Slim Jimmy

I got to work this morning and promptly proceeded to lock my keys in the car. What kills me is that I couldn’t find my car keys yesterday so I grabbed my spare set  knowing the other ones would turn up. Well this morning they did turn up. As I was locking the house on the way to work I threw my keys into my computer bag and immediately noticed the other set of keys was inside. I immediately thought, “Oh crap, Rule Number 1, never keep your primary and spare keys in the same place”. Well, lazy me, I reasoned no way today’s the day I do something stupid.

Well, guess what? Sure as Sunday I locked my computer bag in my car. It’s so hard to lock your keys in the car these days. Cars are a lot smarter than they used to be. You really have to work at it. And work at it I did. OK...what do you do when you’ve locked both sets of keys, your wallet, and your cell phone all in your car? I stood around for 30 minutes waiting for the security police to drive by and help me out. No such luck...they must be busy on a Monday morning. Well, as it turns out, I thought I locked my badges in the car as well, but I had them in my pocket. OK, at least I can go into work and sit at my computer and try to figure this all out. 

So in I go. I called the security police immediately. I asked them if they carry “Slim Jims” in their vehicles. Nope, came their reply, too much liability for us. I think he was lying. I’m pretty sure “Slim Jims” are standard issue, in case a cop finds a child or a dog locked in a hot car. But maybe not. Anyhow, the officer on the other end of the phone gave me the number for Al’s Towing. They would be able to open my car, but it would cost me $80 bucks. Well...at least I knew what the minimum damage would be. I wonder if those guys research how much it would cost to replace a driver’s side window? Aside from the time and the mess that the broken glass would make, at least the window on my car goes for about $84 bucks. That’s way too close to be a coincidence. I wasn’t ready to drop the coin yet. I figured, surely, someone at the office, one of the car enthusiasts I knew, must carry a “Slim Jim” in their tool kit. I called around. No such luck. One guy was like, yeah, I’ve been meaning to get one but I just haven’t. Then I did a search on Slim Jims, just to see what one actually costs. So starts my lesson for the day. 

If you haven’t seen the movie “Gone in 60 Seconds” starring Nicholas Cage and Angelina Jolie, I have to point out that a Slim Jim is not the beef jerky that comes as a snack meat stick wrapped in plastic...well, yes, those are Slim Jim’s too, but those are not the ones favored by car thieves. The ones car thieves used are long slender pieces of metal that they use to slide into a car door to pop the lock...that’s not called Jimmying a lock, but I’m not sure why. Jimmying a lock requires the use of a crow bar. I’m not sure why everything surrounding B&E or grand theft auto is referred to with my name...but that’s another story altogether. Any way, I’m not sure it’s even legal to own a Slim Jim in Virginia. Doesn’t matter, I couldn’t find one on short notice. So I started to search the web. (I just looked it up and it turns out that possession of a Slim Jim in Virginia could be used as evidence of criminal intent) A couple of the websites I visited were blocked by the office. Was that because the Slim Jim appeared on a “shady website”? I don’t know, but at least a number of tools came up for sale. A basic model sells for about $19.99. But then you can buy an entire kit, at least six different shapes and sizes for around $100 bucks. No thank you, I just need one working Slim Jim. Then I got a hit on a website that intrigued me. It was a do it yourself video on how to fabricate a Slim Jim. Really, are they that easy to make?  I pulled up the page and looked at some of the pictures describing what they were talking about. 

A Slim Jim is really just a long thin piece of spring steel with a notch cut at one end and a handle at the other. If I could find a long thin piece of steel or plastic at the office, I thought, I might be in business. But how would I cut the notch? I figure if I found the steel first, I could figure out how to cut the notch. The DIY website said it was possible to open a car, between the door and the window, with a coat hanger, but generally speaking it was too hard to control. The spring steel is the right way to do it. So I dismissed the coat hanger idea and went in search of office spring steel. Anybody know where to find spring steel in the office? Well, here is the secret, and I bet you have a Slim Jim sitting in your desk right beside you. Everyone of the green Pendaflex hanging folders in your desk drawer have two pieces of spring steel in the top of them. They are what makes the hanging folder able to hang. I immediately ripped one out of the standard 8 ½ by 11 hanging folder and judged the 12 inch length to be too short. But what about a legal sized hanging folder? It took another 60 seconds before I located a stash of the longer folders. 14 inches still looked short, but with my small car, maybe it was sufficient. When I had the longer piece separated from the folder I stared at the notch that has already been cut into the spring steel. It’s already there. No need to do more. Maybe some tape around the opposite end to use as a handle. I was in business. 

