A metaverse that lets guardians go to space virtually is especially appealing to the Space Force because its members don’t get to go in real life
HERNDON, Va. — The Space Force should take advantage of the industry’s massive investments in immersive digital technology and develop a virtual environment for guardians, said Lisa Costa, the service’s chief technology and innovation officer.
“We could create our own version of the metaverse,” Costa said Feb. 10 at the AFCEA Space Force IT conference.
The metaverse is a growing buzzword in the tech world used to describe an interactive 3D virtual environment. “There’s a lot of hype associated with the term metaverse,” she said. “But on the other hand, a lot of money is going into this idea” to it’s worth looking at ways the Space Force can tap into this investment.
In a military metaverse, service members could collaborate, train and conduct any number of activities, Costa said. She noted that 86% of U.S. airmen and guardians from the ages of 18 to 34 view themselves as gamers. “How do we take advantage of those skills?”
Businesses are jumping on this bandwagon, developing realistic, physically accurate digital twins that simulate natural environments or industrial operations.
A metaverse is especially appealing to the Space Force because guardians normally rely on digital representations of the space domain to do their jobs, Costa said. While sailors go to sea to learn naval warfare and soldiers go to the field for combat drills, guardians don’t get to go to space unless they become NASA astronauts.
“The only way they experience their domain of operations is with a display of visual data,” she said. A virtual reality environment would provide them “situational awareness and understanding what their options are so they can make decisions.”
The technologies that make up the metaverse include virtual reality as well as augmented reality that combines the digital and physical worlds. Costa said Space Force guardians could digitally engineer satellites, for example, and develop new capabilities for space operations.“And that’s kind of the vision for where we want to go next,” she said. “Training our guardians and taking advantage of the investments that industry is making.”
Costa said all the military services could benefit from this technology and the Space Force, due to its small size, could test it out and see if it can be scaled up for use across the U.S. military.
SHREVEPORT, La. (AP) — Thirteen veterans who died in recent years but whose remains were never claimed have been honored in a funeral service in northern Louisiana, as a crowd of people who didn’t know them but who wanted to pay their respects looked on.
Most of the 13 veterans served in Vietnam while one fought in the Gulf War, the Caddo Parish Coroner’s Office said in a news release. They ranged in age from 60 to 72 at the time of their death.
The service was the result of work by Caddo Parish Death Investigator Katrina Wright, who was asked by a nurse at a local hospital to help find the family of a veteran who had died and didn’t have family to claim him. After a series of calls that yielded no solution, the veteran’s remains went to the coroner’s office. That left Wright feeling angry.
“I didn’t understand how this could happen to people who fought for this country,” she said in the news release.
Eventually, Wright and Christina Currington from the Louisiana Department of Veterans Affairs started researching other veterans whose remains had not been claimed. They tracked down discharge papers and tried to track down family members in an effort to determine whether they qualified for a military burial.
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They started with 21 veterans altogether. One family claimed one of the veterans, and the women are still researching seven others.
Local television station KTBS reported that honor guards from the four branches of the military in which the veterans served were on hand for the funeral service; they gave flags to representatives from veterans organizations in the area in the veterans’ memories. The cemetery director thanked those who came to pay their respects.
“I want to thank the Arkansas, Louisiana and Texas region for being the family for these warriors, for not allowing them to be buried alone, and for giving them the honor they are due,” Don Howard said, according to the television station.
The veterans who were laid to rest were: Army PV1 Mark Vincent Fox, who died Oct. 5, 2012; Army Sgt. 1st Class Ernest Roy Dill, who died May 26, 2018; Army Sgt. Perry Jenkins Jr., who died May 28, 2019; Army Spec. 4, Phillip Gregory Vogelman, who died Feb. 10, 2019; Army PV2 Charles Emmett Whittington II, who died Jan. 16, 2017; Army PFC Clifton Williams, who died June 23, 2014; Air Force Airman 1st Class Terrance Keith Hunt, who died Jan. 18, 2016; Marine Corps PFC Frances Marion Neely, who died Feb. 10, 2015; Navy Seaman James Edward Rountree, who died Aug. 5, 2016; Navy Seaman Recruit Harvey Lee Ramsey, who died Nov. 19, 2014; Navy Seaman Recruit Johnnie Ferrell Watkins, who died March 3, 2016; and Navy Seaman Recruit/Army PV1 Edward Troy Rash Jr., who died June 6, 2017.
