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 Space Force. There was no plan. There was no map. There was a recruiter and a string of people who kept opening doors as he was ready to walk through them.In this episode of the Spacepower Podcast, SFA Founder and host Bill Woolf sits down with Gen. Bratton, Vice Chief of Space Operations, to close out the season with the question every young person asks when they look at this service: is there a path for me?The answer, as Gen. Bratton tells it, is that there are a hundred of them. He was an E-1. He was a staff sergeant in the Arizona Air National Guard fixing ground radars. He was a captain who walked into his commander's office and asked for a job earmarked for a lieutenant colonel. He flew high altitude balloons over the Nevada ranges. He volunteered for a deployment to Baghdad. He found out he was going to build STARCOM in a four car parking garage.In this conversation, Gen. Bratton discusses:Why he told his recruiter he wanted whichever school kept him away from home the longest, and how that decision set up everything after itThe doors and windows framework he has used to make every career decision since, and why he says he closed as many as he openedWhat it was like to be the first National Guard officer sent to the space track of the Weapons SchoolHow balloon experimentation at Nellis solved a real problem for troops calling in air support from Afghan valleysWalking into a three and four star Army planning session in Iraq as the only space officer in the room, with no shared languageThe moment US Space Command landed on the table, and why he missed the parallel effort to stand up the Space Force entirelyStanding up an entire field command from zero to change of command in roughly six monthsWhy he believes lieutenant colonels and senior NCOs change more lives than any general ever willWhat today's specialists and second lieutenants are being taught that he did not learn until he was a colonelWhy he says the Guardians coming up now will be better at space warfighting than he ever wasWant to be in the room for the conversations that come next? Tickets for Spacepower 2026 are available now at https://attendspacepower.org.Hosted by Bill WoolfProduced by Ty HollidayGuest:Gen. Bratton, Vice Chief of Space Operations, United States Space ForceHe enlisted in the Air National Guard as a radar maintainer, commissioned through Officer Training School, and served as the first commander of Space Training and Readiness Command. He now serves as the second highest ranking officer in the Space Force.Learn more about the U.S. Space Force: https://www.spaceforce.mil/Join SFA: https://ussfa.org/Attend Spacepower 2026: https://attendspacepower.orgSubscribe for more conversations on spacepower, national security, and the future of the space domain.

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 landing in city halls that never expected to be part of the space conversation, and the mayors making the call are becoming the model for how it gets done.In this episode of the Spacepower Podcast, SFA Founder and host Bill Woolf sits down with Mayor Lori Blong of Midland, Texas, and Mayor Douglas Nicholls of Yuma, Arizona, to unpack what it actually took to turn two very different cities into space and defense hubs, and why the decision came down to local leadership, not geography.Why the pace of commercial and national-security launch demand is pushing new capacity away from the coasts and into the interior of the countryWhy Midland's spaceport license is a horizontal-launch designation, not vertical, and what that actually means for anyone picturing rockets over their neighborhoodWhy a binational agreement signed this month between Yuma, the state of Arizona, and the state of Sonora, Mexico ties directly into the safety case for a southern launch trajectory over the Gulf of CaliforniaWhat lifting the federal ban on supersonic flight over domestic airspace actually unlocked for hypersonic corridor testing between Midland and Spaceport AmericaWhy Midland's real bet wasn't the money, it was holding onto a spaceport designationWhy neither mayor thinks the long-term payoff is one company launching rockets, and what they're actually building around it instead.What each mayor tells a resident who assumes this is just insiders and developers cashing inHow a "three-body problem" of city, economic development corporation, and industry has to move together for any of this to work, and what happens when it doesn'tSpace development isn't happening to these cities from the outside anymore, it's being decided by them. Midland and Yuma make the case that a city's place in the space economy has less to do with geography and more to do with whether its leadership will hold a bet through the years before it pays off.Hosted by Bill Woolf Produced by Ty HollidayMayor Lori Blong, Mayor of Midland, Texas Mayor Blong has led Midland for three-plus years as the city built out the Midland Spaceport Business Park, now home to AST SpaceMobile and a growing base of defense and aerospace testing companies including Firehawk, Castelion, LeoLabs, and Starfighters.Mayor Douglas Nicholls, Mayor of Yuma, Arizona Mayor Nicholls has led Yuma's push to add a commercial launch site alongside Yuma Proving Ground and Marine Corps Air Station Yuma, including a binational aerospace development agreement signed with the state of Sonora, Mexico.Learn more about Midland's spaceport development: midlandspaceport.com Learn more about the City of Yuma: yumaaz.gov Learn more about the U.S. Space Force: https://www.spaceforce.mil/ Join SFA: https://ussfa.org/Subscribe for more conversations on spacepower, national security, and the future of the space domain.

