Bill Woolf: Randy and Mike, welcome to the show. We're so glad to have you here.

Randy Schriver: Thanks for having us.

Mike Kuiken: Thank you.

Bill Woolf: before we dig into China's space program, I want to make sure our listeners understand what the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission actually is, because it's one of the most important bodies in Washington that most Americans probably have never heard of. Randy, you were appointed to the commission by Senate Republican leader John Thune. Mike, you were appointed by Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer. The 2025 annual report, all 700 plus pages of it, was approved unanimously

Dillon Cox | NSpC: Hi, my name is Dylan Cox and I go by Brick. I'm the chair of the National Space Power Center Committee at the Space Force Association. The NSPC is rolling out throughout 2026.

Bill Woolf: by all 12 commissioners, which is made up of a bipartisan group. In a Washington where almost nothing gets bipartisan agreement anymore, why does China, and specifically the China Space Challenge, produce consensus?

Dillon Cox | NSpC: immersive mission threads, strategic wargaming, and concept evolution tools built for senior leaders from government, industry, academia, and our allied partners, all in an unclassified environment. No clearance required. The goal is simple. You walk in knowing space matters and you walk out understanding what it costs when it doesn't and what has to change.

Randy Schriver: Well, thanks. You know, we were set up in 2000, we're one of the older commissions. ⁓ legislation in 2000 stood up officially in 2001. And so, ⁓ not Mike and I personally, but the commission and commissioners have been at this for a while. And I think one of the defining qualities is

Dillon Cox | NSpC: We're actively building our industry consortium. Sidero, Redwire, ComSpok, and OpenC3 are already on board as our first partners, contributing advanced simulation and visualization capabilities to power the experience. If you want to bring a team through, partner with us building this out or just learn more about what we're standing up. Reach out directly at nspc at usfa.org. That's nspc at usfa.org. You can also find us through the Space Force Association at usfa.org. This is the work.

Bill Woolf: The average American touches space 50 times a day and doesn't even know it. And most of the people who fund, legislate, and make decisions about that infrastructure have never once sat in a room and watched what happens when it goes away. Today, we sat down with Randy Shriver and Mike Kuiken, the chair and vice chair of the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission. Their 2025 annual report ran 700 plus pages, approved unanimously by six Republicans and six Democrats.

Randy Schriver: ⁓ the common purpose of understanding the trajectory of China, the challenges and threats it presents, and a spirit of ⁓ wanting to cooperate on how to get to responses, solutions, answers to all these challenges China presents. I think space is a particularly interesting area because of how rapidly the environment has changed in the last decade. ⁓ Many of these challenges associated with China are incremental.

Dillon Cox | NSpC: Come be a part of it. Thank you.

Bill Woolf: In today's Washington, that alone should stop you cold. And for the first time on this show, I had a co-host. I'll let him introduce himself. I'm Bill Wolfe, and this is Space Power.

Randy Schriver: and we sort of have time to do the deep analysis and come up with a variety of possible policy options and debate and come up with proposed solutions, recommendations. ⁓ But space, the Chinese advancements have been so rapid that we're almost already ⁓ in a defensive crouch having to kind of understand ⁓ the full landscape with China's advancements and the threats that they pose.

Dillon Cox | NSpC: Before joining SFA, I was an active duty Air Force officer. I currently serve as a reservist and I was the seated contractor supporting SAF-SQ. I'm now in industry and have been serving as an SFA volunteer since 2023 in the DC chapter. The NSPC was set up in December 2025 with one mission, to help our nation's leaders, whether in Congress, industry, or the Joint Force, better understand space as a warfighting domain and make better informed decisions about how space is the ultimate force multiplier, the first mover in current and future national security matters. Lawmakers, executives, allied partners, most of them know space matters, but the NSPC was created to help them understand why space matters. That's the gap we're closing through immersive simulations, strategic war gaming, and unclassified engagement tools.

Randy Schriver: very comprehensive. There's economic aspects to this. There's certainly military aspects to this. So I think we have the sense that there's an urgency to the work of this commission. Whereas oftentimes we have it when it comes to space, whereas oftentimes we have the ability to be a more a bit more deliberative and do analysis over the course of maybe multiple cycles. This is one where we really need to move with some urgency and there's bipartisan consensus on that. If I could say that to my with

Dillon Cox | NSpC: built for senior leaders, only a few blocks away from Capitol Hill. This conversation with Randy and Mike is exactly why the center exists. I'm glad it's on Space Power. Enjoy.

Randy Schriver: my vice chair on the call monitoring if I could say there's consensus across party lines, think it's the case.

Mike Kuiken: I think Randy did a nice job of sort of telling the commission story. ⁓ I left Leader Schumer's office and ⁓ Leader Schumer put me on this commission. when you work in the Capitol and you work in the leader's office, you know, one of the things you sort of do every day is you're either bear hugging or knife fighting with your colleague on the other side of the aisle. And I remember one of the first meetings I came to the commission, I was ready to roll up my sleeves and start knife fighting again.

Bill Woolf: Six Republicans, six Democrats, one unanimous conclusion. It's not too late, but the window is closing faster than most people realize. Randy's ask was simple. Give the commission 15 minutes. Mike's read chapter seven of the 2025 annual report. We'll link both in the show notes. Please take them up on it. If this conversation moved you, ussfa.org is where you go next. Questions, comments, and episode ideas go to podcasts.

Mike Kuiken: You know, we were talking about like puppies and unicorns and holding hands and jumping off the cliff together. was it was absolutely jarring. At the same time, it was totally welcoming. I spent 12 and a half years on the Senate Armed Services Committee and the committee is one of the few places where we still get legislation done on Capitol Hill every year. And there was always, you know, there was plenty of disagreement. But at the same time, there was always a way to proceed in sort of a bipartisan manner and getting to the commission and starting to roll my sleeves up and work with folks in very similar way to my time.

