Third, I commanded AFSPACE, the Air Force space component, by far the largest of the three service components working for CINCSPACE. My job there was to make sure operations went as planned and that satellites were maintained and controlled. I also operated ground stations around the world that collected intelligence, talked to satellites, tracked objects in space, launched satellites, or operated the bases that controlled civilian and NRO-launched satellites. I was additionally responsible for recovery of the space shuttle, should there be a problem. If launches or landings went as advertised, then NASA did the job. But if things went bad, then the job was mine. This is because I had the rescue helicopters and military crews capable of reaching and recovering survivors.

As the commander of AFSPACE, I supervised the staff that built the requirements documents that led to new space systems. I managed the funds needed to operate the space networks, maintained the bases, and had a full staff, like any large component.

And finally, I was responsible for the creation of a pair of institutions of which I remain particularly proud, Fourteenth Air Force and the Space Weapons Center.

Fourteenth AF has assigned to it all the space assets of the USAF and serves as a space component in the event of war.

Its assets include both launch complexes at Vandenburg AFB, California, and Patrick AFB at Cape Canaveral, Florida; Falcon AFB (now Schriever, named after General Bernard A. Schriever, who was the genius behind our development of ICBMs, as well as the engines we use to put satellites into orbit—Atlas, Titan, and Delta) east of Colorado Springs, where the actual flying of satellites is managed; and units around the world that make up the AFCN (Air Force Control Network).

Until Fourteenth AF came into existence, there was no specific space component responsible for war-fighting. Space “products” were simply delivered haphazardly.72

As I said earlier, the space folks didn’t know war, and the warriors did not know space. Therefore the spacers had capabilities that could help the troops with guns, but since they had no idea what the armed mob did, they could not tell them what they had to offer. On the other hand, the armed mob had no idea what was available. Keep in mind, as well, that most of space is highly classified, owing to its long association with the Cold War and national agencies. Is it surprising that the left hand hardly ever knew what the right hand was doing?

The Space Warfare Center was set up to allow a group of people (half of whom were space warriors and half of whom were air warriors) to think about space war and to exercise space war in the same manner that the Fighter Weapons Center had done since the 1960s. They would then bring space to unified command exercises in Korea or the Middle East, or to service war games such as Blue Flag and Red Flag.