Spacepower Podcast

He joined at eighteen because he wanted the tech school that would get him out of town the longest. This is the season finale of Spacepower Podcast. Thank you for watching, listening, and sharing episodes. We are taking a short break, and we will be back with a new season soon. We cannot wait. Forty years later, he is the Vice Chief of Space Operations, the number two officer in the United States...

Two American cities had land, airspace, and a hunch. Neither had a guarantee. This is the story of what it actually took to turn that hunch into reality, and a bet that's still being placed. The commercial and national-security space economy has outgrown its old coastal footprint, and the launch, testing, and infrastructure demand it's generating has nowhere left to go but inland. That shift is la...

Nobody handed them the answers. When Chance Saltzman got engaged, two weeks before shipping out for missile training, neither he nor Jennifer knew what military life would demand. When he chased a brand-new weapons school, the personnel office told him it was "a terrible idea, an unproven path." So he did it. The through-line of a 35-year career and marriage turned out to be four words: we'll figu...

There is a version of ready where the hardware works. There is another version where the people, the doctrine, the joint playbooks, and the partner relationships all hold under the pressure of an actual conflict. Building the second one is a full-time job, and almost none of it is visible from the outside. The Space Force organizes, trains, and equips. U.S. Space Command employs. The layer in betw...

Earlier this year, a finished GPS satellite was sitting in Florida ready to fly. The rocket assigned to it needed more time. The warfighters waiting on that satellite could not. So System Delta 80 moved it. Different rocket. Full recertification. On orbit in about six weeks. What normally takes two years happened in a month and a half, and it was the fourth time the team had pulled off something l...

Fighter pilots don't go to war on day one. First comes Red Flag, the punishing mock combat over the Nevada desert designed to be harder than anything a pilot will ever face in actual conflict, so that when the real moment comes, it isn't the first time. For most of the space mission's history, that rehearsal didn't exist. Guardians operated systems that had only ever been tested in benign environm...

Your phone knows where you are right now. Your bank recorded the exact millisecond of your last transaction. The plane you flew on landed safely in low visibility. The farmer who grew your food planted rows one to two centimeters apart. Every one of those things runs on a signal broadcast from twelve thousand miles overhead, a signal the United States Space Force has guaranteed to the entire world...

On the worst day imaginable, the day a nuclear decision has to be made, the President of the United States needs to talk to commanders and allies anywhere on Earth. That conversation runs through space. And the people responsible for delivering it just did so two full years ahead of schedule. But this episode isn't just about a single acquisition win. It's about a fundamental shift in how the Spac...

Ten thousand Guardians. That's it. The entire United States Space Force fits inside a mid-sized college campus. And yet the domain they protect underpins every GPS route, every weather forecast, every financial transaction, every call you made today. Jennifer Saltzman has been part of that community since before the Space Force existed, since before most people had heard the word "Guardian," since...

Space has been a contested domain for years. The doctrine, the training, and the culture needed to fight and win in it have been built, mostly quietly, at a squadron at Nellis Air Force Base. Most people who care about the Space Force have never heard of it. Most of the people shaping how space warfare is conducted today came through it. This year, the 328th Weapons Squadron turns 30. Three decade...

Most people who know the Space Force exists assume it trains operators. People who know how to run satellites, track threats, and execute missions. What fewer people understand is that operating a system and understanding why that system matters are two entirely different things. One is a skill. The other is the foundation of a warfighter. Space is no longer a peaceful backstop for GPS and weather...

The Space Force needs to double in size. That's not a talking point, it's a legislative ask, a budgetary argument, and a warfighting requirement all at once. In this episode of the Spacepower Podcast, SFA Founder and host Bill Woolf sits down with Chief Master Sergeant of the Space Force, CMSSF John Bentivegna, to break down exactly what it would take to grow the Space Force from roughly 11,000 to...

Most people have never heard of the Air Force Research Laboratory. The Space Force couldn't exist without it. Dr. Andy Williams has been at AFRL since 2003, long enough to watch the space domain go from what he calls a "relatively benign environment" to a fully contested warfighting domain. He now serves as AFRL's Deputy Technology Executive Officer for Space: the single point of contact between t...