Copyright 2022 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Two North Pacific right whales photographed near Unimak Pass on Feb. 8, 2022. (Photo courtesy Josh Trosvig / F/V Cerulean)
This article originally appeared at KUCB.org and is republished here with permission.
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Josh Trosvig is the captain of the Cerulean, a 58-foot boat currently fishing for cod in the Bering Sea, about 80 miles northeast of Unalaska.
On a sunny day earlier this month, while he was waiting for the tide to change, he said he spotted something that looked like a large tote bobbing on the surface of the water, about 300 feet from his boat.
It turned out to be a group of whales.
But not just any whales.
“I’ve seen a lot of whales — thousands, tens of thousands in my 35 years of fishing out here,” Trosvig said. “But this was unique. I’ve never seen whales feed like that.”
Trosvig didn’t know it at the time, but the whales he was watching were North Pacific right whales. They’re critically endangered. And scientists say Trosvig is likely the first person to take photos and video of the whales feeding in the Bering Sea in the winter.
It took emailing between a few scientists until the whales were identified, because the sight is so unusual. Trosvig’s footage and other photos from fishermen prompted officials to call on fishing boats to exercise caution in the area.
Also, scientists say the images could help fill in some mysteries about the very small whale population.
Rolling along the water’s surface ‘like bulldozers’
As Trosvig stood on his boat, looking out at the water, he said the whales moved almost “like bulldozers.”
They’d pop their heads up and roll along the water’s surface for minutes at a time — feeding behavior he’s never witnessed before.
At first, he said, he thought they might be bowhead whales feeding on marine invertebrates, based on their color and size. But he wasn’t sure. So he took out his phone and recorded them. Then, he sent the video to an assistant area management biologist with the Alaska Department of Fish and Game in Unalaska/Dutch Harbor.
“I firmly believe that knowledge is power, especially when it comes to the oceans,” Trosvig said. “We know more about the universe outside our solar system than we do about the depths of our own ocean. And for proper fisheries management and ecological management of the ocean, it’s critical for all of us to work together.”
Asia Beder manages groundfish fisheries in the Bering Sea-Aleutian Islands region. When she got the video from Trosvig last Tuesday, she dug through her marine mammal identification books, trying to identify the dark whales with white bumps on their heads and jawlines called callosities.
But she said she wasn’t completely sure what species they were. So she forwarded the video to NOAA fisheries for help.
“The simple email of, ‘Can you ID this?’ which I’ve seen many times for fish and crab and other animals, turned into a big thing,” said Beder, who works for the state Fish and Game office in Unalaska/Dutch Harbor.
The video of the whales then made its way to Jessica Crance who helped solve the mystery. She’s a research biologist based in Seattle with the Marine Mammal lab at the Alaska Fisheries Science Center — part of NOAA Fisheries. She said she helped identify the whales in the video as North Pacific right whales.
Beder, in Unalaska, was shocked.
“I don’t know anything about right whales, to be honest,” she said. “I know they exist, and I knew the population was low. But I didn’t realize how low, and so these sightings are really important.”
Eastern stock whale population falls from thousands to about 30
Right whales are among the rarest of all marine mammal species and have never been documented in the Bering Sea in winter months. They’ve been listed as endangered under the Endangered Species Act since 1970 and are depleted under the Marine Mammal Protection Act.
There are three different types of right whales: the North Atlantic, the Southern and the North Pacific. And the North Pacific right whales are split into two stocks: the eatern and the western.
“The western right whale is over in Japanese and Russian waters,” Crance said. “They number somewhere in the low hundreds, maybe 300 to 500 animals. The eastern stock is critically endangered.”
Scientists estimate there are only about 30 animals left in the eastern stock. That’s because the large baleen whales became the target of whaling in the 1800s. According to NOAA, the right whale got its name because it was the right whale to hunt — it moved slowly and would float after being killed.
“It’s estimated that anywhere between 25,000 and 35,000 animals were taken in just a few decades,” Crance said. “So that brought the population to maybe around the high hundreds of animals. But then in the 1960s, the Soviets began hunting right whales illegally, and took over 700 additional whales. That decimated the population, and brought it down to what we think are their current numbers of roughly 30 animals.”
Crance — who has been studying right whales for more than a decade — said the eastern stock feeds in the southeastern Bering Sea during the summer months. But because there are so few of them to track, it’s still unknown where they go the rest of the year.
“Prior to this, we assumed that they all migrated south, much like every other large whale population,” said Crance.
