked some bridging technology prior to
development), and theoretical or conceptual (possible, but beyond 2020). Linkages
between one technology or application and another, and linkages between each abstract
and the ideas in evolving white papers, produced an automated cross-referencing system
of immense value to the operationally oriented study participants. Selection of a single
word-such as "weapon"-from a key word list of more than 300 words identified all the
technology abstracts in which the selected key word appeared. Moreover, by using more
than one key word at a time, the document search could be more and more specific.
Thus, a search using several key words connected by "and" would identify only the
technology abstracts in which all the selected key words appeared. This cross-referenced
electronic filing system, finally fully operational in March 1994, was so valuable that
many of the organizations participating in the study as assessors or advisors coveted it.
General Kelley suggested earlier that SPACECAST take advantage of the creative
goal of the study and consult with screenwriters and movie producers who turned science
fiction into successful and profitable films. The Los Angeles office of Air Force Public
Affairs made contact with four successful and creative screenwriters and producers who
agreed to serve as informal consultants. The screenwriters were: William Wisher,
Terminator II; Louis Abernathy, Deep Star Six; Eddie Niemeier, RoboCop II; and
producer-screenwriter Bob Justman, Star Trek. These Hollywood screenwriters, serving
pro bono, found the evolving SPACECAST ideas intriguing, but found the lack of visual
images unsatisfying. They suggested that pictures, illustrations, and artists' conceptions
be included with each white paper. Each screenwriter asserted, "An idea cannot grab you
until you can grab an idea." Words, they said, are more difficult to grab than pictures.
"People want to see how things work," they admonished. Illustrators joined the team
part-time during the final phase of the study. Each team added illustrations to each paper.
The screenwriters also advised that films were becoming increasingly environmental.
That is, successful films "created an environment where people want to be." The task for
SPACECAST, they alleged, was to show through the product ideas that we had created a
good and valuable environment. The screenwriters and others also objected to the charter
SPACECAST had given itself. "Envision the capabilities and hardware that would be
required to control and exploit space for national security in the far future." SPACECAST
took this advice to heart and knew that creating the vision of an environment where
people wanted to be would be a goal of the final phase and a test of the final product.
The Air Command and Staff College's School of Advanced Airpower Studies
voluntarily provided a military analysis of the emerging ideas. Thirty scholars in this
specialized course focusing specifically on the attributes of air and space power studied
the candidate white papers with an eye toward improving them. They produced hundreds
of useful comments on the papers. Their valuable suggestions included organizing the
concepts into a hierarchy of value and linking each task to whatever SPACECAST
believed would be the national security strategy and national military strategy of the far
future. Moreover, the school identified numerous small internal inconsistencies in and
among the evolving papers. This review expanded the SPACECAST network of
partners, increased the educational value of the SPACECAST study, and enhanced the
curriculum of the School of Advanced Airpower Studies.
Phase Three: Verification and Finishing
Inventing or creating is hard work. It is even more difficult when one does not know
what it is one is inventing or creating until it's invented. The last step in the creative
process-verification-would determine the value of SPACECAST's creative insights or
illuminations. External assessors and the study participants bore the burden of a creative
process that moved so quickly it was always dysynchronous. That is, depending on the
next scheduled deliverable-a briefing or a draft of the white paper-the white papers and
briefings were never synchronized. One was always more current than the other.
Reviewers understood and were sympathetic. As the 50 candidate white papers became
26 papers, then 18 papers, illumination arrived. The EXRAT, the Executive Board, the
Advisory Group, and later Air University's Air Force Institute of Technology (AFIT)
facilitated illumination and provided verification. AFIT's operational analysis of the
SPACECAST discoveries provided the final element of verification. A joint meeting of
the Advisory Group and the Executive Board provided what General Kelley called "the
end-of-runway check" immediately prior to his briefing to General McPeak. The specific
white papers produced are listed in Figure 2.
Figure 2. White Paper Titles
The EXRAT met to review the pre-final drafts of the white papers and to receive all the
10-minute briefings that described their contents. The participants found this to be a very
grueling two-day process. The EXRAT members were scientists and technologists,
experts in all the areas of space science and space operations. Their pointed questions
and comments illustrated the kinds of tests that new ideas could expect to face in the
space community. Although exhausting for the participants, the EXRAT review resulted
in numerous refinements to the white papers.
