Saturday, November 1, 2025

Opinions: 'Speed, speed, speed' in procurement reform

11/01/2025

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By Dan Robitzski

Welcome back to our weekly newsletter highlighting the opinions and perspectives of the SpaceNews community.

Space is a warfighting domain. We need wartime urgency for procurement reform.

"Speed, speed, speed." That was President Franklin Roosevelt's instruction to those building up the arsenal and industrial capacity that would help win World War 2. And now, according to Gokul Subramanian, senior vice president of engineering at Anduril, we need that same urgency to win what he called "a second space race, this time with our great power rival: China."

Subramanian, citing the rapid development of technology at companies like his, wrote to call on the Pentagon to adapt its procurement processes to move at that same pace, allowing the Space Force to solidify its lead in the development and deployment of military assets in orbit.

"We now need to quickly instantiate and solidify the infrastructure and organization to build out American military space power at scale to deter our adversaries," he wrote. "The way that we procure must transform to ensure we have American superiority in space."

Safeguarding the 'Golden Age' of space exploration

Also concerned with America's position in the leadership of space this week was author Chris Carberry, CEO of Explore Mars. He wrote an opinion article to argue that America's leadership in space is a matter of political willpower and that, if nothing changes in the United States (or if the federal government shutdown continues), China will take on the mantle of world leader in space.

"This will not be a result of us losing our scientific and technological edge, but because we have chosen to weaken our leadership in these areas, potentially leaving China as the world's leading space power through our own neglect," Carberry wrote. "Ceding leadership in space to China would be a disaster for the U.S., and would support the narrative that the U.S. is a power in decline, while the future belongs to China."

Carberry argued in his article that funding bills to "stop the bleeding at NASA" aren't enough, and that Congress must demand a clear mandate to return to the moon by 2028, send a crew to Mars by the mid 2030s and accelerate the Mars Commercial Payload Program.

Earth observation taken during a night pass over Taiwan by an Expedition 36 crew member on board the International Space Station. Credit: NASA / Karen Nyberg

Confronting China's pervasive maritime gray zone campaign

What should be done about China's so-called "gray zone tactics," or actions are designed to achieve strategic aims — territorial advancement and sovereignty erosion — without crossing the threshold of conventional armed conflict? Retired Taiwanese Navy Rear Admiral Lin Chauluen wrote an opinion article this week to suggest countermeasures to the ways that China is "deliberately blurring the line between civilian and military roles," particularly regarding Taiwanese sovereignty.

He argued that a three-pronged effort is necessary: international diplomacy and condemnation; technology sharing programs with allies, such as the United States' satellite surveillance capabilities to monitor Chinese ships; and maintaining a strategic presence in contested areas.

You can see the rest of the article here.

SpaceNews is committed to publishing our community's diverse perspectives. Whether you're an academic, executive, engineer or even just a concerned citizen of the cosmos, send your arguments and viewpoints to opinion@spacenews.com to be considered for publication online or in our next magazine. The perspectives shared in these opinion articles are solely those of the authors.

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