Bill Woolf: at USSFA.org. We read everyone. And if you're not subscribed, now is the time. A lot of great conversations are on their way. Space Power is produced by Ty Holliday. I'm Bill Wolf, and we'll see you next time.

Mike Kuiken: on the Armed Services Committee was refreshing and Randy's been a fantastic partner. My partner on the space ⁓ hearing and the space chapter was a guy named Cliff Sims, who's no longer on the commission, but was a senior Trump appointee and remains close to the Trump administration and dear friend. And he was a great partner on this chapter and this endeavor. just as another demonstration of what Randy talked about, which is that there's a lot of bipartisanship here.

Dillon Cox | NSpC: So we understand the NSPC from the National Power Center, ⁓ a lot of the challenges associated with being able to get consensus. ⁓ let alone being able to visualize and ⁓ accurately depict the challenges that we face with China. ⁓ From your perspective, how can SFA, but the NSPC specifically, lean into that ⁓ gap of understanding and make a little bit more progress with painting the picture of the threat environment, but also the gravity of us, not only ⁓ maintaining space superiority, but trying to establish space dominance.

Randy Schriver: Yeah, mean, some of the things you read about China's advancement in space can seem a bit abstract and highly technical. But given my background in the Navy and several tours at the Department of Defense, I think about the real practical implications of what China has achieved and what it might mean for the battle space. And the example that I often give is that, you know, a decade ago, a carrier battle group out of San Diego could have gotten underway and transited across the Pacific and into the Western Pacific areas where ⁓ the real competition with China is unfolding and known contention. contingencies are planned for. We could have made that transit across the Pacific with China really seeing and being able to sense and track the carrier battle group only intermittently, ⁓ if at all, in the eastern part of the Pacific. Now they can have persistent coverage and they can see the carrier battle group for the entire transit from when it leaves port in San Diego and then enters areas such as the South China Sea. That difference means they can develop a tracking and target quality data which can be harvested for the purposes of actually ⁓ having strike capability against our carrier battle group. So, you know, to put it in very concrete terms, a decade ago we could transit with only intermittent coverage from the Chinese and arrive on station ⁓ in good shape. Now we can be tracked the entire way and targeted the entire way. And if you spread that across the domain of the maritime areas of the Pacific, that's a very significant change in a very short period of time. And if you're in Congress and you have not only oversight responsibilities to Space Force and the defense enterprise, but you have to think about the future force, you have to think about ⁓ how to modernize the joint force that's fit for purpose, these are things you have to take into account.

Dillon Cox | NSpC: ⁓ Thanks Randy, I appreciate that. You see that bipartisanship ⁓ at play, especially in hearing season, right? We see the kind of questions that are being asked of the Secretary of the Air Force and specifically the Chief of Space Operations ⁓ really indicate that there is a bipartisan consensus that space as a warfighting domain ⁓ requires the proper funding and ⁓ advocacy and support. So Mike, guess, quick question over to you. Does that bipartisan consensus carry over to how we think about the Space Force and its funding? and specifically as we kind of tackle the China problem understanding that this is going to be expensive and it's going to require a whole of America approach to really accurately and succinctly address the challenges therein.

Mike Kuiken: Dylan, the first thing I just go back to some of the words that you said, which is the space is a war fighting domain. think one of the things that the commissioner heard loud and clear and I don't know if it was one of the first times General Saltzman said it, but it was certainly one of the first times I heard it very clearly from somebody in the Pentagon, which is that space is in fact a war fighting domain in the eyes of the Chinese military. And the reason that's important is I think is you sort of back in the time machine and go back to the early days of space. We saw it as an area of exploration. and an area of opportunity and sort of putting a man on the moon, going to Mars, thinking about Europa and some of these other things. And that transition, I think, by the Chinese from exploratory to warfighting domain really has changed the game in terms of how, ⁓ from a national security perspective, we have to evaluate the scenario. And General Saltzman did ⁓ an absolutely fantastic job of painting that picture in a very clear ⁓ and plain spoken way, which I thought was very refreshing. As somebody who's been doing space stuff for a long time, I was I was actually sort of shocked at how much he was willing to say in an open hearing. And I think it's really important to shine a bright light on that. In terms of funding, Dylan, just to get your question, I think I don't remember the exact wording of the recommendation, but we did say very explicitly that one of the things that happened after the creation of the Space Force was that there was no hard conversations in the Pentagon about reallocation of funding between the services and how that needed to be done. that's the first thing that needs to be wire brushed. There's a lot of folks doing a lot of stuff in space and a lot of it's not happening in Space Force. And so I think that's a tough conversation in a Pentagon, whether the budget is $1 trillion or $1.5 trillion, that conversation needs to be had. I think that's the first thing that needs to happen. And then once that conversation happens, I do think we need to have a serious conversation about, you know, is more funding required? And what are the capabilities that we need to deploy with that capability? And then the other thing I would say is one of the things we've seen in the space community broadly over the years is the pursuit of exquisite and not the good enough. And I think that that's another sort of evaluation that needs to happen inside of the department. I've been in all kinds of ⁓ space facilities over the years looking at satellites. And I mean, they are exquisite. And sometimes you sort of have to wonder like, does everything need to be rad hard? I'm not sure. And that's one of the things that SpaceX has sort of proven out that it doesn't need to be, not everything does need to be rad hard. rather than sending up one thing that lasts for 20 years, how about we send up 500 things that, you know, over the course of 20 years, we're able to actually spin in technological innovation and do some of these things. And I think a lot of those conversations are starting to happen, not only in sort of military space and intelligence space, but also in civilian space. And we're seeing that with ⁓ Starlink right now. And I think that sort of innovation wave is gonna continue to develop in the coming years.