When the Executive Board next met, SPACECAST took a different approach. Time did
not allow the Executive to receive all of the 10-minute briefings. Instead, each Executive
Board member examined the ideas in one or two white papers in great detail. While the
prior review by the EXRAT was discouraging for many of the teams, this review
encouraged each team. The Executive, senior military officers, praised the work of the
teams, focused on the positive aspects of each idea, and provided useful suggestions on
ways to improve the ideas or their explanation.
Like the EXRAT, the Advisory Group met to hear and evaluate each briefing. The
Advisory Group took the middle ground. That is, they affirmed and encouraged the study
participants but warned that some ideas or some technologies may prove to be faulty.
The Advisory Group admonished the participants to make their assumptions about
technological development more explicit, to give better evidence of analysis, and to
anticipate and address shortcomings in each idea. These reviews completed, the ideas
were ready for final evaluation. AFIT's department of operational research was
challenged to find an analytic model that could rank-order the value of SPACECAST
systems. This was a five-step process.
The AFIT Technology Team completed the first step. The team read each of the
classified and unclassified papers produced by the SPACECAST team. Faculty editors
and advisors had already reviewed the final drafts of each paper. The papers were
revised, as required, to communicate as logically and effectively as possible. The
purpose of the Technology Team review was to identify and describe coherent systems
communicated in the compilation of papers.
Contained within the SPACECAST white papers were 19 identifiable systems. These
systems formed the SPACECAST force structure of the far future and are shown in Table
6. Some papers contained technologies that did not form a separate system. When the
Technology Team review was complete, the SPACECAST team was confident that all
the enabling systems had been captured and described.
Table 6
Enabling Systems
The Technology Team proceeded to the second step: identifying the technologies that
enabled the described system to operate or function as envisioned. The definitions in the
Department of Defense Military Critical Technology List provided the standard for
describing the enabling technologies. When this step was complete, all the essential
enabling technologies supporting the 19 enabling systems had been identified. There
were 25 of these, identified in Table 7.
Table 7
Enabling Technologies
The third step was the most difficult one. The Technology Team, supported by the
experts from the AFIT department of operational research had to select an evaluation
scheme that could differentiate the comparative value of each of the systems. Since none
of the 19 systems were extant, traditional evaluation schemes-such as strategy to task--could not be used. AFIT selected the "Value-Focused Thinking" scheme as the most
appropriate evaluative tool. This tool required the quantification of qualities that enabled
a system to contribute to some goal. In the case of SPACECAST, the goal was the
contribution that a system made to the missions or force activities described in the
February 1994 draft Joint Chiefs of Staff Publication (JCS PUB) 3-14, Military Space
Operations: Tactics, Techniques, and Procedures. This document, agreed upon by all the
armed forces, described four space missions or areas of activity and 15 tasks associated
with the four missions.
The fourth step in analysis required that the SPACECAST team describe, quantify,
and weigh the force qualities or attributes that enabled the 15 space tasks to contribute to
or accomplish the four space missions or activities. This effort had never been attempted
before. SPACECAST identified over 90 force qualities. These 90 force qualities would
eventually require over 1,800 separate decisions to evaluate all the SPACECAST
systems.
The fifth and final step required that each SPACECAST system be pushed through
the analytical model to determine its weight or contribution to all military space
operations. The weight of a system logically lent itself to identification of the weights
that different technologies carried. After completing the operational analysis, the 19
systems and the 25 enabling technologies were rank-ordered. Rank-ordering identified
the higher leverage systems and technologies in the universe of SPACECAST.
Excursions, using different values for SPACECAST's alternative futures illuminated
changes in value as the characteristics of the future changed.
At around the same time, interest in the SPACECAST study increased. The secretary
of the Air Force requested and received an update briefing from General Kelley. In
series, a number of visitors came to Maxwell Air Force Base to study SPACECAST's
initial findings. These visitors came from the Office of the Secretary of Defense for Net
Assessment, the Central Intelligence Agency, the National Reconnaissance Office, the
Defense Intelligence Agency, the United States Space Command, the Air Force's Phillips
Laboratory, and the Headquarters Air Force Directorate of Studies and Analysis. Each
was eager to have a copy of the final report and the materials used to create it.