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 figure it out.That instinct built more than a family. It helped build a service. The Space Force is still writing its identity, what it means to be a Guardian, what traditions to keep, what culture to forge from scratch, and few people have shaped that answer more directly than its Chief of Space Operations. This is the story of the character behind the stars.In this episode of the Spacepower Podcast, SFA Founder and host Bill Woolf sits down with General Chance Saltzman, Chief of Space Operations, and Jennifer Saltzman, back in the Space House where Bill first interviewed a brand-new CSO four years earlier, for a candid conversation about marriage, character, and how you build something that lasts without a blueprint.In this episode:- Why "an unproven path" was the exact reason Saltzman chose the Weapons School, and how a warning to stay away became the best career advice he ever ignored- How a physics scholarship he couldn't finish funneled him into ICBM operations, and why he was certain he'd gotten the better end of the deal- What it actually means that Guardians conduct combat operations from garrison, watch an adversary act in space, then drive home for soccer practice and help with math homework- The 2007 Chinese anti-satellite test, told from the ops floor, and the moment there was no hand signal for "they destroyed the satellite"- How the "floodgates" from missiles to space turned a generation of missileers into the Space Force's first operators- The surreal night a Hollywood director had dinner at their house, and what saying "yes" has to do with a whole careerStanding up a service from nothing: no flag, no song, no uniform, and why "you have to pay the tax" of becoming real- Guardian #89, the 89th Weapons School space graduate, Bowling Green High class of '89 — and why Saltzman calls it karma- Saltzman's one regret as CSO- Why Jennifer is his "best sensor", the things Guardians will tell her that they'll never tell the CSOHow a marriage that "grew up together" with the service became a lesson in connection and communityThe Space Force will be defined by its technology and its doctrine. But this conversation is a reminder that services are built by people, and that identity, partnership, and the willingness to walk a path no one has mapped are as foundational as any capability in orbit.Hosted by Bill WoolfProduced by Ty HollidayGeneral Chance SaltzmanGeneral B. Chance Saltzman is the second Chief of Space Operations, U.S. Space Force, and a member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. A former ICBM operator and space Weapons Officer, he was among the first general officers to commission into the Space Force and helped stand up its foundational operational, readiness, and intelligence processes.Jennifer SaltzmanA three-decade military spouse and advocate for Guardian families, Jennifer has been a constant presence alongside Chance across every assignment, and, in his words, his "best sensor" for what's really happening in the force.Learn more about the U.S. Space Force: https://www.spaceforce.mil/Join SFA: https://ussfa.org/Subscribe for more conversations on spacepower, national security, and the future of the space domain.