Because of Trosvig’s video, researchers are now thinking some of the whales may stay in the Bering Sea through the winter.
Crance said because they know so little about the eastern stock — including even how long they live — every single sighting increases their knowledge considerably.
That knowledge helps them continue to monitor and study the right whale population, she said.
Tracking whales by the white bumps on their heads
NOAA has a catalog of whales they’ve seen before, with corresponding numbers or names, Crance said. And they’re able to track specific whales based on their callosities.
But Trosvig’s video and photos are too far away to confirm if they’ve seen the whales before.
“There’s no way to know if these are known individuals or are new to us,” Crance said.
There are a few known right whales that have been spotted in the Bering Sea in the past. But they were observed in the spring and summer.
For instance, Phoenix, a juvenile right whale, was spotted in the Bering Sea in 2017 — the first juvenile to be seen there in more than a dozen years. He was viewed as a sign of hope that the population might recover, said Crance.
Notchy was named for the notch on its flukes, and is the first and only North Pacific right whale to have been matched to both a high and low latitude area, according to Crance. Notchy was photographed in April of 1996 in Hawaii and, four months later, in the Bering Sea in Alaska. Notchy has made at least one migration, according to Crance, and is the only documented migration they have for this population.
Crance said Tuesday that NOAA hasn’t received any new images of the whales spotted by Trosvig in the past week or so.
But NOAA Fisheries and the U.S. Coast Guard are urging boaters to be careful in the area of Unimak Pass so they don’t harm the whales if they’re still nearby. The area is a major transit zone for ships not just in and out of Dutch Harbor, but also to the rest of the world.
“Because they’re so critically endangered, every animal is crucial to the health of this population,” said Crance.
Also, Crance said, she hopes fishermen will continue to document the whales when they see them, and send photos and videos to Fish and Game or NOAA.
“Every sighting that we get helps put one more piece of the puzzle together to try and understand the migration and movement patterns of these animals,” she said.
NH Chronicle: Inside The New Boston Space Force Station
Where they’re preserving our past and protecting our future
Updated: 8:00 PM EST Feb 15, 2022
SPACE FORCE IS ABOUT AND THE LONG HISTORY ON THIS LAND. REPORTER: IT IS LEGENDARY LANDSCAPE IN NEW HAMPSHIRE DOTTED WITH WHAT LOOKS LIKE GIANT GOLF BALLS. WE ARE ON A MISSION TO TAKE YOU INSIDE THESE SPHERES AND INTO THE RESTRICTED AREA OF THE NEW BOSTON SPACE FORCE STATION. >> HAVE A SEAT. >> THE 23RD SPACE OPETIRAONS SQUADRON WELCOMES US BEHIND WHAT IS USUALLY CLOSED DOORS. WE ARE STARTING AT THE TOP WITH A BRIEFING FROM THE COMMANDER, LIEUTENANT COLONEL DAVID THAT SINGER. >> WE RENAMED THE INSTALLATION FROM AN AIR FORCE PATIENT TO A SPACE FORCE STATION. REPORTER: THE LT. COL. HAS A PROUD MILITARY HERITAGE. HIS FATHER SERVED IN VIETNAM. HIS GRANDFATHERS IN WORLD WAR II. LONG BEFORE THAT. >> AN HOUR WEST OF HERE MY GRANDFATHER’S GRANDFATHER’S GRANDFATHER IS LYING IN A CO LONIAL CEMETERY NEXT TO HIS FATHER. HE SERVED WITH GEORGE WASHINGTON IN THE