Once the internal analysis was complete, and except for preparing the report for
delivery to General McPeak, the SPACECAST creative effort was finished. A small
team from among the Advisory Group met in mid-June to assess the results in preparation
for a final, joint meeting of the Advisory Group and Executive Board. The combined
oversight groups endorsed the final product and advised General Kelley as to how he
might present the findings to the chief of staff of the Air Force.
General Kelley presented the three volumes of the final report to General McPeak on
22 June 1994, approximately one year after the initial tasking. General Kelley briefed
General McPeak that SPACECAST had fulfilled its mandate for creativity. In the most
flattering word in the lexicon of military aviation, General McPeak called the results of
SPACECAST a "Shack," or a perfect score. He expressed delight with the process and
its findings and announced his intention to 'wring every last drop out of the report" by
translating its best ideas into operational requirements.
Conclusion
The SPACECAST team had expected to create satellites that did a few new or
different things. The team anticipated some new proposals for space lift. The team also
had envisioned the possibility that there were new ways to do business. What
SPACECAST had not envisioned, however, was that the sum of its ideas would result in
a vision that could change the way in which military forces operated and the equipment
used to operate in the future.
The SPACECAST vision of military space operations in 2020 and beyond was one
where many military systems were largely indistinguishable from commercial or civil
ones. Many military space systems, like private and scientific ones, had the collection
and transmission of information as their objective. Global surveillance or global view
fulfilled the requirement for global information. Global view was not possible without
Global Presence. General McPeak provided the insight into the importance of Global
Presence.
SPACECAST also concluded that the military had a need for more granular data
more often, but nonmilitary needs did not always require separate spacecraft. Different
software and different data handling protocols were all that distinguished some military
space systems from others. The objective of the envisioned SPACECAST force structure
was not so much to control space; terrestrial, transatmospheric, and subspace vehicles
could, in a crisis, provide the space equivalent of control or air superiority. Nor was the
objective of military systems to exploit space per se. Space in the SPACECAST view
was more than a place. Space was more because it represented the uppermost set of
nodes in a vertical network that was cross-linked and down-linked throughout the full
vertical dimension. Space itself was not exploited. The advantages provided by Global
Presence were exploited by operating in space and integrating the full vertical dimension.
The on-orbit force structure envisioned in SPACECAST was the space analog of, or
was equivalent to, the movement from mainframe computer systems to PCs and the
smaller distributed systems that occurred in the 1980s. Moreover, SPACECAST
envisioned a space force structure that was a vertically integrated network spanning from
the earth all the way up to space. That is, earth portals were linked to space portals both
directly and indirectly. Small and proliferated interconnected satellite constellations
made the direct linkages. Medium- and high-altitude remotely piloted vehicles, long
loiter time subspace relay and collection vehicles, and transatmospheric vehicles made
the indirect linkages. Space became the air writ large, the last exit, and the most
important entryway to the planet's information highway.
Space also became the place from which humankind could be protected against the
next generation of threats. SPACECAST postulated defending the planet from asteroid
impacts as an important future military-civil-commercial mission. As the US capitalized
on earth-looking systems, the SPACECAST team saw the need to simultaneously look
outward and defend our common home against the kinds of errant rocks that could
damage it or destroy it. Earth became more borderless, the "little blue pixel" that Carl
Sagan reported seeing through Voyager's aperture. As the study team thought about it,
SPACECAST came to understand what the astronauts understood: the planet is, or could
be, looked upon as a whole.
SPACECAST, a military study, did not neglect its responsibilities to create new
combat applications for, from, and in space. These were all in the study findings. Yet
even these evidenced a mature awareness that space was a place that allowed greater
speed, certainty, and greater potential for dominance of position and information than
other places. Combat applications joined the other ideas as part of a larger offering of
ideas, insights, and applications. The final product became a compendium of final
products, each individually tailored to the needs and interests of its intended audience.
What will become of these final products is now in the hands of others.
Was it worth the time, money, and effort? Participants gave their time voluntarily.