First I called the security police and told them I’d be out trying to break into my car. They didn’t seem too concerned. Then I grabbed a friend (not Angelina) and immediately went out to my car to give it a try. I wanted a witness there in case the cops decided I was trying to break into a car. Of course that’s exactly what I was trying to do. But the witness, could at least back up my story. So I inserted the slender device between the glass and the rubber seal on the door side and slide it into the interior of the door. I could move it easily and felt around for what might be the linkages for the door lock. I couldn’t feel anything. I immediately I determined that even 14 inches was too short in this case. 

But also knowing there is just about an unlimited supply of hanging folders back in the office I went back to see if I could lengthen my common office supply Slim Jim by connecting two of them together. This turned out to be very easy. I overlaid them about three inches and taped them together with masking tape. I didn’t even seek out the high durability and multi-purpose duct tape. Then I wrapped masking tape around the handle until it made a nice size ball that was easy to hold on to. I grabbed my friend who was doing a few web searches on my car door to find a schematic and we headed back to the parking lot. He said the schematic shows the rod we are looking for is pretty much right below the door lock so he located the point on the car door we were looking for and I placed the longer Slim Jim between the glass and the door and pushed in down. Oh, yeah, based on the schematic I bent the spring steel a little toward the inside of the car and kept the hook towards the back of the car. I poked around for about five seconds and my friend said right there, he could see the door lock jiggling. So I moved the Slim Jim back to that area and moved it back and forth until he saw the lock jiggle again. When he said it was jiggling I pulled up on the Slim Jim. I pulled up with very little force… The lock popped right open...as light as a feather. And I was in. 

The whole break-in took less than a minute. I’m fairly certain that with a little knowledge and a good Slim Jim, entering the car is the easy part. So let’s say 10 seconds. To be gone in 60 seconds, you would also have to hot wire it. Maybe that’s for another time. But for now, here is a picture of my homemade Slim Jim...which is no longer in my possession....if you just happen to be in Virginia law enforcement and are reading this blog.  But just remember, who doesn't have about 100 Pendaflex folders and a roll of masking tape at their desk?

I Believe

The World Cup means many things to many people, and by many, I do mean many, billions in fact.  But for each culture, the World Cup means something different, as different as the languages we speak or the style of soccer that we play.  Here in the United States, quite certainly the largest Country with the largest apathy per capita when it comes to soccer, we have our own meaning.  Team USA is through to the knockout stage, a spectacular achievement on it’s own, but far from overwhelming from a whole country perspective.  We didn’t get there by winning, we got there by not losing.  It’s not the American way to achieve something based on not losing.  However, all that changes in exactly three days.  Take for example the fact that in order to win the World Cup, the winning team will need to win the next four games.  Not tie...win.  Arguably the four toughest games of their lives...coming off the back of three games that were also some of the toughest of their lives.  In order for the US to lose to Germany, 0-1, the US had to leave it all on the field. Do they have anything left in the tank, to win one more game?  Just one more, of the toughest game in their life, to advance, to the next toughest game of their life.  It’s simply no surprise that in order to win the World Cup the teams that prevail have to have deep reserves, it’s not enough just to Believe...or is it?  Which brings me to the point of my blog today...do you believe?

Many USA Fan’s have posted that they “Believe”.  I don’t want to be one of the un-American jackasses who don’t believe.  Not believing in our team would be, well, un-American.  So I believe.  But what is it exactly that I believe.  I don't believe in the Easter Bunny.  But I do believe in Santa Claus.  I don’t believe Landon Donovan should have been left at home, but I do believe that Jurgen Klinsmann is a gift of world class to our country in the coaching department.  I don’t believe that we have a recognizable style of US Soccer, except perhaps for throwing games away in the final seconds, but I do believe Tim Howard is one of the best in the business.  I don’t believe our Country gives a rats ass, about soccer, but I do believe if we start to win those who go to Church on Easter, will come out of the woods and start cheering the team on, even if they don’t understand the off-sides call, or how a 0-0 draw can sometimes be the most exciting game ever played.  So I believe in something...but it’s not a spiritual belief in the Cinderella story, rags to riches, particularly because it’s hard to say anything we do in US Soccer, started by scrubbing kitchen floors for our evil step mother... but I digress.