REVUTOLION. JUST TRYING TO THINK WHAT HE WOULD THINK OF SOMETHING CALLED THE SPACE FORCE IN HIS BACKYARD IS NEAT. A FULL CIRCLE OF SERVICE TO THE COUNTRY. IT IS A REAL BIG PRIVILEGE TO BE HERE. >> THE LT. COL. MOVE FROM THE AIR FORCE TO THE SPACE FORCE, ARRIVING IN NEW HAMPSHIRE FROM THE PENTAGON. >> THE SPACE FORCES UNDER THE DEPARTMENT OF THE AIR FORCE. SIMILAR TO HOW THE NAVY AND THE MARINES ARE SEPARATE BUT EQUAL SERVICES UNDER THE DEPARTMENT OF THE NAVY. REPORTER: DO NOT BE ALARMED BY WHAT YOU ARE ABOUT TO HEAR. [SIREN] REPORTER: WE STEP THROUGH PRESSURE LOCKED DOORS LEADING INSIDE ONE OF THOSE GOLF BALL STRUCTURES. THIS IS OFFICIALLY CALLED A RADOME, A COMBINATION OF RADAR AND DOME. LOOK UP AND YOU WILL SEE THE INDOOR MISS — THE ENORMSOU ANTENNA, COMMUNICATING WITH SATELLITES CRITICAL TO MODERN LIFE. GPS, CLEL PHONES, BANKING, EVEN SMART WEAPON. >> WE NEED TO PAY ATTENTION AND WE NEED TO BE ABLE TO PRESERVE OUR ASSETS. >> THERE IS A TEAM OF 120. SPACE FORCE GUARDIANS. THE REST,OV GERNMENT CONTRACTED PERSONNEL. THREI MISSION, ALLOW ACCESS TO MORE THAN 200 SATELLITES AS THEY PASS OVER THE ATLANTIC AREA OF THE GLOBE. >> WHAT THESE ANTENNAS DO FOR THE SATELLITES WE SUPPORT AND THE MISSIONS THEY SUPPORT, EXTREMELY IMPORTANT. REPORTER: THEY WORK WITH A NETWORK OF OTHEROC LATIONS AT CAPE CANAVERAL, ENGLA,ND ASCENSION ISLAND IN THE SOUTHERN HEMISPHERE, DAN GREENLAND, WHICH THEY VISITED. >> GREENLAND IS A COPY AND PASTE OF THIS INSTALLATION, JUST A LOT COLDER AND LESS TREES. REPORT:ER COMMUNICATING WITH INSTALLATIONONS THE OTHERS OF THE PLANET, BOUNCING SIGNALS UP AND DOWN AND AROUND THE GLOBE, CALLED M HOPPING. >> YOU CAN BEAM UP TO A SATELLITE ANDHE T SATELLITE WILL COME DOWN TO AND UNDERGROUND STATION, BACK TO A SATELLITE, BACK TO THE INTENDED TARGET. IT IS CALLED M HOPPING BECAUSE IT MAKES AN M AROUND THE EARTH. REPORTER: IF SPACE OPERATIONS IN COLORADO NEEDS TO TALK TO A SATELLITE, NEW BOSTON, KNOWN BY ITS CALLSIGN BOS, WILL MAKE A CONNECTI.ON >> ALWAYS SCANNING, KEEPING A SAFE. >> AN EXAMPLE OF ONE OF THE SATELLITES WE SUPPORT DAY-TO-DAY IS THE GPS CONSTELTILAON. REPORTER: MASTER SERGEANT KYLE DOOLEY SAYS ETH SQUADRON KEEPS YO U CONNECTED WITH YOUR EVERYDAY LIFE. >> THIS IS A UNIT PATCH, THE 23 STOPS,HE T GATEKEEPER WCALLE IT, AND SPACE ACCESS IS WHAT WE DO. IT IS GREATO TBE PART OF THE TEAM. REPORTER: MAJOR JLIL CHALMERS HEEDLP DESIGN THE EMBLEM. >> IT REPRESENTS WH AATRE SQUADRON DOES. THE MIDDLE IS AN ANTENNA. WE HAVE A COUPLE DELTAS TO REPRESENTHT E SPACE FORCE. AND THEN THE THREE ORBITS. REPORT:ER AS SPACE AGE AS SPACE FORCE SOUNDS COME OF THE MILITARY HISTORY HERE DATES BACK TO WORLD WAR II. IN 1942, THE GOVERNMENT PURCHASED THE LAND TO TRAIN AIRMEN. AT THE MANCHESTER-BOSTON REGIONAL AIRPORT, THEY WOULD LOAD BOMBS, SOME LIVE, SOME PACKED WHIT SAND, AND MAKE THE 10 MINUTE FLIGHT TO PRACTICE DROPPING BOMBS IN JOE ENGLISH POND ON BA PROSEPERTY. OR HIT TARGETS WITH BULLETS FROM THE AIR. >> THEY HAD THESE BIG FLOATING WHARFS ON THE POND. USUALLY 100 POUND BOMBS TRYING TO HIT THOSE WHAS.RF THEY PRIMARILY FLEW 51 MUSTANGS OUT OF THEIR — OUT OF THERE. REPORTER: TWO PLANES CRASHED HERE. THREE AIRMEN LOST. RECINENT YEARS, A MAJOR SWEEP CLEANED UP UNEXPLODED ORDINAE.NC DETONATED ON-SITE, SOME SAVED HERE IN HERITAGE HALL ON THE BOMB — ON THE BASE. INUDCLING THIS TO HER THOUSAND POUND — THIS 2000 POUND BOMB. >> IIST INERT THANK GOODNESS. WHEN