Many of the student participants graduated from the Air Command and Staff College
with distinction. One won the United States Space Command Military Space Strategy
Essay Competition. One of the Air War College participants won the Orville and Wilbur
Wright Officership Award. The cost of the study, less than $300 thousand, was marginal
when compared to any other military space study. The educational benefits and the
leadership development opportunities alone were worth the investment in psychic capital
and resources. The value of the ideas and architecture generated may prove to be of
incalculable value. The effects of one canny hardware investment, one breakaway
technology, or one breakthrough vision can be worth millions. This is especially true if
the discovery or investment saves national treasure or national blood. SPACECAST did
its job.
Lessons Learned
Few organizations are as adept as the armed forces of the United States in rapidly
transforming vision into venture. From a standing start, from a university's summer
posture of quiet repose, SPACECAST built a plan, acquired an infrastructure, enrolled
volunteers, and commenced the process of idea-generation directed toward a very specific
goal. All this began within very few weeks. The great strengths of our troops are
discipline, an in-being organizational structure that can quickly get things moving, and
the ability to improvise and adapt within the requirements of a mission, even if the
mission changes. It may be that nonmilitary organizations are incapable of executing the
SPACECAST process, but that is very likely not the case.
To do something similar to SPACECAST with only internal resources would be
exceedingly difficult. It would require an already-established innovation office,
connectivity with experts worldwide, an electronic filing system for handling volumes of
data, an issue-specific resource library, and the creative minds to do the idea-generation
and assessment. Where these attributes do not exist already, however, SPACECAST
participants know that it is possible to create them. Consultants can help create them
temporarily. If others attempt to duplicate these conditions elsewhere, and if creative
individuals are already part of the organization, the following guidelines may be useful.
1. Begin with a very specific purpose and a clear vision of the desired end state.
If the purpose is "create new products," that purpose mandates an approach that is
considerably different from the ones tailored to meet the purpose "educate people about
the operating environment of the future," or "generate ideas for new products." Similarly,
after beginning, the introduction of even small changes in intended function could require
much larger changes in methodology or structural form. In all cases, headwork must
come before the footwork. One of the strengths of the SPACECAST process was the
clear vision provided by the study chair and the obvious confidence that, one way or
another, SPACECAST would fulfill that vision. There were no predetermined correct
answers, and there cannot be if creative new ideas are the goal.
2. Designate only one individual as the critical node in the study network. If the
study is being done within a hierarchical organization, the study group must remain apart
from the firm's existing hierarchy. The commodity being transacted in a study is
knowledge, or ideas, or information. When the commodity is any one of those, networks
are superior to hierarchies. The commodity transacted in hierarchies is power or
authority. A knowledge network cannot function as a power hierarchy. A power
hierarchy is often unable to generate knowledge. General Kelley's insight that he was the
only person in the study team who had the power to say no proved to be extraordinarily
helpful to the study's creative process. Operating outside the established hierarchy
facilitates creativity. Top cover nurtures creativity. Absent empowerment to work
outside the system, the creative process may only endorse what the system already holds
to be true.
3. Build and publish all milestones in advance. Knowing the objectives of the
study in advance and possessing a clear vision of the end state, it is not a difficult chore to
determine each major and interim milestone in advance. In advance means before the
study commences. For SPACECAST, in advance sometimes meant days or even hours in
advance. If the study requires specialized equipment to meet a specific milestone, the
arrival and operational checkout of the equipment is itself a milestone. Knowing who is
responsible for creating or meeting each milestone is also valuable.
4. Do not pass up opportunities, but do not deviate from the schedule unless a
deviation provides extraordinary advantages. There is already considerable adaptive
behavior required when participating in a novel enterprise. If even milestones are in flux,
the participants can become frustrated quickly. An exception, of course, is when the
participants themselves sense an opportunity and want to seize it. Using the right-brain is
exhausting work for most people. Its intensive use must be scheduled to allow periods of
rest interspersed in a production schedule that requires intense periods of creative
activity. SPACECAST could not have succeeded by locking 114 people in a room for a
one-, two-, or three-month study. Incubation takes time.