Bill Woolf: No, what you talk about, Mike, in terms of the technology is exactly right. As technology continues to advance, there are some concessions that can probably be made in other domains. We just have to have that hard discussion. The commission's 2025 annual report includes chapter seven, the final frontier, China's ambitions to dominate space. It's nearly 500 pages on a 700 page document, but it's one of the most significant chapters in the report. One analogy that came up repeatedly in your public discussions of the report, the US is cruising at 60 miles an hour. China isn't alongside us yet, but they're approaching fast. In 2015, China conducted 19 orbital launches. By 2025, that number exceeded 90. They've launched over a thousand satellites in the last decade. Here's a question that framing raises. Is the speed of the problem or is it the direction? Because China has explicitly declared space a war fighting domain, the US only recently adopted that framing formally. What changed in China's posture that made this chapter impossible to leave out of the report?

Randy Schriver: Yeah, it... It's their rapid advancement and it's the fact that not only do they define it as a war fighting domain, they've demonstrated particular capabilities that prove their developing doctrine, their developing war fighting concepts that involve counter space. We could go back to the ASAT test that they conducted that we're still living with the debris in space related to that exercise, but we've tracked them testing directed energy. We've tracked them testing ⁓ jamming capabilities. ⁓ So I think that's ⁓ proof enough that they view it as a warfighting domain. And please understand for listeners, that doesn't just mean space-based assets and how they apply to Chinese warfighting ⁓ on the Earth's surface, whether that be land or maritime domains, excuse me, but this means counter space. So they're thinking about how to blind us, how to disrupt communications. They're thinking very much about domination and in particular ⁓ in a wartime scenario how they disable us to the point that it would really restrict our ability to generate combat power. ⁓ So I think this was probably ⁓ beyond the time we should have had a chapter like this given Chinese advancements. But I think in particular it's those demonstrated capabilities. where by the way we've had our hands tied behind our back by the way we've defined ⁓ our space activities and where sort of appropriate lines of types of activities were drawn. We've basically thought about the military aspects of space ⁓ as being really sort of defensive and defending what our assets ⁓ need to be able to operate in a contested environment. Not so much the offensive piece or the counter space piece. have recommendations related to that, that we should step up war gaming related to space activities and field the capabilities to have robust counter space capabilities.

Mike Kuiken: You know, ⁓ Bill, first of all, I'm glad that you enjoyed the title. One of the ⁓ things that sort of made me into a space geek originally was watching Star Trek with my mom. And she passed away during COVID. And as we were writing this thing, I was like, I know exactly what I'm going to make the title of this chapter. So I was, ⁓ I'm glad you saw that. You know, the analogy, and also by the way, the analogy, thought at some point, Randy was going to make me give the analogy. So I'm glad you... ⁓ you caught that analogy that we've been using about the highway. mean, if you think about driving down the highway and that car comes up beside you all of sudden at 100 miles an hour, your car does rattle and your windows do have that sort of punch of air that comes through the side of it. And it is jarring, right? And we're going to see that happening. ⁓ Your directional comment is important because I think one of the things that we're seeing, and I'm actually going to steal an analogy from one of our other hearings, which Randy and I ⁓ co-chaired, which was made in China 2025. One of the things we're seeing the Chinese do is pursue a whole of nation approach. What does that mean? That means all of the things Randy just said. also means they're showing it's cool to grow up to be an engineer. It's showing it's cool to become a space engineer or a rocket scientist. And those kind of things, instead of, you know, encouraging people to become an influencer on the TikTok or whatever the kids are using these days, is a much different approach. That is something that is directionally important. The other thing they're doing is they are doing pretty impressive things in the civilian side of their space program, which I think the thing we've learned is that there is really no civilian program in China, but they have landed on the far side of the moon. They have returned a lunar sample. These are impressive, impressive things that they are doing. I mean, we just canceled basically our Mars sample return program. These are things that are going to need to happen and are going to need to happen quickly if we're going to be serious about continuing to lead the global space race. And I think it's something that people need to sort of keep their eye on. Artemis is important. What is after Artemis is also important. Being the first to have ⁓ a base on the moon is important. Those are things we need to think about. If China gets there first, we know exactly what they're going to do. We're already seeing what they do in deep sea mining where they hoover up land rights all over the place and then pillage those resources. We should assume it'll be no different on the moon. And this tried and true technique that we're seeing them do is important to expose, shine a light on and talk about. and also to have a very deliberate strategy about how we counter it.

Dillon Cox | NSpC: Yeah, Mike, those are really great points. And I think that the cadence that Bill kind of teed Randy up to initially answer the question, you can really contextualize everything that you just talked about except. ⁓ by 10x, 100x, maybe even 200x over the next 10 to 15 years. And that's really hard to brief a member of Congress in a way that allows them to really feel the impact. So if you kind of were able to put them in an environment where they, instead of just being able to brief, from 2015 to 2025, here's the difference in scale that we're seeing from a launch perspective. But now I can put you in an environment so you can see it. You can understand that there's an actual visual impact impact and what that means for our guardians, specifically our Space Force guardians on what they can and can't do if we see the domain being completely swarmed with CCP assets. That changes the conversation and it changes the sense of urgency from members on the Hill. So Randy, I'll kick this over to you and then back over to you, Mike. When you're making this case to lawmakers, what's the moment that actually lands? Like what makes this threat environment real for them and how can we build that digital ecosystem to create visualization and a compelling story so we can support the Space Force in making making it real.

