COLORADO SPRINGS — Washington is converging on a central premise in space policy: the U.S. must spend more, move faster and coordinate better to stay ahead of China. What remains unsettled is whether the system in place can deliver on that ambition.
That divide between urgency and execution was a theme at an April 12 forum hosted by the Space Foundation ahead of the annual Space Symposium, where officials from Congress, the military, the White House and industry discussed what it will take for the U.S. to maintain its edge in space.
Officials at the forum broadly agreed the U.S. must accelerate investment to compete with China, but there is less consensus on whether the government and industry are equipped to translate funding into capability.
The Trump administration is pressing for substantial increases in defense and military space spending, even as it proposes cuts to NASA, arguing that expanded investment is necessary to maintain technological and operational advantage over Beijing. Congress has largely accepted that premise, with lawmakers signaling bipartisan support for space as a strategic priority.
There is broad agreement on the urgency, but far less on how to execute.
There continues to be a disconnect between government and industry on what exactly the “demand signal” is with regard to space, said top appropriator Sen. Jerry Moran (R-Kan.), pointing to uncertainty in how government priorities translate into long-term business opportunities.
“We are rekindling a whole new generation with human exploration of space, which we’re leading. We’re completely recapitalizing our military architecture in space via a space warfighting architecture that’s resilient, reconstitutable and will allow us to survive any type of fight that we have to do in space,” he said. “And the commercial industry is coming on strong with services.”
The U.S. is leading in all these areas, “but the question is, how do we continue to lead?” Moran said, arguing for “removing friction in the system” and providing clearer, more consistent signals to industry so companies can scale production and invest with confidence.
A fragmented system
Charles Powell, assistant director for space and spectrum at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, said the U.S. risks undermining its own investments through fragmentation across civil, commercial and national security space programs.
“One of the things that I worry about is all of the issues that fall through the cracks,” he said. The traditional separation of space into distinct policy lanes no longer reflects reality. “From my perspective, those are completely overlapping right now.”
Powell’s office helped shape a December 2025 executive order calling for U.S. space superiority. But aligning budgets, requirements and acquisition pathways across agencies remains a more complex task.
The consequences of that fragmentation are practical as much as strategic, Powell suggested. Without coordination, he warned, spending risks being diluted across duplicative or misaligned programs.
Military leaders at the forum described a threat environment evolving faster than the Pentagon’s acquisition system can respond.
Chief Master Sergeant Jacob Simmons, the senior enlisted leader of U.S. Space Command, said the focus on China, while warranted, risks overlooking the broader competitive landscape. Russia, he said, is developing capabilities that could “take everything away,” referencing concerns about a potential space-based nuclear weapon that could disrupt satellites at scale.
“Active shooters are in our area,” Simmons said, underscoring the degree to which space is already contested. “It’s not a matter of whether or not we want to weaponize space. It’s weaponized.”
He pointed to the ongoing conflict with Iran as evidence that adversaries understand the importance of space-enabled capabilities. “The first thing that they attacked … was space enabled capabilities, missile defense capabilities,” he said, referring to Iran’s actions.
At the same time, Simmons noted that China has spent two decades modernizing its space architecture, while the U.S. still relies in part on legacy systems. “So we have to think through how are we going to establish that space superiority on a regular basis and not just episodic basis?” he said.
Speed of development, deployment and iteration, officials insisted, has become as important as technological sophistication.
Industrial capacity
Industry executives said they have begun adapting to new requirements, including the shift toward proliferated satellite constellations and faster development cycles. But they warned that scaling those efforts will require changes in how the government buys technology.
Edward Zoiss, vice president of engineering and innovation at L3Harris Technologies, said satellite development timelines have shrunk from roughly a decade to about three years, but that is still not fast enough.
“Three years is still a long time, and how do we go faster?” he said. The answer, in part, is for the government to rely more on commercial designs and reduce customization. “We need help from the government” to buy what already works and scale it, he said.
Others emphasized that capital alone won’t expand the industrial base. Dan Jablonsky, chief executive of Sierra Space, said investors need predictable demand, not just policy rhetoric, to commit funding.
“You need to have more than just, ‘I think we’re going to go in this direction and we throw some, quote, unquote signals out to the ether,’” he said.
He warned that inconsistent government commitment has already eroded U.S. advantages in other sectors such as shipbuilding and critical minerals. “If we don’t pay attention to this, we’ll start to lose that advantage that we have in the space domain.”
The procurement problem
Even the White House and Congress push for higher spending, including proposals that could more than double the U.S. Space Force budget, officials acknowledged that the procurement system remains a bottleneck.
Powell described a fundamental issue: “the U.S. government is not a great customer. We are a very, very difficult customer to work with.”
He argued that acquisition processes remain overly rigid, emphasizing compliance with detailed specifications rather than outcomes. “We should be really thinking about ways in which we can execute to meet the mission and not execute to meet a spec,” he said.
William Adkins, principal deputy director of the National Reconnaissance Office, echoed that view, stressing the need for technically sophisticated government buyers who can manage complex tradeoffs and deliver capability incrementally.
“Sometimes you only get 80% of the capability, because that’s where you are now, and you have to evolve into things,” he said.
That approach — fielding systems faster and improving them over time — marks a departure from traditional procurement models but aligns more closely with how commercial technology is developed.
Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Ala.), chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, said expanding the industrial base will be a central theme of this year’s defense authorization bill.
“We want to find out how we can help, from a policy standpoint, be able to double production over the next five years,” he said.
Rogers pushed back on claims that the government’s demand signal is weak, pointing to proposed budget increases as evidence of sustained commitment. “This is going to be the new normal,” he said.
Still, others at the forum argued that predictability matters as much as scale. Moran noted that industry investment decisions depend on confidence that appropriated funds will materialize and programs will persist.
The question is no longer whether space is strategically important, as there is near-universal agreement that it is, but whether the U.S. system can adapt quickly enough to compete.
Participants at the forum repeatedly returned to the same conclusion: Budgets are critical but the challenge is converting that money into space hardware, services and operational capability at the pace required by a contested domain, while aligning a fragmented policy landscape, modernizing procurement and expanding an industrial base that is still catching up to demand.
“I think the demand signal is there,” Powell said. “The challenge here is on the execution side of the house.”