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 between, the exercises, the wargames, the training architecture, and the doctrine that tells the joint forceMaj. Gen. "Bull" Keener: Inside Space Command's Exercise and Wargaming Architecturehow to operate together in a contested domain, belongs to the J7. As adversary counterspace capability moves from projection to fielded reality, that layer is where readiness is either proven or exposed.In this episode of the Spacepower Podcast, SFA Founder and host Bill Woolf sits down with Maj. Gen. Samuel "Bull" Keener, Director of Exercises, Training, Wargames, and Experimentation (J7) at U.S. Space Command, to walk through how a combatant command builds itself into a warfighting organization.Why U.S. Space Command's area of responsibility begins at 100 kilometers and has no upper limit, and what that means for who actually provides the forces that operate thereThe difference between the Space Force and U.S. Space Command in the plainest terms you will hear it, from someone who gets asked constantlyWhy a combatant command needs a Tier 1 exercise at all, and why standing one up was the first thing Gen. Keener was told to go buildWhy you cannot replicate a thinking adversary on a white card, and how red cells, red teams, and space aggressors are used to close that gapThe modeling and simulation problem nobody has solved: why no single tool can accurately represent the space fight, and why artificial intelligence and machine learning are now part of the answerHow the Space Force's Future Operating Environment 2040 and Objective Force 2040 nest with Space Command's Space Warfighting Environment 2040. One defines the environment, one defines the force, and one defines how the joint force fights and wins within itWhy satellites in geosynchronous orbit are, in the commander's framing, static targets, and what maneuver has to do with self-defenseThe 1941 Louisiana Maneuvers analogy, and why an exercise that reorganized the U.S. Army's armored divisions before World War II is the model for what happens on orbitWhat coalition training requires in a domain where you cannot put allies in a formation and fly a mission together, and why communications and classification remain the hardest problemsWhy lessons learned measured in weeks or months is no longer fast enough, and the push to find a problem and implement the fix in daysCapability delivered is not capability employed. The distance between the two is measured in exercises, in wargames, and in the honesty of the models you train against. That distance is the J7's work, and it is where the Space Force's investment either becomes joint warfighting readiness or does not.Editor's note: this conversation was recorded several months before U.S. Space Command published the Space Warfighting Environment 2040 on July 28, 2026.Hosted by Bill WoolfProduced by Ty Holliday

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 like it.Nothing in national security space gets off the ground without System Delta 80. Every satellite this series has covered, the SATCOM links, the GPS constellation, the systems certified by OTTI, all of it begins at the launch pad. This episode is the capstone: how the Space Force gets its most critical capabilities to orbit, what it takes to keep multiple launch providers viable, and what becomes possible when satellites are no longer constrained by the fuel they launched with.In this episode of the Spacepower Podcast, SFA Founder and host Bill Woolf sits down with Col. Ryan Hiserote, Commander of System Delta 80 at Space Systems Command, to discuss the National Security Space Launch program, the GPS rocket swap that made headlines, and the on-orbit servicing mission that could fundamentally change how the Space Force operates in space.In this conversation, Col. Hiserote discusses:- Why System Delta 80's claim — that nothing in national security space gets off the ground without it — is literal, not rhetorical- How the dual-lane NSSL structure works: Lane 1 for competition and capacity, Lane 2 for no-fail missions with complex requirements- What it actually takes to certify a new rocket for national security missions — and why that process takes years- How the GPS 3-8 rocket swap worked, why it happened, and what it signals about the Space Force's willingness to move at the speed of need- Why Rocket Lab and Stoke Space were added as Lane 1 providers in early 2025 — and what the service is looking for as it evaluates more- The on-orbit servicing mission: what Starfish Space's Otter vehicle and Astroscale's refueling demo are designed to prove- Why Gen. Whiting at U.S. Space Command has been calling for a maneuver warfare strategy in space — and how on-orbit refueling enables it- What it means for a satellite to be "no longer constrained by its gas tank" — and how that changes tactics- Why Col. Hiserote describes launch as a team sport — and who all the players are- Why he calls this the most exciting time to be in the launch business since the Apollo daysThe Space Force can build the most advanced satellites in the world. They mean nothing until they reach orbit. This is the mission that starts everything else — and it's about to get a lot more capable.Hosted by Bill WoolfGuest:Col. Ryan Hiserote, Commander, System Delta 80, Space Systems CommandCol. Hiserote commands System Delta 80, the Space Systems Command unit responsible for space access — launch, range operations, and on-orbit servicing. He also serves as dual-hatted program manager for the National Security Space Launch program, the largest dollar-value program in the Space Force. A certified mission director, Col. Hiserote personally served as mission director for the two most recent GPS launches.Learn more about Space Systems Command: https://www.ssc.spaceforce.mil/Learn more about the U.S. Space Force: https://www.spaceforce.mil/Join SFA: https://ussfa.org/Subscribe for more conversations on spacepower, national security, and the future of the space domain.