Randy Schriver: Yeah, so I think I started to address that a bit with the example of a carrier transiting across the Pacific. That is ⁓ extremely consequential, the difference between a... basic free transit without being detected or detected intermittently to being tracked and potentially targeted the whole way. So I think bringing the abstract and the conceptual into the concrete and particularly when it comes to military matters. mean, if you look at a potential contingency in the Taiwan Strait, the South China Sea or the East China Sea, and you talk about how we fight and how reliant we are on space. And by the way, the Chinese themselves ⁓ are becoming reliant. similar vulnerabilities. ⁓ But talking through a contingency in a scenario, imagine if all of a sudden our ability to sense and track Chinese launches, Chinese movement of surface vessels, all of a sudden we're blinded. Imagine our ability to communicate ⁓ across ⁓ units, domains from air and surface, that that's disrupted and we can no longer coordinate joint strikes. Imagine if ⁓ the Chinese in a more dominant position have freedom of maneuver and you know by the way it's always an away game for the United States if we're fighting in the Indo-Pacific. And so I think you know there are ways to draw this into the real concrete ⁓ realm of what a contingency could look like and how disadvantaged we'd be if the Chinese achieved space domination and we took sort of a passive defense only approach where the Chinese through their counter space capabilities were really able to blind us and mute us and so on. ⁓ Making that as real as we can is the way we think it usually lands effectively.

Mike Kuiken: I, ⁓ a great answer by Randy. ⁓ the thing I would pile on here is a few things. First of all, I think it's pretty clear based on, on, you know, 2027, just being around the corner that some of the first places where a conflict with, ⁓ over Taiwan may start is actually in outer space. ⁓ it'll be in cyberspace, ⁓ and it'll probably be in the undersea domain. So those are things that the commission has spent some time looking at. ⁓ this year we're actually doing the undersea domain. It's just like I said, it's likely to be one of the places where the initial conflict starts. But space is undoubtedly an area where indication and warnings will happen. ⁓ Dylan, just to get back to your question, the thing I would say is the Space Force has a bit of a disability in that there's no air show where I can go pet a joint strike fighter or walk through the belly of a C-17. There's no aircraft carrier I can walk on. There's no ⁓ F-18 landing on the ⁓ on the ship. going to a space show is not the same as an air show. Seeing a satellite is cool, but it's sort of abstract. That's the first thing I would say. The second thing I would say is ⁓ the military and intelligence space community are largely protected behind all kinds of classification layers. And that makes it very hard for members of Congress to actually see and hear and understand the things that the military needs and the things the military is seeing in the space domain. I think some of that is changing a little bit as as the commercial community and commercial industry gets more more involved. But it still hasn't really happened yet. And I think that's something that's going to continue to be one of these things where if the Pentagon really wants to talk, wants to have a conversation about additional funding, they're going to have to figure out a way to have that conversation because the number of members that are actually read into these programs or allowed to be read into these programs is pretty limited. And so the congressional defense committees do not represent 535 members. They represent a small fraction of that. So changing that conversation I think is important. The other thing is, you know, getting people to some of these bases and showing them the operation centers and having them understand what they're seeing in space is important. I mean, the first time I walked into some of these operation centers in my old job, it was jarring just to see how much stuff was in space. I mean, I don't know if anyone's watched the movie Wall-E lately, but you know, that scene where the spaceship comes, initially comes out of the atmosphere and crashes through a whole bunch of satellites. I mean, that's not totally true yet, but we're probably on a trajectory. ⁓ to go that way with all the Starlink and Kuiper's getting up in space. that is a future that is coming, but it's also a future that people don't see. And so changing that visibility, I think, is a critical part ⁓ of creating an inflection point in the conversation that members of Congress have on space-related issues.

Dillon Cox | NSpC: That Great points. We see that, you know, there are folks that have been in the space business for 20 plus years and many aspects of it are still very theoretical. So being able to visualize and, you know, match that with narrative as a core function of what we're trying to do at the National Space Power Center locally so we can take members from the Hill instead of having them travel out to Colorado or Vandenberg, ⁓ they can cross the river and we can show them in that environment. It's not the same, you're right. It's, ⁓ you know, we're not petting an F-16. but we're able to show them what the consequences of space operations are ⁓ and the lack of capability, what that means to our terrestrial fighting force.

Mike Kuiken: the other thing, and Randy sort of ⁓ tiptoed around this a little bit, but let me just mention it really explicitly because one of our recommendations actually had to do with simulators. One of the things that, ⁓ you know, ⁓ if you go to an Air Force base or an Air Force or Air National Guard base, one of the things you undoubtedly see is an ⁓ F-16 ⁓ simulator or an A-10 simulator some fighter jet simulator. If you go to a Space Force base, you don't see a simulator. ⁓ You see a bunch of guardians ⁓ and the guardians tell you all of our stuff's up there. And as we transition ⁓ to a war fighting domain in space, one of the things we do have to think about is how do we make sure those guardians have an opportunity to simulate the things that they will be asked to do in space? mean, a lot of this is done through algorithms and machine learning and other tools like that. There's still a human being that's got to push buttons and understand the cadence and the sequencing and how to do escalation management and sort of red team all of these things. And that was one of the commission's recommendations is thinking about how do we really invest in that simulation community because practicing is important. I mean, I was on a basketball team, I was a terrible basketball player, but I was on a basketball team and we practiced a lot. ⁓ And ⁓ doing that I think is important and in sort of building that culture inside of the Space Force is also very important.

Bill Woolf: Yeah, Mike, you bring up a great point about simulators. And I've had this conversation with General Saltzman in the past where we're the only service, the Space Force is the only service where the simulator is not presented with the system of record. And that needs to change. It needs to be written such that a simulator, when a system of record is adopted and accepted by the space force, that the simulator actually comes with it so that these guardians can train in a realistic environment. And I know the OTT folks and STARCOM are trying to get after that aspect of it. But Randy, you were in the Pentagon during the first Trump administration. You were watching this build in real time. When you look at where China is today versus where they were when you were at DOD, how significant is the Delta? Because I want our listeners to understand, is this a case of we saw this coming and we're managing it, or is this move faster than we expected?