What happens to the American economy, not just the American military, if China wins the space race? In this episode of the Spacepower Podcast, SFA Founder and host Bill Woolf sits down with Randy Schriver, Chair of the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission, and Mike Kuiken, its Vice Chair, joined by co-host Dillon "Brick" Cox, Chair of SFA's National Spacepower Center Committee. Toget...

The best technology doesn't matter if you can't build enough of it. That's the industrial base challenge facing national security space right now, and it's the central argument Matt Magaña made during a conversation at the 41st Space Symposium in Colorado Springs. Magaña is the President of Defense and National Security at Voyager Technologies and a board member of the Space Force Association. He'...

The Artemis Accords brought dozens of nations together around shared principles, but principles without structure aren't policy. In a domain where commerce, exploration, and national security increasingly overlap, non-binding norms aren't enough. And the window to act is narrowing. In this episode of the Spacepower Podcast, SFA Founder and host Bill Woolf sits down with Dr. Eric Sundby, CEO of Ter...

What does it take to turn today's elementary school students into tomorrow's space workforce? In this episode of the Spacepower Podcast, SFA Founder and host Bill Woolf sits down with Col. Eric Zarybniski, Portfolio Acquisition Executive for Space Access at Space Systems Command, and Dr. Emily Zarybniski, a 2026 Space Foundation International Teacher Liaison, to explore one of the most critical, a...

What does it take to turn a collection of space systems into a unified warfighting capability? In this episode of the Spacepower Podcast, SFA Founder and host Bill Woolf sits down with Col. Strizzi, Director of Enterprise Integration at the Space Systems Integration Office, to unpack one of the most critical—and often overlooked—challenges in modern space operations: integration. Space is a system...

In this exclusive episode of the Spacepower Podcast, SFA Founder and host Bill Woolf sits down with U.S. Space Force Chief of Space Operations Gen. Chance Saltzman, for his first and only interview on two landmark documents released today: the Future Operating Environment and the Objective Force. These aren't talking points. They're the blueprint, the Space Force's clearest public statement yet on...

The FY27 President's Budget request for the U.S. Space Force comes in at $71.24 billion, more than double the prior year, and the largest budget request in the service's history. But what does a number like that actually mean, and will Congress fund it? Read Shawn Barnes Full Op-Ed: https://ussfa.org/shawn-barnes-pbr-response/ In this episode of the Spacepower Podcast, SFA Founder and host Bill Wo...

What does it take to build combat power when the domain itself is still being defined? In this episode of the Spacepower Podcast, SFA Founder and host Bill Woolf speaks with Lt. Gen. Greg Gagnon, Commander of Combat Forces Command, about how the Space Force is preparing Guardians to operate in the most contested environment humanity has ever tried to control. Space is no longer a benign domain. As...

What does it take to achieve space superiority when the fight is already underway? In this episode of the Spacepower Podcast, SFA Founder and host Bill Woolf speaks with Lt. Gen David N. Miller Jr., Deputy Chief of Space Operations for Strategy, Plans, Programs, and Requirements, about how the Space Force is building a warfighting force in real time to meet a rapidly evolving threat. As adversarie...

Episode Recorded March 5th, 2026 How is spacepower actually shaping operations across the Western Hemisphere? In this episode of the Spacepower Podcast, SFA Founder and host Bill Woolf speaks with Col. Brandon Alford, Commander of U.S. Space Forces Southern, about how space-enabled capabilities are integrated into day-to-day operations across Central and South America. From satellite communication...

Episode Recorded March 5th, 2026How are space systems actually built, delivered, and sustained for the joint force? In this episode of the Spacepower Podcast, SFA Founder and host Bill Woolf speaks with Col. Menschner, Deputy Commander of Space Systems Command, about the realities of space acquisition, innovation, and the future of space-enabled warfighting. From GPS and missile warning to SATCOM...

Views and opinions expressed are those of the individual speakers and do not represent the views of the U.S. Government, Department of War, and their respective organizations. In this episode of the Spacepower Podcast, SFA Founder and host Bill Woolf discusses the pivotal role of space in modern warfare with SFA CEO Brig. Gen. (ret.) Damon Feltman and NSPC Committee Chair Dillon Cox. This episode...