5. Be open to discovery. This is the creative part and it gives the lie to all the
previous guidelines. An organization committed to and involved in a creative study will
metamorphose and discover new things. Science is a self-correcting process. Art is the
process of concretizing and refining a vision into a rendering. Slavish commitment to
anything discovered to be less good than once thought defeats the purpose of a creative
study. This is especially true if the old thing or way proves to be counterproductive to
some larger purpose or greater awareness. Said another way and by way of example, if
the network is not producing on time or to the level of quality expected, revert to more
hierarchical forms of behavior or organization. Likewise, if broad guidance creates
confusion, narrow it. If specific guidance is confining or creates seams, expand it.
6. Remain aware that history is being made. Depending on the scope of the
effort, detail one person or several people to chronicle the study. For example, it might
be useful to videotape guest lecturer presentations and any briefings or progress reports
made to oversight groups by the study participants. Record the problems and setbacks
with the same fidelity used to memorialize successes. In the case of SPACECAST, the
record of guest speaker presentation became an invaluable educational library. With the
permission of each of the speakers, the use of the videotapes within the Department of
Defense continues to expand. In 2020, they will make a wonderful reflection on what
occurred when people in 1993 and 1994 looked into the future. Each of the participants
also must remain aware that history is being made.
7. Continue. Once a knowledge network exists, and as SPACECAST quickly
learned, dismantling it is not easy. Helpers, advisors, consultants, collaborators, and
lecturers all want to know both what happened and what happens next. Like it or not, the
knowledge network endures long after formally concluding the study. Be aware of this
and plan uses for the network when the initial effort is complete. In the case of
SPACECAST, the commandant of the Air War College directed the college faculty to
study the SPACECAST process and incorporate leverage elements into the core
curriculum. The associate dean of the Air War College faculty, even before the study
concluded, restructured the next year's academic curriculum to begin with a week of
creative thinking training and forward-looking lectures by Alvin and Heidi Toffler and
Carl Builder. The chair of the Air War College department of leadership and strategy
studies requested a presentation to the department faculty on future war and the future
operating environment. Key faculty in the Air War College throughout the SPACECAST
process are continuing to examine the implications of information power and the
changing paradoxes of warfare that study of the future suggested. The SPACECAST
study is finished, but the process continues.
SPACECAST set out to understand the operating environment of 2020, space power,
and the space capabilities and hardware required for national security in the first half of
the Twenty-First century. SPACECAST met those objectives. In the process of meeting
them, SPACECAST created a large knowledge network. SPACECAST gave hundreds of
people new awareness of the perils and promise of the future. Scores had leadership
opportunities they had never expected. All received insights into their own creativity and
the creativity of others.
Even before SPACECAST had completed its middle phase, an Expanded RAT from
one of the Air Force's most important scientific laboratories wrote the laboratory director
that the lab needed to prepare to assess and develop five to seven new ideas. Even before
SPACECAST had completed its middle phase, the institutional Air Force was preparing
to add project research money to its budget in anticipation of SPACECAST's findings.
By standing in the far future and looking backward to the present, SPACECAST helped
plot the course into the future. How that future turns out, of course, cannot be known
until 2020. One thing is certain: the SPACECAST process worked.
Pilots, Navigators/Weapons System Officer & Missile Operations
34
29.8%
Human Resources
15
13.2%
Acquisition
15
13.2%
Communications & Computers
12
10.2%
Engineering & Research and Development
7
6.1%
Navy & Marines
5
4.4%
Space Operations
5
4.4%
Logistics
4
3.5%
Intelligence
4
3.5%
Civilian
4
3.5%
Security Police & Office of Special Investigations
3
2.6%
Weather
2
1.8%
Army
2
1.8%
Finance
1
.9%
Chaplain
1
.9%
114
100%
CREATIVE
FUTURE WORLD
FUTURE TECHNOLOGY
DR ROGER VON OECH
DR CARL SAGAN
COL TED WIERZBANOWSKI
MR BOB KING
DRS STEIN & LUDWIG
COL PETE WORDEN
COL JOHN BOYD, RET
DRS ALVIN & HEIDI TOFFLER
DR EDWARD TELLER
DR JOE HALDEMANN
MR CARL BUILDER
DR LOWELL WOOD
DR JERRY POURNELLE
DR JOHN ARQUILLA
DR F. X. ("DUKE") KANE
SIR ARTHUR C. CLARKE
DR MARTIN VAN CREVELD
DR DAVID WEBB
MR BOB JUSTMAN
COL JOHN WARDEN
DR WENDELL MENDELL
Lt Gen John S. Fairchild
Lt Gen Thad A. Wolfe
PACAF/CV
ACC/CV
Lt Gen Eugene E. Habiger
Lt Gen John G. Lorber
AETC/CV
USAFE/CV
Lt Gen John E. Jackson, Jr.