Randy Schriver: I'll speak for myself. It moved much more fast than I expected. And I sort of was ⁓ staring at an iceberg for a while and watching very incremental gains. And the interesting thing just from my own vantage point is I left the Pentagon in the early part of 2020. and sort of stepped away, didn't have my clearances active. And when I came back in to the commission, got the tickets back, went in for the first briefing, my mind exploded. was, I literally thought, how did this happen in such a short period of time? ⁓ Mike usually quotes General Saltzman at our hearing who used the phrase mind boggling. Now, a four star general whose job it is to track all this and to responsible for the US responses, for him to say mind-boggling, that should catch all of our attention. That's not a phrase you hear from flag officers very often when they're talking about the adversary. So I don't want to say anybody was asleep at the switch. I can only speak for myself. ⁓ It exceeded the pace of advancement, the pace of activity exceeded my own expectations. And I've been a China watcher, I don't say expert, I've been a China watcher for over 30 years.

Bill Woolf: And a lot of folks, and we still hear this today, because President Trump basically created the Space Force, a lot of folks will start talking about, because it's a President Trump thing, we can't support it or we have a hard time supporting it. Do you ever hear that on the Hill or what are your thoughts about that?

Mike Kuiken: Randy, you're gonna make me take this one, aren't you?

Randy Schriver: Absolutely, Mr. Capitol Hill and veteran of 23 years of service on the Hill.

Mike Kuiken: ⁓ So there was definitely a fight over Space Force ⁓ as we went through that NDAA, but it was horse trading on unrelated issue that Speaker Pelosi and Leader Schumer were successful on in the end. don't actually hear what you just said, ever ⁓ that we're not gonna fund Space Force because it was President Trump that created it. first of all, let me just make that very clear. I've never heard that. ⁓ The other thing I would say is, It goes back to what I said to Dylan earlier, which is it's too abstract. People don't talk about it. People don't understand it. And the people that do understand it are a very small group of people. And that is something that if we really want to change the funding trajectory and the resource allocation inside of the Pentagon, we have to figure out how to have that conversation. the story Randy tells about the change. ⁓ over the time that he was in the Pentagon to coming onto the commission. I think he and I did the first briefing that sort of got him back into this game maybe a year and a half ago, Randy. And it was very interesting to watch Randy's sort of shock because I was on the Hill while this was happening and it was shocking to me. And just to see the scale and the speed of the launches that the Chinese were undertaking. in the military side of the equation was absolutely jarring. And Randy talked about some of the capabilities earlier. It's not just sort of, you know, ISR and related capabilities. It's counter space. ⁓ And it's all of the other things that sort of come along with it. And one of the things that I think is really important is is sort of shining a light and raising the volume on this topic, which I know you guys are doing on this podcast and is super important. And that was also just the sort of strategic intent of the chapter and the hearing that we had. General Saltzman showing up at that hearing was incredibly helpful because a lot of things that he said, at least I had not heard him say out loud outside of a skiff. And so that was, ⁓ it was super refreshing.

Bill Woolf: as Randy said, you spent 23 years in the Senate, starting on the Armed Services Committee under Senator Carl Levin, then as Senate Majority Leader Schumer's National Security Advisor. You've worked on some of the most consequential national security legislation of last two decades, including the CHIPS, creating helpful incentives to produce semiconductors and Science Act. The commission's 2025 report is explicit that China's military-civil fusion model means there is no clean line between commercial and military space capability. The same state-owned enterprises that build satellites for civilian applications are embedded in the People's Liberation Army's warfighting architecture. You've been inside the legislative process when the US recognized a similar structural threat in semiconductors. Are we repeating the same pattern in space? And what does the CHIPS Act experience tell us about what works and what doesn't when you're trying to close a strategic industrial gap quickly?

Mike Kuiken: I mean, I get this question from basically every industry, like, isn't it time to do a chips act for space, for biotech, for advanced materials? I mean, when it sort of boils down to it, one of the ways that I sort of think about this is whether it's space, biotech, advanced materials, quantum, or any of these other sort of advanced tech areas, the fundamental building block is a chip. And a chip is obviously a pretty fancy switch, but all of these things require these things. I don't think it's time for a CHIPS 2.0 for the space community or anything like that. But I do think it is a persistent requirement to make sure that we are resourcing these things in a way that is thoughtful and deliberate. And there's this ⁓ saying that one of my old armed services, he's not old, but one of my former armed services committee colleagues used to say, which is there is ⁓ unnecessary duplication and there is necessary duplication. And so having that conversation, I think, is one of the things you always sort of have to have. I don't know if the space community is necessarily the place to start, just given how much the community has been sort of trampled on over the last decade or so. But making sure we sort of have that conversation, I think, is important. And one of the areas that I sort of highlight as I think about that is one of the places where our commercial industry has actually done an incredible job is reusable launch. I mean, this is an area where, I mean, I still remember the first time those two rockets came off ⁓ the SpaceX. heavy and landed simultaneously. I I cry at rom-coms. I almost cried at that too. And it was absolutely incredible to see. Those are innovations of industry. Those are innovations that the Chinese are now trying to replicate. And so understanding that in the space race, we're doing very well and we need to continue to be deliberate about the investments that we make and we need to make sure that we're not necessarily always pursuing the exquisite. The good enough will get us there. The good enough will do the job. And I saw this during the Iraq war and the Afghanistan war. Secretary Gates did a good job of talking about this issue. The 85 % solution is sometimes what you need. We are in a ⁓ competitive race and the race doesn't necessarily have an end. It's not a 400 meter track, but we do need to continue to be thoughtful about how we make those investments. So simple answer, no on the big giant investment in space, but we do need to make sure we're making very thoughtful decisions on an annual basis to fund it.

