By Chris Forrester
Lori Gordon, Director, Space Enterprise Evolution Directorate, The Aerospace Corp. was given the enviable task of wrapping up the two previous day’s activity at the Silicon Valley Space Week and in particular the MilSat Symposium. She was more than qualified for the task having lead enterprise integration initiatives related to international competition and collaboration, commercial ventures, and legislative and regulatory frameworks in support of space infrastructure and economic growth, security, and resilience, all in the national interest.
Jeremy Leader, Dep. Director/Commercial Space Office (COMSO), US Space Force, and said his main ‘call to action’ for government was the risk of changing – but there also a huge risk in not changing!
Alvaro Sanchez, President, Intergrasys (and the recent recipient of a Knighthood), told delegates that his company was already a major supplier to government but those government abilities and how they relate to the commercial world as essential. “It brings speed, ability, and flexibility. It is not good if government is travelling at 60 mph but commercial is travelling at 150 mph and thus government will never keep up. At the end of the day, we think industry must work with government. Government can easily benefit from commercial, while companies can adapt for government and this includes cyber-security, as well as different layers of security.”
Ben Bowen, Principal Business Development Manager, Amazon Web Services (AWS) told delegates that his main ‘call to action’ was not to be intimated by early discussions with government for start-ups. We at AWS can help with some certifications and clarifications to help businesses navigate those first steps.
James Crean, President/CTO Crean Inc., a 650 employee business, said that the supply base had to consider scale, and how to take a magnitude of costs and cycle time in what they do (with a government contract). The moderator told the audience that Crean was famous outside the industry as having been on The Wheel of Fortune a couple of times, with a 25-year gap between two appearances!
Leader said that the relationship between the DoD and the commercial sector was already solid, and well-integrated. But the options are growing, and the SatCom markets needed to maintain awareness with government as to what they had on offer.
Bowen argued that the commercial sector was more than competent in many, many areas. “Think of banking, and market trading, or other highly-secure commercial systems out there. We’ve got AWS Cloud security protocols and can help small commercial businesses can open the door for them to work with government.”
Crean said that in relative peacetime was easy to understand, and that users didn’t take kindly if their Google Maps was slow for whatever reason. But in times of high military demand on commercial operators their spike in demand could be huge.