Santa Claus showed up at this World Cup...in the form of Portugal.  We were given the dumb luck to find ourselves in the group stage with Germany, Ghana, and Portugal.  We were favored to go out at the bottom of the group.  However instead we were this close (image of a thumb and a forefinger holding a red hair between them) from winning the group, or at least qualifying first for the knockout round.  Now what? Klinsmann says, “Now we get to work”.  He believes in something.  But I’m not sure it’s belief in going all the way...as he’s already gone on the record with regard to our chances of going all the way.   Let me restate, to go all the way means we have to win the next four games.  We’ve won one of the last three games...and each game we hung on by the skin of our teeth...to whatever we achieved, win, tie, loss.  Yet there still is this, “I believe” button that must be pressed even though the odds are overwhelmingly stacked against us.  Why then must we believe? To understand let’s take a little flight of fancy...for those of us in the soccer minority in our Country.

On July 14th, 2014, the front page headlines in every US Newspaper in the United States reads, “USA Wins World Cup in Brazil”.  Just writing that sends a shiver down my spine and I have goose pimples rippling across my body. I must emphasize that that headline doesn't read that way for the majority of the world’s population in their entire lifetime.  There are only a few countries in the world that could ever conceivable hope for such a headline...those who have seen it before, Brazil, Germany, Argentina, Italy, and...those who have been close...very close...so close they could taste it...Brazil, Germany, Argentina, Italy, and we can now add, France, maybe England but not really, and the bridesmaid of them all, the Netherlands. If the Netherlands win this year do you think they will declare a National Holiday?  However, the real question is what do we, as the USA, bring to the World Cup and should we believe we have a realistic place in the Parthenon (Pantheon) of Soccer Gods/Greatness.

The answer is simply, yes.  We have the resources to be the most dominant force in world soccer that any country has ever developed (athletes, money, coaching, management) There are simply too few of us who don’t believe.  And that is the attitude that must be overcome.  To say we don’t have a soccer culture in this country is to discount the millions of kids who do play soccer, and the mom’s and dad’s who take them to soccer practice every weekend.  It is also to discount the fact that US Women’s soccer has ascended to the Parthenon/Pantheon of Soccer Greatness...but that hasn't produced enough momentum  to carry men’s soccer or the entire US mentally on soccer forward.  It has helped.  Indeed we have discounted for decades that we have been the country where great soccer players come to die.  Through the 70’s with players like Pele, Cruyff, Best, and Beckenbauer and now the MLS with the stars like  Matthaus, Beckham, and Henry leading to the the several hundred internationals who now play in our league.  And MLS is growing...it’s growing strong...with patience we will get very good pro league.

When we arrive...we will be there to stay. On any given Sunday, we can stay with the best in the business.  The World Cup, however, is not any given Sunday.  In Europe, their league play is tied to the World Cup.  Their professional seasons end at a peak just before they go through a mock World Cup in the European Championship every other four years, with the real World Cup coming up in between.  Soccer in other Countries have two other great differences, the way their professional leagues compete, with relegation.  And of course their development systems, where if you play soccer, it’s year round, not seasonal.  I’m not saying we have to change these systems in the US, we don’t.  We just have to be more willing to support our younger players going overseas...and gaining the international experience among the best.  And we have to accept that MLS is simply a lesser league.  Nothing wrong with that...just like the  Eredivisie in the Netherlands has to accept that although they have the greatest school and soccer system in the world, they are not the EPL, La Liga, Serie A, or the Bundesliga...and never will be.

So let’s get ready for Belgium.  There is no doubt the next eight World Cup games will be some of the best soccer ever.  And let’s make no bones about it.  I believe.  But what I believe isn’t that we could prevail in Brazil...what I believe...is that US Soccer should be, in my lifetime, a team that could take a bite of the apple...and stay to play...very few countries could do so. This is not our year...this year the Netherlands can glimpse it...but Germany, Brazil, and Argentina, will be there to beat the sense back into them.  It’s going to take a world power to compete with these world powers...to me, it’s up to the US to break into this tiny fraternity.  I simply don’t see any other country capable.  But I do see, “THE US WINS THE WORLD CUP” in my lifetime.  Since I turn fifty this year that gives me about ten more tournaments to see it through. That's what I believe.

A USAF in 2064?