Dillon Cox | NSpC: Mike, think one of the things that you acknowledge first off the significance of being able to bring chip manufacturing ⁓ to the United States to be providing that to not only the defense industrial base, but obviously this goes into almost all the technology that we've grown used to ⁓ in the modern era here. But along those lines, one of the things that the debate around chips kind of laid bare was just how hard it can be to support from communities who kind of see this at-home manufacturing coming with real costs like the water use, PFAS, chemical risks. Another one we see now it's kind of the same conversation with data centers is the massive power demand and then just the infrastructure projects like this. ⁓ at the larger scale that are just impactful to the community from a practical standpoint. But also at the same time, you know, we're told and we are are conveying to the country that rebuilding our industrial base here at home is the price of not letting China control the brains of our economy and the military. So how do we how do we kind of find the right middle ground here to have an honest conversation with the American public about those tradeoffs? mean, we understand there, you know, there are there are groups that are concerned about the environment and there are real people who are worried about those infrastructure costs. and the disruptions, but also at the same time, ⁓ in a way, we need to build consensus and not just allow us to cede this ground to the Chinese at such a critical time. So how do you view ⁓ kind of making some progress with the broader public there?

Mike Kuiken: mean, you always have to engage the public, right? You need public support. You need to have those conversations. And so, ⁓ you know, the best way to do it is start the conversation early, be straight with them and do it that way. I think one of the stories I heard not long after the Artemis launch was, I think it was like a national public radio reporter wandering up and down the space coast interviewing random Floridians. And the Floridians were all like, it was so good to hear the sound of sonic booms coming off the space coast again. I mean, so there are communities that are enthusiastic for ⁓ this relationship. And often it's a boon for these communities too, in terms of the industries that sprout up around it. If you go down to Cape Canaveral, I had the chance to do it with one of my former McConnell counterparts. And it's absolutely incredible to see the community, the infrastructure, and the of the health of the industry there. know Senator Wicker has done a lot of work to make sure that the community in Mississippi ⁓ is sort of postured in a very favorable way as well. I know the folks in California around Vandenberg support that mission. So it's a conversation you have to have with the community and ⁓ you have to be deliberate and thoughtful about how you have that. But I think it's a complicated conversation in some communities and other places it's not.

Randy Schriver: And part of the conversation, think, also has to be ⁓ an educational component about our reliance on space. Mike and I attended a conference recently where one of the speakers got up and the first thing he said is, how many of you in the audience use space this morning? And it was a well-informed, well-educated audience, but not every hand went up. In a typical audience, you're going to get ⁓ maybe half or below, when in fact, ⁓ most of us Got to a location by using our phone maybe made a call or send an email or you know ⁓ The answer is everybody uses space and is relying on space, but people don't know that I live in Loudoun County and you know we're going at each other's throats about data centers and you know you can on the one hand have a Protester, you know out on the street with a sign while simultaneously checking their phone and asking Claude a question, you know, so it's it's this disconnect that ⁓ part of what we do is the educational piece and the literacy piece because I think the public just doesn't have a clear concept of how reliant we all are on space and how we use it.

Bill Woolf: And that's really a good transition, Randy, you bring up that point about the economy. And what I argue is every state wants to be involved in the future space economy. And that's rarely something that makes it into the China space conversation is the economic stakes for ordinary Americans. The global space economy currently stands at roughly $546 billion and is projected to exceed $1 trillion by 2030. Satellite services alone account for nearly 70 % of that market. Telecommunications, underpinning GPS navigation, financial transactions, as you've alluded to, weather forecasting, agricultural monitoring, and the electrical power grid. In fact, just recently, the FCC chair says we need at least three satellite to phone services, not just one. So the commission's own report stresses that U.S. society dependence on satellite services remain significantly underappreciated outside national security circles. Defense officials who testified before the commission emphasized this point directly. So let's make it concrete. If China successfully is successful at degrading, not destroying, just contested U.S. capabilities, what does the economic damage look like for an American who has nothing to do with the military? What breaks first?

Mike Kuiken: I mean, GPS breaks first. Let's be straight. That's the first capability that goes. So, you know, all the fancy stuff Randy was just talking about to get to his house on the edge of would become much more difficult. So I think that's the first thing that goes. And the things that quickly go after that is ⁓ telecommunications that rely on space, right? ⁓ That doesn't necessarily mean your cell phone goes out right away, but some of the things that make your cell phone work really well might start going out. I think those are concrete examples. that you'll see degraded in a potential conflict. mean, one of the other things we're seeing through salt typhoon and vault typhoon is the Chinese have basically parked themselves all over American telecommunications infrastructure. I assume they're parking themselves all over our space infrastructure as well. And so it might not be that there's another ⁓ ASAT ⁓ type operation. It might just be that the lights turn off, so to speak, in the satellite. And I think that's something that we need to be really thoughtful about and sort of shine a bright light on. as we think about what a possible Taiwan conflict or other conflict with China looks like. that's, you know, that's ⁓ the proof will be in the pudding, but I think that's what it'll look like.

Dillon Cox | NSpC: And Brandy, I'll first ask this to you and then Mike, feel free to jump in. our primary focus is really creating, as we kind of talked about at the top, the environment where senior leadership of the Space Force can bring members of Congress, the Joint Force, Allied partners, to see all of this in an immersive digital ecosystem. But one of the areas that we kind of take for granted because we are so immersed in the national security space side of the house, specifically when it comes to corporate America, is that we also have a knowledge gap that exists with other parts of corporate America. And so we have a responsibility at the National Space Power Center to acknowledge that they need to be educated as well. And the economic data exists. We see the dependencies as we just talked about. And with those threat assessments, just like Mike alluded to, ⁓ I wouldn't say necessarily most, but a lot of senior executives, just like lawmakers, Probably have never had the experience of watching what happens when ⁓ you know if a single let alone You know parts of a whole architecture goes dark on orbit So Randy will start with you if you were to put a fortune 500 CEO through one of our scenarios where they lose GPS and there's a you know financial network timing is is you know down or Degraded for two days three days. What do you want them to take to kind of walk out of there with what's the big takeaway? ⁓ That that would you? kind of view as a successful engagement that they leave understanding the stakes.

