Sydney Freedberg writes in the National Journal of the age-old fighter mafia vs. the bomber crowd debate, questioning whether the Air Force really wants to pursue a new bomber. He draws on a study defense analyst Rebecca Grant did for the Air Force Association earlier this year, titled “Return of the Bomber,” but he leans most heavily on defense analysts who question the “seriousness” of the Air Force’s commitment to a new bomber. Of course, admits Richard Aboulafia of the Teal Group, funding for the bomber, which has a 2018 due date set by the Quadrennial Defense Review, is classified. He tells Freedberg, “Either it’s a totally black program, or it’s just talk.”
Special-ops aviators, a physicist from the intelligence community, and an enlisted Marine with decades of deployments: U.S. Space Command’s military and civilian leaders who spoke May 7 were as likely to come from strictly space backgrounds as not. These are some of the day’s insights from inside the command, which…