Forget the Exquisite Satellites

That's the message from the thinking man's Marine, General James Cartwright, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who told a U.S. Chamber of Commerce confab in Washington yesterday that the Defense Department may lose its edge in space because of a policy that has led to slow development of costly satellites.

Cartwright did not mention any Defense satellite program by name, but made it clear that Defense needs to find a less expensive and quicker way to develop and deploy space systems. The U.S. faces diminishing returns on what he called "exquisite" satellites that are so expensive that the department can only afford to launch one or two, and then have to wait another five years to start the process again.