Award winning Futuristic Design by Georgia Tech Student

Recently two intellectuals who study military affairs put forth a suggestion that the USAF has served 70 years as a separate military department with very little gain for our country other than to fuel a bitter inter-service rivalry that has left us financially strapped and worse off than had the leadership of our nation’s air forces been left in the hands of the Department of the Army.  They argue that the time has come to “Ground the Air Force” in the case of Robert Farley who published an article in Foreign Affairs and has recently published a book entitled “Grounded, the Case for the Abolition of the Air Force”.  And in the case of Robert Carroll, who writes for the Boston Globe, an Op Ed piece entitled “Abolish the Air Force”.   Many have come to the defense of the Air Force, including the article “Why the Nation Needs an Independent Air Force” written by a multi-service collaboration of colonels led by Col Scott Campbell from the United States Marine Corps.  Many have also spoken up in comments and commentary to agree with the Carroll and Farley point of view.  For those who disagree that our country has been better served by a separate Department of the Air Force I ask you to consider not whether  our country will be better off next year but rather whether our country will be better off with an independent Air Force in 2064.

Carroll and Farley do not seem to be living in this future but rather seem to be living 70 years in the past. They are bringing up the same debates that were outlined by air power visionaries such as Billy Mitchell and Hap Arnold who were already living far into the future during their own time.  In some respect they were further advanced in their thinking 70 years ago than Carroll and Farley are today.   Ultimately, back in 1947, the vision of a separate service carried the day and with it the single largest change to our War Department.   Why the bitterness from that victory still… seven decades later…is by far a greater impediment to the efficiency of our Department of Defense then arguments over the budget.   It’s time for the losers of this debate to move on.  It’s unfathomable to think that we are currently worse off with the USAF we have today rather than had the air forces remained with the Army.  I contend that same trend will continue well into the future.  So outlining the reasons our country will be better postured by having a separate Air Force in 2064 serves a higher purpose then arguing with a couple of sour grapes.

First, air power isn’t going anywhere.  Carroll and Farley both argue that we need the air, so much so that every service has its own “air force”.  The same argument that gives us an air force within every service, and the coast guard, as well as the intelligence community essentially means that everyone already recognizes the critical role air power plays in almost every conceivable mission. Will we ever go to war without command of the air? Will we ever engage in any endeavor without support from above?

Second, the USAF as a military department does not fight our wars.   The people and equipment from the Air Force do.  The USAF as a separate service exists to organize, train, and equip our forces (the people and equipment) to fight in the air.  These forces are provided to a joint force combatant commander when it’s time to fight a war.  Any argument with regard to which service wins that war with what capability is moot.  To believe we don’t fight jointly is to simply have no understanding of joint doctrine and the way military force is employed.  The real debate then is which of the military services has a larger share of the defense budget to organize, train, and purchase the systems of war.  This debate does not occur on the battlefield.  It is wholly contained inside the walls of the Pentagon.    The early arguments about the successes of strategic bombing, for instance, are immaterial.  The issue is whether or not we need an organizational construct to see about the procurement and fielding of strategic bombing forces.  That’s a national strategy and national policy issue that is far above the USAF.   In the same vein we will maintain the readiness of a strategic nuclear deterrent until such a time when the country decides nuclear war is a thing of the past.   If Carroll and Farley had their heads screwed on straight they would argue a case for eliminating the nation’s interest in strategic bombing not the elimination of the Air Force.   Win that debate first…and then we can talk about the Air Force as an independent service vested with the requirement to develop a strategic bombing capability.  The same goes for every other mission the USAF performs that goes unmentioned in their articles.  Many of these additional missions are covered in the Campbell article, but many more missions go unnoticed to include mobility forces, space forces, C2ISR forces, air superiority forces, air defense forces, special operations forces, and of course the recent arrival of cyber forces.  Do we need these forces ready and available for our combatant commanders?  Of course we do, as well as many others.

How then should we organize to ensure the proper emphasis is placed on the fielding of these capabilities, training the men and women to operate these systems, and how do we establish the proper doctrine, CONOPS, and tactics for their use?  Is it reasonable to place an expert on ground warfare in charge of the development of the next generation air to air missile, for instance?  Is it reasonable to require an expert of surface or subsurface warfare to have the responsibly for building the C-17.  Both make as much sense as putting an American Football coach in charge of an English Premier League Soccer team (And American Football Coach in London).   They speak completely different languages.

