The U.S. Air Force for a while fostered among acquisition professionals "insight, not oversight." There were many insightful leaders during my 30-year Air Force career. But foresight would have been better than hindsight in critical space capabilities. The Space Fence is our nation's only real space surveillance asset in the sense that it perceives a large volume of space and can detect almost all orbital objects that penetrate that volume. More than 80 percent of low Earth orbit objects are perceived every day. No one has to direct the Space Fence to look in any particular place. All other space surveillance sensors have to be told where to look based on extrapolation of orbits developed in advance.
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