Randy Schriver: First of all, those scenarios are not some sort of wild-eyed, like crazy, it's actually in the realm of the possible. potentially quite easy for the Chinese to do given how they're positioned. Number two, think, you know, despite some of the challenges that Space Force faces and our commercial space community, our civilian space community, I think for the most part people assume that we're pretty darn good and that we're probably doing a lot of things that We're not. I think a lot of people are so impressed by watching Artemis on the screens and just being filled with that pride and enthusiasm that they'd be shocked that we don't have counter space capabilities and we don't have sufficient defenses for what the Chinese have developed. think most Americans would assume that they're safer than they are. So I think the takeaways if you were to do a simulation like that is this is not crazy. This is the realm of the possible. easy and to recover, first of all the defenses are quite vulnerable and quite porous, but to recover is not flipping a switch back on. To recover it could be quite an endeavor when you think about financial transactions being disrupted, halted, diverted, whatever the case may be. ⁓ It could be flipping the switch off but it's not as easy as flipping it back on. The disruptions could be quite, quite significant.

Mike Kuiken: Yeah, Randy said it perfectly. I'm happy to pile on and say the same thing, I agree with what he totally agree with the way he said it. mean, PNT is ⁓ precision navigation and timing is is a big deal, whether you're in the military or whether you're going to Randy's house and far, far away land.

Dillon Cox | NSpC: You No, thank you, Jen. That's great.

Bill Woolf: Hey Mike, there's a thing China is doing that I don't think gets enough attention. It's not just building satellites. It's actually trying to build the standards. Beidao, broadband, constellations, ground stations in Egypt and Pakistan and elsewhere. They're trying to set the rules of the road for how the rest of the world accesses space. What happens if they win that race? Not militarily, but economically and technically.

Mike Kuiken: mean, Bill, I'm glad you bring up standards and norms. This is one of the things Randy and I usually get to riff on. didn't think I was going to get a chance today. I mean, they already don't listen to the rules that have been around for 80 years. If they start writing the rules, how do you think they're going to observe them? That's sort of the analogy I'd give you. One of the things that we heard, and I can't remember which witness it was, talked about the ITU standards and how they park their satellites basically wherever the hell they want to in LEO. rather than like the agreed to orbit that they signed up for. I mean, that's like that's beyond bad behavior. So like, you know, if they're starting to write the rules, setting the standards, setting the weights and measurements, we should assume that there'll be more shenanigans. And and we should just make sure that we continue to one, shine a light on the things that they are doing and to make sure that we show up at the international organizations in a very robust way to make sure that there are democratic countries that are. ⁓ Voicing their concerns about the things that Chinese are doing now and make sure that we're pushing hard on ⁓ On the on the standards that we believe to be the right ones ⁓ In these places, that's that's how I would think about it And then one of the things ⁓ that Dylan talked about just his last question bill just to sort of tie a knot on that one ⁓ Allies and partners are a key part of that, right? You can't do this alone ⁓ And we got to think about how do we work with some of the other space nations and how do we work with the up-and-coming space nations to make sure that we draw the circle around us So that we have, you know, friends and family so to speak in these conversations and I think that's something that we need to do a very good job at and the other thing I mean one of the one of the places that People don't always think about when they think about the standard-setting community is academia I mean academics have a formative role in all of these things and Making sure that we stay tight with that community whether it's in India whether it's in Europe or whether it's in the United States is vital to make sure that we're thinking about standards, not necessarily the ones that we've already set, but the ones that we know we're gonna have to set for the future. And starting that conversation now, making sure that our academics are writing on these topics and being thoughtful about it is also really important. And allies and partners ⁓ are a vital part of that. I mean, there's incredible ⁓ space capabilities that are coming out of Europe. Randy didn't come with me to India, but we went to India and ⁓ we heard a lot about the Indian space community and the innovation that's happening there. And so, you know, let's get in with them early rather than later and have that conversation. So allies and partners, think are a key part of the sort of answer to your question, Bill.

Randy Schriver: you That was a great answer and I just want to pile on little bit on allies and partners because not only are important, we have to be able to communicate with them in ⁓ appropriate ways, which means being able to share a lot of what we're understanding about the Chinese. I had a conversation with a senior person in the administration and I usually have a line, you know, we're happy to be used for a good cause. You know, what can we do at the commission? And this particular person said, well, I'm trying to conduct space diplomacy, but I'm not allowed to share any of this information with my partners and allies. So, you know, we're looking at Chinese activities in the South China Sea, and we were able to share satellite photos of their land reclamation. We were able to share, you know, have CNN board a P8 and actually watch Chinese harassment of Filipino vessel, etc, etc. But we're not always able to shine a light on the malign activities and what the Chinese are up to. that's an area that, you know, I personally am going to take a look at for the upcoming report. But I heard loud and clear from an administration official that our space diplomacy could be strengthened if we could actually share a little more.

Mike Kuiken: You know, Bill, when you think about standards, we usually think about satellites. We usually think about ⁓ rockets and things like that. But let's just think about it a little bit more broadly for a second, because one of the things that's going to happen in space is convergence. And convergence is going to happen with biotech. How are we going to deploy ⁓ bio on the moon? How are we going to make sure we sustain life on the moon? How are we going to sustain life on Mars? And so setting those standards is not just about sort of the weights and measurements and the orbit that you deploy satellites in. It's also about thinking about these other technologies that we're going to need to use in space and need to use on the moon and need to use on Mars. I mean, one of the first deployments based on this pace of the SMR community of an SMR might actually be the moon. So, you what is that going to look like? There's going to be a period of time where we start using nuclear engines for launch, nuclear engines to get to Mars. What is that going to look like? What are the standards that we're going to observe to make sure that we don't have a nuclear explosion in space? How are we going to think about data in space? I mean, one of the things that's going to happen is we deploy more more capabilities up there. And we're already seeing this with Starlink is that data and embodied data are going to become more readily available. And what are the use rights of that data? And so thinking about these issues of convergence in space is also very important. What do we think about standards and norms and the rules of the road?

