Space Command looking for more, young talent

The average space industry professional is age 50.


Space Command looking for more, young talent
By Patrick Winn - Staff writer
Posted : Thursday Nov 8, 2007 22:09:36 EST

At a time when space-based military assets are crucial to U.S. national security interests around the world, including the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, some service leaders worry that Air Force Space Command is failing to entice the talented, scientifically oriented young airmen it needs to carry out its mission.

The roughly 19,000 active-duty personnel who serve in Space Command constitute less than 6 percent of the total personnel strength in the service.

That may be too few, officials say, to create, support and defend satellites and other space assets. Already this year, China has tested anti-satellite missiles and tried to disable a U.S. satellite, and Russia has warned the U.S. not to militarize space.

More worrisome still, however, is that the average space industry professional is 50 years old, and experts expect that the military, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and the civilian space industry will suffer a shortfall of engineers in the next decade.

Baby boomers raised in the dawn of space exploration gravitated toward the field. But since then, “We’ve lost a little of that glamour,” said Air Force Col. Sean McClung, director of the National Space Studies Center at Air University in Montgomery, Ala. The Air Force must steer more young talent toward space, McClung said, and recapitalize a space curriculum that lacks enough “maturity of thought.”

“You can’t reach out and touch a satellite in space. Unless you look up on a dark night and see the satellite going over you, you can’t see that capability,” McClung said in an interview with Air Force Times. “But we’re very dependent on space from a service perspective.”


Rest of article at: http://www.airforcetimes.com/news/2007/11/airforce_space_jobs_071108/