Lean times likely to mean smaller, cheaper satellites, space chief says

America’s top space general delivered a message about shrinking budgets to defense contractors on Tuesday with lyrics from the Rolling Stones.

“You can’t always get what you want,” Air Force Space Command’s Gen. William Shelton told a packed auditorium during the National Space Symposium at The Broadmoor.

Shelton didn’t offer numbers, but said the command at Peterson Air Force Base will have less to spend on big-ticket items such as satellites and ground monitoring stations. He told the crowd, which represented a healthy chunk of the 9,000 people attending this year’s symposium, that the Air Force must figure out how to complete orbital missions on a pedestrian budget.

“Our budget will at best be flat and there are some draconian predictions out there that have our budget heading down steeply,” Shelton said.

Any budget cut at Space Command could send shock waves through the Colorado Springs economy. At $12.3 billion, the command’s annual budget makes Colorado’s $7.6 billion state general fund look puny.

Cuts to the command’s bottom line will cost jobs in Colorado, said Brian Binn, president of military affairs for the Greater Colorado Springs Chamber of Commerce.

“Everybody’s concerned at not knowing what will happen,” he said.

The Defense Department earlier this year rolled out a $78 billion budget-cutting plan that left Space Command virtually unscathed. But with Congress looking at slimming a deficit now estimated at $1.5 trillion for 2011, deeper cuts seem a certainty.

“As you look forward, we’re in some tight times and the Department of Defense won’t go unscathed,” Binn said.

Shelton floated some ideas for cuts during his address to the symposium.

He suggested a future with smaller, cheaper satellites that can be built without a heavy tab for research and development.

“It may be with just good enough technology rather than pushing the envelope,” he said.

The problem, Shelton said, is that military and civilian reliance on satellites operated by Space Command keeps increasing.

“Logic would say we ought to get more money, but we aren’t going to get more money,” said Shelton, who is scheduled to testify before a congressional committee on Friday about the command’s budget requirements.

Shelton knows he won’t get everything he wants from Congress this year.

But, quoting the Rolling Stones song again, the general said he’s hopeful that the command will be able to do its job on less money.

“You can’t always get what you want, but if you try, sometimes you might find you get what you need.”

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