WE FOUND IT, WE DID NOT KNOW THAT. WE FOUND HUNDREDS OF THESE. THIS IS A SUB CALIBER AIRAFCRT ROCKET. THIS IS A 100 POUND PRACTICE BOMB. WE DID NOT REALLY UNDERSTAND HOW MUCH IS DROPP.ED THIS IS NOT DOCUMENTED. WHEN WE PUT BOOTS ON THE GROUND WERE ASTONISHED AT WHAT WE DID FIND. REPORT:ER THE HISTORY RUNS DEEP ON THESE 3000 ACRES. NATIVE STONE TOOLS WERE FOUND ON THE NDLA DATING BACK MORE THAN 12,000 YEARS. THERE ARE DOZENS OF ARCHAEOLOGICAL SITES, MORE THAN 70 COLONIAL FOUNDATIONS, A STOP ON THE UNDERGROUND RAILROAD. IT IS AMAZING THAT SLAVES WOULD COME HERE ON THEIR JOURNEY TO FREEDOM. >> WE HAVE SEVERAL DOCUMTEEND CASES OF SLAVES BEING BROUGHT HERE. REPORTER:LL A PRESERVED ON THIS FEDERAL PROPERTY BECAUSE PUBLIC ACCESS IS NOT PERMITTED. >> IT IS A CLOSED INSTALLATION. WE HEAV TO MAINTAIN A HIGH LEVEL OF SECURITY BASED ON THE IMPORTANT MISSION WE DO FOR THE SPACFOE RCE. REPORTER: THE AIR FORCE HASEE BN CONDUCTING SPACE MISSIONS FOR DECADES. >> THE CORONA PROGRAM WAS OUR FIRST INTELLIGENCE PROGRAM. WE WOULD HAVE SATELLITES IN SPACE THAT WOULD TAKE PICTURES OFHE T SOVIET UNION. REPORT:ER LIKE OTHER COUNTRIES, THE U.S. HAS A DEDICATED SPACE FORCE WITH 6600 ACTIVE-DUTY GUARDIANS AROUND THE GLOBE. NEW HAMPSHIRE IS HOME TO MORE THAN $1 BILLION WORTH OF ASSETS AND ON THE DUTY AROUND THE CLOCK HERE IS A NEW BOSTON, PAYING TRIBUTE TO THE PAST AND LOOKING TO THE FUTURE.
NH Chronicle: Inside The New Boston Space Force Station
Where they’re preserving our past and protecting our future
Updated: 8:00 PM EST Feb 15, 2022
Tonight we are headed inside some of the restricted areas at the New Boston Space Force Station, to meet the Granite Staters on a mission to keep America connected and safe. Plus, the folks with The Seacoast Science Center’s Marine Mammal Rescue Program, call themselves sentinels of the sea, bio-indicators of what’s going on in the big blue. Jennifer Crompton takes a look at seal satellite tracking that the program is using to help unlock some mysteries. On Fritz Wetherbee’s New Hampshire: Tales of Salem, LafayetteFor more information on tonight’s stories:Seacoast Science CenterRye, NHMarine Mammals of MaineHosting this week from: United States Space Force
Tuesday, February 15th —
Tonight we are headed inside some of the restricted areas at the New Boston Space Force Station, to meet the Granite Staters on a mission to keep America connected and safe.
Plus, the folks with The Seacoast Science Center’s Marine Mammal Rescue Program, call themselves sentinels of the sea, bio-indicators of what’s going on in the big blue. Jennifer Crompton takes a look at seal satellite tracking that the program is using to help unlock some mysteries.
On Fritz Wetherbee’s New Hampshire: Tales of Salem, Lafayette
Not enough time, not enough equipment, and not enough people. That is what the crews of over a dozen ships told investigators from the Government Accountability Office in a report on actions needed to improve Navy ship maintenance delivered earlier this month.
In addition to looking at maintenance data from the Navy, investigators also spoke to 107 members of the junior and senior enlisted crews of 16 ships from around the fleet. They included submarines, aircraft carriers, guided-missile cruisers and destroyers and dock landing ships. Their comments were corroborated by “having independent analysts compile notes from the meetings.”