Lt Gen Dale W. Thompson, Jr.
AMC/CV
AFMC/CV
Lt Gen Thomas S. Moorman, Jr.
BGen James L. Higham
SPACECOM/CV
AFSOC/CV
TEAM 1 = SPACELIFT
TEAM 9 = FORCE APPLICATION
TEAM 2 = COMBAT SUPPORT
TEAM 10 = SURVEILLANCE/RECON
TEAM 3 = COMMAND & CONTROL
TEAM 11 =FORCE ENHANCEMENT
TEAM 4 = COMMAND & CONTROL
TEAM 12 = HUMANS IN SPACE
TEAM 5 = COUNTER SPACE/WEAPONS
TEAM 13 = PLANETARY DEFENSE
TEAM 6 =WEAPONS
TEAM 14 = EDUCATION/TRAINING
TEAM 7 = STRATEGIC ATTACK
TEAM 15 = CIVIL/COMMERCIAL
TEAM 8 = SPECIAL OPERATIONS
MR EDWARD C. ALDRIDGE
COL JOHN R. BOYD
MR ALF L. ANDREASSEN
BG ELMER T. BROOKS
MR BRUNO W. AUGENSTEIN
MR DONALD FUQUA
MR NORMAN R. AUGUSTINE
GEN ALFRED M. GRAY
DR ANTHONY K. HYDER
GEN BENNIE SCHRIEVER
DR JOAN JOHNSON-FREESE
MR JAMES R. THOMPSON, JR
VADM WILLIAM RAMSEY
GEN LARRY D. WELCH
GEN ROBERT W. RISCASSI
DR JOHN P. WHITE
An Information Demand System for the Joint Warfighter of Tomorrow
Leveraging the Infosphere: Surveillance & Reconnaissance in 2020
Navigation & Data Fusion for the 21st Century
Space Traffic Control
21st Century Weather Support Architecture
Space-Based Solar Monitoring & Alert System
Space Weather Support for Communications
Spacelift: Suborbital, Earth to Orbit, and On Orbit
Unconventional Spacelift
Rapid Space Force Reconstitution
Space Modular Systems
Professional Military Education in 2020
Defensive Counterspace
Offensive Counterspace
Force Application
Projecting Information Power in War and Peace
Counterforce Weather Control
Preparing for Planetary Defense
Space-Based Solar
Monitoring and Alert
Satellite System (SMASS)
Global Surveillance,
Reconnaissance & Targeting
System (GSRT)
Weather C3 System
Space Traffic Control
System (SPATRACS)
Orbit Transfer Vehicle (OTV)
Weather Forecast System
Kinetic Energy Weapon
(KEW) System
Orbit Maneuvering Vehicle
(OMV)
Space-Based High Energy
Laser (HEL) System
High Powered Microwave
System
Particle Beam Weapon System
Super Global Positioning
System (S-GPS)
Holographic Projector
Space Modular System(s)
Spacelift
Transatmospheric Vehicle
(TAV)
Ionospheric Forecasting
Asteroid Detection
Solar Mirror System
Asteroid Detection
Advance Materials
Micro-Mechanical Devices
Date Fusion
Navigation, Guidance, and Vehicle
Electromagnetic Communications
Neutral Particle Beam (NPB) Systems
Energetic Materials
Nonchemical High Specific Impulse
Propulsion
Hard Real-Time Systems
Optics
High Energy Laser Systems
Power Systems and Energy Conversion
High Performance Computing
Pulsed Power Systems
High Power Microwave Systems
Robotics, Controllers, and End-Effectors
Image Processing
Sensors
Information Security
Spacecraft Structures
Kinetic Energy Systems
Vehicle Survivability
Lasers
Virtual Reality
Liquid Rocket Propulsion