 The argument therefore is simple.  Is there enough that is unique about the air to warrant an organizational construct to place emphasis on the acquisition and operation of these systems to the peril of not placing special emphasis on this critical domain?  Is fighting in the air different from fighting on the ground and different from fighting on or below the sea?  Of course it is.  The domain is as unique as is the earth, sea, and sky.

In recent years USAF made a mistake by trying to claim unbalanced superiority in the burgeoning cyber domain over the other services as well as the whole of industry.  Maybe the Air Force had an earlier role in the development of cyber systems a few years ago…but no longer and certainly not into the future.  Industry and the technical advances we see every day in information technology are far more advanced then we could ever hope to develop inside the DoD let alone the Air Force.  There are just too many people working in this industry.  The DoD is just one of millions of customers for this explosion in technology…yes we have to harness it…but we will not be creating it.  

In a similar fashion the USAF might make a claim that they own the space domain.  This claim is in fact a far more substantial one.  So much so that rising space advocates such as Elon Musk have set the Air Force in their cross-hairs because of the strong hold the Air Force wields over the space community at large.  This is no accident.  The Air Force owns the foundation upon which United States Space Force might one day launch, no pun intended.  The USAF has been the primary driving force in space since the very beginnings of space exploration.  The role the USAF has played in space has far and away been the capability for which the USAF has received the least credit.  Manned space exploration, being unclassified, has received far greater publicity and praise.   It was more public and had a greater sex appeal than developing a communications satellite for instance. The Air Force, however, has spent untold billions on the development of all space capabilities and the world is a much better place due to these investments.  Communications, weather, and remote earth sensing to name some of early victories in space the USAF had the most direct hand in creating.   Today, one needs look no further than the Global Positioning System (GPS).  When alien life forms are visiting the earth and observe our GPS constellation, they will not think of GPS as serving the precision delivery of munitions, but rather the service the USAF provides for all of mankind.   There is simply no other capability, in any other service, in any other country’s service, and in any other corporation that has provided so much too so many users for so little.  GPS is crowning jewel for the USAF in space.  Stepping away from space however, the USAF is replete with capability they fielded to dominate the air domain during times of war that have  also grown into ubiquitous technology from which all of humanity has benefited.  Those contributions are even less proclaimed.  Those key technologies will continue to be corner stone’s of research and development efforts spear headed by the USAF well into the future and must continue.  Undoing the Department of the Air Force’s lead in these areas would be as intelligent as changing the formula for Coca-Cola.

As I run through this list of technologies one should ask what would a United States Air Force look like in fifty years and will the Air Force continue to lead in these technology areas?

Stealth Technology:  With the possible exception of a few car enthusiasts who purchase absorbing aprons for the front of their sports car to evade police radar, there is no commercial market for radar absorbing material (RAM).  The USAF has led in the world in the development of radar evading structures and materials such as RAM for decades.  The gap between our knowledge and the knowledge of others regarding stealth technology is still huge and it will take billions of dollars of investment from other countries in order to match our technological advantage in this area.  In fifty years aircraft will have to evade not only radar but also optical and infra-red sensors as well.  Aircraft disrupt the atmosphere as they fly.  Sensors that can detect small changes and other disturbances in the atmosphere will no doubt exist.  To remain as undetectable as possible new materials and other technologies will have to be developed.   The USAF has cared about this technology more than any other service.

Jet Propulsion Technology:  There is a huge market for jet engine technology.  The commercial sector will continue to invest in high efficiency jet engines to transport travelers faster and with less fuel costs.  In addition, new jet engines will have to conform to new environmental protocols at the same time.  The Air Force will benefit from the industrial footprint in place from this commercial interest in jet engine technology; however, the high performance engines required to propel current and future military aircraft will always be someone different from their commercial counterparts.  Military jets will always have to fly higher, faster, and farther with less susceptibility to detection.  Scram jets for high altitude hyper-sonic flight and engines capable of sustained supersonic flight in the lower atmosphere do not tend to have a place in the commercial market. The USAF has cared about this technology more than any other service.

Rocket Propulsion Technology:  Rocket engines are necessary for both tactical and strategic missiles as well as boosting satellites and other payload into orbit as well as to bases on the moon and beyond.  Lockheed Martin gave up on the Delta Clipper, a single stage to orbit, vehicle over a decade ago.  Reason stated by the former program manager Mr. Peter Teets, “We were still three technological miracles away from achieving the vision of a reusable single stage to orbit vehicle”.  Costs will also have to come down.  Elon Musk and the team at SPACE-X have an early shot at bolstering the competition necessary to overcome some of these technical hurdles.  The USAF has cared about this technology more than any other service.

