Plan Proposes Abolition of National Reconnaissance Office

Ares Homepage: "The End of the NRO?
Posted by Bill Sweetman at 8/14/2008 8:15 AM CDT

“Radical change” is an over-used phrase, but the proposals of the Allard Commission on US national security space – previewed by commission member Gen. Ed Anderson at the Space & Missile Defense Conference in Huntsville on Wednesday, are certainly radical.

The commission recommends eliminating the National Reconnaissance Office - the agency that helped win the Cold War, and whose very existence was secret until the early 1990s - as a separate entity and removing executive authority for space systems from the Air Force, transferring both functions into a single new organization."

The National Security Space Independent Assessment Panel, aka the "Allard Commission," is proposing that the NRO and the U.S. Air Force Space and Missile Systems Center (SMC) be folded into a completely new agency.

Basically, the feel that the existing agencies are doing a piss-poor job, with the NRO recent history being disasterous, and the USAF constantly pulling resources to support its aircraft programs.

My take? Deck chairs, titanic.