Sailors’ comments painted a picture of a fleet that is overworked and understaffed. It’s also been noticeably covered in rust lately. And the problem boils down to four areas of concern, according to the report: crew shortages, high operational tempo, limited maintenance training and shortages of parts and material. Many sailors also discussed difficulties in performing maintenance duties, and the generally low priority it was given.
For the sailors, the difficulties started with manpower. On one surface ship, the crew reported that six of the 13 positions in the ship’s electronics division were unfilled. On another ship, the electronics division had been reduced from 28 to 11 personnel, with only eight crewmembers left who were fully qualified to perform maintenance tasks. One ship reported that its maintenance division was only at 40 percent of its optimal crewing level.
“A submarine may borrow 10 to 12 personnel from other ships for deployment,” read one comment. “Afterward, a huge vacuum occurs when qualified maintenance personnel leave to support a deploying submarine.”
FILE PHOTO: Sailors assigned to the Virginia-class attack submarine Pre-Commissioning Unit (PCU) Illinois (SSN 786) salute after bringing the ship to life during a rehearsal for the submarine’s upcoming commissioning ceremony scheduled for Oct 29. Illinois is the U.S. Navy’s 13th Virginia-Class attack submarine and the fourth U.S. Navy ship named for the state of Illinois. (U.S. Navy photo by Chief Petty Officer Darryl I. Wood/Released)
The situation was the same onshore.
“Over the last several years the Navy has consistently filled positions open to enlisted personnel at shore-based maintenance providers 20 percent or more below authorized levels,” read the report.
Personnel on 10 of the 16 ships also reported that the demands placed on them by crew shortages also exacerbated morale and mental health issues. One ship’s crew members reported that “they lost one person to suicide and a dozen other personnel experienced mental health issues over a period of 7 months.”
Due to the high operational tempo of the fleet, ship’s crews described, “operating in unsafe conditions, with safety measures circumvented or disregarded, and working 12 to 20 hours while in port, canceling leave, and also working long shifts in order to get maintenance done while underway.”
An investigation into the 2017 collision of the guided-missile destroyer USS Fitzgerald with a container vessel off the coast of Japan found that crew fatigue driven by the ship’s high operational tempo played a role in the accident, which resulted in the death of seven sailors. Likewise, the same was true of an investigation into the collision of the USS John S. McCain with an oil tanker near Singapore, which happened just weeks after the Fitzgerald incident. Ten sailors were killed in the accident.
Meanwhile, junior personnel reported in the recent GAO report they received little training while still “gaining senior status and not knowing what they are doing.”
Submarine crews reported that so-called departures from specifications — changes in approved maintenance procedures — were also increasing in frequency. According to Navy data, from 2015 to 2020, they increased from nine to 15% of all maintenance jobs in the submarine fleet.
Sailors also reported workforce shortages resulting in days that “regularly exceeded 16 hours,” and that “the hours of required maintenance exceed the hours in a day.”
One ship’s crew reported 80 hour work weeks while in port, which increased to up to 100 hours a week in preparation for deployment.
Senior Chief Ship’s Serviceman Chrislin Voltaire cuts Lieutenant Tyler Zamudio’s hair in the barbershop aboard amphibious transport dock ship USS Somerset (LPD 25) Nov. 13, 2018, in the Pacific Ocean. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist Seaman Lasheba James)
When it comes to maintenance training, sailors described it as oftentimes obsolete or not matching up with the skills actually needed aboard a ship. “Ships’ crews do not learn how to maintain equipment they are expected to repair,” read one comment.
“Ships’ crews often learn incorrect or incomplete group knowledge that negatively affects their abilities to complete work,” read another.
The report identified a general trend in the Navy dating back more than 20 years – shortening formal instructor-led and hands-on training and becoming increasingly reliant on on-the-job training, even as crew sizes have been reduced.
Sailors also cited the lack of availability of formal training. Some sailors also said that the training given by the Navy was out of sync with what they actually encountered aboard a ship, focusing on systems and technology that are no longer in use. The result was sailors arriving on a ship with little practical knowledge.
A few crews even described having to “rely on social media to help solve maintenance problems.”
Parts and material shortages were also identified as problems across the fleet: Back-orders of up to two years. Obsolete parts that have to be cannibalized from other ships. Using so-called “‘duct-tape’ and ‘bubblegum’ approaches” to get ships underway.