Sensor Technology:  Radar, Infra-red, Electro-optical, LIDAR, and other sensors that can detect the environment are but a few of the investments in sensing technology that the USAF has given to the world.  There will be no less demand for sensors fifty years from now.  New phenomonlogies will be invented and harness for use by the Air Force to raise a commander’s situational awareness.    Increasing speeds and altitudes have always demanded an increase in sensor performance to balance out the change. The USAF has cared about this technology more than any other service.

Electronic Warfare Technology:  Not long after the first air defense radar was put into use someone figured out that the same energy a radar system uses to detect and aircraft can be used to jam the same radar.  And the race for counter and counter-counter technology was off and running.  As the RF spectrum has gone digital so to have the techniques to counter this capability fuzzying up the difference between what is traditional warfare in the electro-magnetic spectrum and what is a cyber capability.  Whereas industry will have a advantage over the military regarding capabilities on, over, and through computers and computer networks, understanding the digital counter and counter-counter punch for military unique systems will remain within the Department of Defense and Intelligence Communities. The USAF has cared about this technology more than any other service.  The Navy takes second place.

Materials Science Technology:  The Air Force has never had a monopoly on materials science but they have developed many and have been the first using new materials in wide spread applications.  First aluminum, then titanium, and later advanced composites.  But those are just applications for building and constructing aircraft. The creation of new materials extends into every system the Air Force has produced and includes materials for high and low temperature applications, sensors, coatings, explosives, fuels, and fabrics.  In the future the Air Force many not invent products utilizing nano technology, for instance, but they will be first to adopt these new materials into innovative applications.  All services care about materials science however the materials necessary for success in land and sea combat, a lot of armor and steel, does not lend itself to Gillespie’s High Flight.  One does not slip the surly bonds of Earth and dance the skies on laughter-silvered wing with armor and steel.  It requires high strength and light weight materials.  The USAF has cared about this technology more than any other service.

Autonomous Vehicle Technology:  The USAF has never been given sufficient credit for the development of autonomous flight technology.  Instead they are soundly criticized by those that simply cannot give the USAF credit for their technological achievements in this area, not the least of which was Robert Gates.  The USAF has been criticized for dragging its feet in this area when it was the USAF that developed this technology.  The USAF has been flying autonomous vehicles for decades.  Every satellite on orbit is an autonomous vehicle; the USAF does not have a manned space flight program.  Satellites achieve their orbital placement either autonomously or by remote control.  Ever heard of cruise missiles?  The USAF has been launching cruise missiles since the 1950’s.  Many of our ISR aircraft, although manned, have extremely precise autopilots.  All of this technology ushered in the age of the “drones” or the Remotely Piloted Aircraft (RPA).  Except the word drone actually refers to something akin to a “Target Drone” that USAF has also used for decades creating retired F-4 Phantom jets, into autonomous target vehicles that could be shot down over the Gulf of Mexico.  Every rocket, every missile (both tactical and strategic) is an autonomous vehicle.  It seems the USAF not only uses unmanned technology, the USAF invented the technology yet is still criticized for wanting to keep a man in the cockpit. The USAF has cared about this technology more than any other service. 

Fifty years from now technology will have continued to advance into areas we have yet to imagine.  Will there be a need for this technology to be acquired by a unique set of airmen who understand flying and fighting in the air and in space?  The expertise to recognize when new technology must be created or how it can be applied has long been the domain of the USAF.  In the future the need for long endurance, survivable, fast, and all weather capable aircraft that can deliver a military effect will persist.   Most systems, if not all, will be remotely piloted.  Just because the pilots will now sit on the ground doesn’t mean the air ceases to be a unique domain without unique requirements for those whose systems operate in and through it.  This is no different from the airman who flies a satellite (who has always remained on the ground), the missile crews of our ICBM force who sit below ground, and of course the airman who currently fly  our expanding fleet of RPA’s.  The Air Force in 2064 is one I would like to see just as proudly I am sure Mitchell and Arnold would be to see our current Air Force…the envy of every Air Force in the world and apparently our very own sister services…or at least the envy of Farley and Carroll.