He’s not Captain James T. Kirk of the U.S.S. Enterprise, but Gen. Chance Saltzman, the most senior military officer leading the U.S. Space Force, has been compared to him before.
“We’re not here to defend against aliens. We’re not here to do interplanetary explorations. We have NASA to do that,” he said in an interview Saturday.
But Saltzman does have something in common with Star Trek’s William Shatner, who portrayed Kirk: Both have strong Kentucky connections.
Saltzman was born in Owensboro and grew up in Bowling Green, where he graduated high school in 1987. He then attended Boston University and launched a 28-year career in the Air Force before transitioning to the Space Force in 2020 and taking its top job in 2022.
And on Saturday, Saltzman, a four-star general and chief of space operations for the Space Force, was inducted into the Kentucky Aviation Hall of Fame in Lexington.
The Space Force, which has a budget of about $30 billion, is the newest and smallest branch of the military, with about 17,000 enlisted military and civilian staffers, who are referred to as “guardians.”
Though the military’s history with space goes back more than 60 years, the Space Force was established just five years ago, with a mission of “securing our nation’s interests in, from and to space.”
Saltzman, the second person to hold the chief of space operations title, said in an interview Saturday the Space Force has an important role to play in keeping Americans safe, as well as protecting our way of life.
“Space is critical to the United States — not just from a military standpoint,” Saltzman said. “If you drove here with Google Maps, that GPS signal that’s telling your phone where it is, that’s your United States Space Force. GPS is critical to our economy. In fact, the timing signal that it provides connects all of the internet computers. It connects everything from your bank transactions to getting gas at the pump. When you swipe your card, you’re using space capabilities.”
Phone systems, radio and television services operate because of equipment in space, and agricultural operations have come to rely on information provided by satellites.
Saltzman said American adversaries including Russia and China “have invested heavily to build capabilities to deny us our space capabilities,” and the role of the Space Force is to prevent them from doing so.
“We have to deny our adversaries the use of space against us,” Saltzman said. “And that becomes kind of our primary mission. We call it space superiority. Protect ours and deny the adversary the use of space against us.”
Saltzman described the current political situation as “a state of competition” with “constant friction” between American interests and those of other world powers.
He said the “emerging threats” of years ago are here now, as China and Russia have both shown that they can shoot and destroy satellites with missiles. They also have developed technologies that sound like something from a science fiction novel — Saltzman said China has shown the capability to use a grappling arm “to grab onto a satellite and drag it out of its orbit so that it can’t be used for mission.”
“The Russians launched what we call a nesting doll,” he said. “...One satellite, another satellite comes out of that one, and then finally, this little kill vehicle comes out and attacks a satellite and destroys it.
“We’re getting ahead of those threats,” Saltzman said.
The Space Force is also constantly tracking about 46,000 objects orbiting the Earth, from satellites to a glove lost by an astronaut during one of the Apollo missions, helping ensure collisions don’t occur in the increasingly congested area above Earth. Saltzman likened it to the role air traffic control plays.
And the Space Force is responsible for launching satellites and rockets.
While most Space Force guardians work from computer stations on the ground communicating with satellites, one of its guardians was recently tapped by NASA for a space mission.
Col. Nick Hague, an astronaut who had already spent more than 200 days on the International Space Station, commanded the NASA SpaceX Crew-9 mission that launched Sept. 28 and is aboard the ISS for a five-month mission focused on scientific research.
The Space Force operates from six main bases, including three in Colorado, two in California and one at Cape Canaveral, Fla.
Saltzman, who is stationed at the Pentagon, still has a home in Warren County.
He said he was humbled to be inducted into the Aviation Hall of Fame in his home state.
“I just still feel like somebody doing the job that they’ve been asked to do,” he said.
Other inductees into the Aviation Hall of Fame Saturday included Ralph G. Anderson and Wallace Sidney “Sid” Park, both of whom were inducted posthumously.
Anderson founded the engineering firm Belcan, and Park helped found Kentucky’s first commercial airport, Bowman Field in Louisville.
Jim McCormick, chairman of the Kentucky Aviation Hall of Fame committee and a member of the board of trustees at the Aviation Museum of Kentucky, said this is the 28th year for Hall of Fame inductions.
The committee seeks nominations for inductees, who are then selected through a ballot vote by museum members and members of the hall of fame.
McCormick said the Kentucky Aviation Hall of Fame wants to make sure Saltzman “is recognized as someone from Kentucky who is doing us proud.”
Nominations for future inductions are welcome, he said.
“There are people whose stories we don’t know,” he said.
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