“Crewmembers are told simply to make it work,” read one comment. “This leads to swapping parts and improvising.” The Fitzgerald investigation found that the Voyage Management System, which helps with navigation without paper charts, in the skipper’s cabin “was broken so sailors cannibalized it for parts to help keep the rickety system working.”
The USS Fitzgerald being towed into port.
Fourteen of 18 shore-based maintenance providers also reported similar issues with parts and material shortages.
Some of the crews interviewed by investigators also spoke about the additional challenges of performing maintenance, from missing technical manuals to not factoring in the time it takes to perform additional duties associated with maintenance.
For a ship that is understaffed or a crewmember who lacks experience, what might be a three-hour task on paper can take twice as long.
The crews also described the common practice of using workarounds and “Band-Aids” to complete tasks.
“Essentially, a commanding officer does not want the ship to be perceived by superiors as the ‘boat that cannot get underway,’” read one comment from a submarine crew.
On another ship, “high-pressure air compressors have been broken for a long time. When a piston cracked in one of the compressors, management’s response to this problem for 3 years was to instruct the ship’s crew to use it sparingly.”
Despite the hours spent on it and the lack of parts and equipment, the low priority of maintenance was also noted.
“Maintenance is usually not a priority for a ship’s leadership until leadership wonders why maintenance is incomplete,” read one comment.
“Crewmembers often work on Saturdays and Sundays to accomplish maintenance because it was pushed to the side given the extra duties they must complete,” read another.
Long days, last-second workarounds, sifting through a parts list that contains 1,500 excess and obsolete items and being told, simply, to “get it done” are things that are certainly familiar to any service member. But this report describes a fleet with sailors seemingly stretched to their limits.
Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Michael Gilday told Task & Purpose he hadn’t seen the GAO report but said “we’re not ignoring maintenance.”
“We’ve come from 7,700 delay days to just shy of 3,000 [in private shipyards], and my goal is to get to zero,” Gilday said. “A lot of that is predicated on putting money against the problem instead of deferring the maintenance and walking away from it. So, some of those problems those GAO reports are looking [at] a year or two years back. I’m giving you data here and now. I’m putting money against the problem. I will tell you that maintenance is funded to executable levels, as are with respect to training steaming days and flying hours.”
Jeff Schogol contributed reporting from San Diego.
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Due to Lake Michigan’s high lake levels, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is planning to raise the Grand Haven pier to prevent water from splashing over top of it.
“We are going to look at increasing the height, the elevation of that structure,” said the corps’ dredging program manager, Melissa Bosman. “Then there is sediment along the structure in some areas of it, and we are going to address that as well.”
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Amid all the tensions in Ukraine with Russia, the US Air Force scrambled its F-22 Raptor stealth fighter jets to identify an object floating in the air off the shore of the Hawaiian island of Kauai on February 14.
The incident has been confirmed by the US Pacific Air Forces (PACAF), but no further details have been disclosed since the matter is still under investigation.
The Adjutant General of Hawaii issued a statement on Twitter on February 17 saying, “Indo-Pacific Command detected a high-altitude object floating in the air in the vicinity of the Hawaiian Islands.
In accordance with homeland defense procedures, Pacific Air Forces launched tactical aircraft to intercept and identify the object, visually confirming an unmanned balloon without observable identification markings.”
While the military has not revealed the details related to the aircraft deployed in the mission, F-22s, however, are the only fighter jets stationed in Hawaii.
The 199th Fighter Squadron (199 FS) is part of the 154th Wing of the Hawaii Air National Guard, based at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam in Honolulu, Hawaii. The unit is equipped with the F-22A Raptor. The F-22 fighter jet is often assigned to the quick-reaction alert role.
In regards to aerial activity over Kauai on 2-14:U.S. Indo-Pacific Command detected a high-altitude object floating in air in the vicinity of the Hawaiian Islands. In accordance with homeland defense procedures, Pacific Air Forces launched tactical aircraft to intercept and -1 /3
Locals have also confirmed that Raptors were used by the military in the mentioned event, which they refer to as a UFO. Videos shared on a Facebook group “Kauai Community” reveal what appears to be a fixed white oblong object in the sky, surrounded by at least two vapor trails (line-shaped clouds produced by aircraft engine exhaust or changes in air pressure).
Lots of people on Kauai claiming to see a UFO tonight… people I’m close to and trust said they saw it too and that the military is aware it’s there and are circling. pic.twitter.com/EhYJpOcip6
Intrigued by the possibility of UFO sighting, some residents said that the object remained stationary. “Someone who works in aviation here on the island received communications that there were F-22s intercepting a UFO.