Dillon Cox | NSpC: All right, Mike, as we kind of already talked about the NSPC, we're designing a center that's intended to help leaders from government, industry, academia, and our allied nations, as we just discussed, work through strategic problems, specifically in the unclassified environment. We already acknowledged that classification is a key issue in being able to educate the public. So we want to create an environment where we can bring all of those important partners together and get after some of those challenges. One of the core use cases we see is exactly this kind of scenario. based thinking. So what happens if China moves aggressively in space in the opening hours of a conflict and specifically with emerging technologies kind of honing in here on AI. Mike, you helped establish the Senate's AI Insight Forums. So you understand how to bring non-experts into contact with complex, fast moving, technical domains, give them enough context to make real decisions. And I would say in the space community, the real question now is how do we move from those forums to application? So how are we using AI at speed and scale required to compete? And if we accept that responsibility that comes with harnessing AI across space missions as a strategic imperative, ⁓ we acknowledge that there are risks that are associated there. But we've also acknowledged that the Chinese are a lot less concerned about those risks and playing ⁓ by the governance and safety rules that we are. So we're going to take on that responsibility. But how do we do so in a way that allows us ⁓ to outpace and to beat China in adopting AI in space.

Mike Kuiken: I mean, AI at the Edge is a huge deal, right? And it's something that the space community has been ⁓ really leading on for a while. AI and machine learning tools have been used in space for all kinds of tipping and queuing activities, for anticipating a variety of things, and really has been quite impressive. But as these frontier models, as the smaller language models become more impressive, I think we're going to see more more use of that. So it's great to hear that you guys are. are sort of leaning into this ecosystem and thinking about, you know, what does the edge look like? ⁓ How do we think about deploying frontier models or how do we think about small language models on the moon in CIS lunar or any place else? And I think that's a great conversation to have. So kudos to you guys for getting this thing started. I mean, what does it look like? I mean, one of the things we're going to have to figure out is, you know, data. Data is one of these things that's transiting all over space all the time, and it's coming from telecommunications, it's coming from other communication systems, it's coming from sensors ⁓ that we've had deployed up there over a long period of time, and new sensors that are gonna be coming up there. So as you guys go into this conversation about ⁓ how to deploy AI and what it looks like in space, one of the first conversations you're gonna have is how are we gonna take this old data and all this new data and make sure we sort of leverage fully the opportunities that they present? And then how do we make sure that we leverage it in the civilian ecosystem as well as in the military and intelligence ecosystem? And I think there'll be some hard conversations that you guys have to have there, but I think there are also thoughtful people that have been working on this for a long time and some really exciting opportunity. And just going back to that convergence issue, I mean, as we think about these things, know, everyone knows Matt Damon grew potatoes on Mars. You know, there's going to be data that gets collected from that. And how are we going to use AI tools to make sure that we're doing that efficiently? How are we going to? to make sure that the solar panels that we put up in space are at the right angle and we're getting as much power out of them as possible. I mean, one of the companies I just heard about the other day, I'm just telling a story here, guys, I'm sorry. So I visited Air Force Research Lab years ago. They were telling me about this like three football sized, three football field sized solar panel that they're gonna put up in space. And that it was gonna be. exposed to the sun for something like 90 % of the day and they were going to beam power down to the earth. And I was like, this is not possible. I cannot believe this. I recently ran into two satellite companies that have basically taken this idea and they're not going to beam power down to space, but they're going to beam power to other satellites. I mean, the amount of the amount of AI and machine learning that is going to be required to deploy these kinds of capabilities is going to be incredible. And this is just technology that we can think about today.

Bill Woolf: you

Mike Kuiken: So the opportunities and the sort of new ideas that we're going to have to come up with as we think about exploration beyond our atmosphere is going to be really exciting to watch and see.

Dillon Cox | NSpC: No, absolutely. Thanks, Mike ⁓ and Randy over to you ⁓ kind of framing this a little bit of a different way, understanding that there is fear around the adoption of AI. What's the single most important thing that we're still maybe not doing well to build national literacy around AI enabled space, space threats ⁓ enabling space ⁓ opportunity and capability there. ⁓

Randy Schriver: What's lacking in that case is fear of not competing and not competing effectively because the downside... of China being first mover in all of these areas is significant. And sometimes it is a matter of laying out, you know, here's two paths, here's two worlds and what they look like. And the world where China is first mover and starts to set standards, it starts to implement practices that resemble the practices inside China, how they govern the nature of the regime, the nature of the oppression, ⁓ you know, not trying to cast something too dystopian, but ⁓ it's not a, outcome. you I think you have choices, but neither of those choices is to mean that status quo and perpetuity because we've got ⁓ China that's extremely ambitious in this area and they're going to make progress. And if we don't make the investments, don't do the hard work, we're going to live in that other path or down that other path and live in that other world, which is not advantageous to the United States.

Bill Woolf: Thank you both. If you both have just one message for our national lawmakers who's open to hearing it, not someone you need to convince, someone who wants to do the right thing, but doesn't know where to start, what do you tell them and what's the one action that would make the most difference in the next 12 months?

Randy Schriver: Give us 15 minutes of your time. The Commission has done a lot of work in this area and of course you all have too. Been doing yeoman's work in terms of literacy and education. But give us 15 minutes of your time if you're a lawmaker and we'll tell you how important this is and our suggestions of what you can do as a lawmaker to help us compete effectively and maintain our edge.

Mike Kuiken: I mean, I just echo Randy. The thing I would pile on is, I don't know, I should have checked the page number on the report, but check out the chapter, the final frontier, and it's a good place to get started.

Bill Woolf: Randy Mike, thank you for what the commission does. The 2025 annual report to Congress is one of the most important documents produced in Washington last year. Thank you both for taking time out of your busy schedules to share your thoughts on what's happening in this space race.

Randy Schriver: Thanks for having us.

Mike Kuiken: Thank you.