UFO means an unidentified flying object to them. I wonder what the fighter pilots saw. It being a STATIONARY object,” one comment reads. “The aviation person told me that the UFO is many miles offshore from Princeville over the ocean. It remained in one spot for at least 40 minutes.”
File Image: F-22 Raptor
Another resident wrote, “I watched this from Lihue to Kapaa. Two jets flying around and around. And this just stationary not even close to the altitude the jets were.”
According to the Honolulu Star-Advertiser, a Newspaper based in Hawaii, Kauai County Councilwoman Felicia Cowen heard two booms, each strong enough to shake her house. “I would like to understand what were the powerful explosion sounds that were strong enough to shake my house in Kilauea, Kauai, and what looked like smoke in the sky. Was any object hit and did it explode? If so, what was it, and why?”
However, the “responding aircraft did not destroy the balloon,” as per an Air Force spokesperson who spoke to the paper on Thursday, February 17. “We don’t have anything else to provide at this time,” the official said, adding that the service is “actively monitoring it via joint capabilities and it is under evaluation.”
Why It Was A Cause Of Alarm
The incident alludes to a far bigger problem: the use of balloons to gather important intelligence. Balloons are used to collect intelligence on radar and communications systems. Even the Pentagon is working on the possibility of utilizing surveillance balloons.
In 2019, it was reported that the US military is testing high-altitude, solar-powered balloons that will allow the Pentagon to perform continuous surveillance across America. Since the Pacific Missile Range’s primary facility is located on Kauai’s northwestern coast, the recent event could be a serious source of concern for the US military.
Pacific Missile Range Facility – Wikipedia
According to the US military, “the facility is part of ‘the world’s largest instrumented multi-environmental range capable of supporting surface, subsurface, air, and space operations simultaneously.” Moreover, since the 2000s, the military has undertaken a number of missile defense experiments at this installation.
There are about 42,000 square miles of controlled airspace and over 1,100 square miles of instrumented underwater range. In addition to missile defense, the site also hosts training exercises ranging from small single-unit drills to large-scale multi-unit battle group scenarios.
Such an installation would pique the attention of America’s rivals given the important equipment located there, as well as the sensitive electromagnetic waveforms some of them emit.
Joy White: ‘We’ve got to get a more clear access point for commercial industry’
WASHINGTON — The U.S. Space Force’s procurement arm based in Los Angeles has launched a new effort to attract commercial space companies that do not typically work with the government, Joy White, executive director of the Space Systems Command, said Feb. 16.
The plan is to have Space Force representatives assigned at different locations in the United States who can engage with interested companies and identify opportunities for the Space Force to invest in “high potential technologies,” White said at a Space Foundation virtual event.
White, who is also head of contracting at Space Systems Command, said the initiative was named “SSC front door” although it is still in its infancy. “We’ve got to get a more clear access point for commercial industry to come in and to bring us their ideas, and bring us their technologies. So that is what SSC front door is intended to do.”
Teams assigned to the SSC front door effort will be based at the command’s headquarters in Los Angeles but also at other space industry hotbeds like NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston. Others will be in Colorado Springs and Kirtland, New Mexico, home of the Air Force Research Laboratory and the Space Rapid Capabilities Office. In the future the plan is to bring people to the Washington, D.C. area as well, she said, “because there’s so much opportunity there to talk with folks and understand what capabilities are out there.”
The Space Systems Command is a massive organization with an $11 billion annual budget and nearly 10,000 personnel. White said the command has set a goal of transforming the military’s space architecture from one dominated by huge satellites in geostationary Earth orbit to more proliferated networks deployed in lower and higher orbits that would be more difficult for adversaries to attack.
The command has a 2026 target date to have new networks of satellites in orbit and needs help from the private sector, said White.
The Space Systems Command was stood up in August 2021, replacing the Space and Missile Systems Center which was first established in 1954, making it the oldest space organization in the U.S. military.“Over decades programs have gotten bogged down by traditional processes,” said White. The new chief of Space Systems Command,Lt. Gen. Michael Guetlein, is restructuring the organization to be more agile, she said.
White said the front door initiative is one of many efforts to ensure “we keep pace with the innovation of the commercial space sector.”
The command is still fine-tuning the front door concept so it doesn’t become too complex for small businesses, she said. “One thing I worry about is whether we have too many doors and so it might be confusing as to how to come in. We’ve got to get that tightened up.”
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