Space Education and Strategic Applications Journal
Figure 5 . A fully-trained astronaut , Barrett was a “ back-up ” astronaut for the Soyuz TMA-16 flight to the International Space Station .
first cup of coffee in the morning , they ’ ve used space . It ’ s ubiquitous , but it ’ s invisible . So , most people don ’ t realize it . I mean , you may wake into an alarm clock that is set to a timer that is airborne . That is space-born . It ’ s coming from a satellite . Our ATMs . You can ’ t pump gas without using space . The news probably is derived from a space asset . Our weather predictions are coming from space assets ; crop monitoring , environmental monitoring , these things are all dependent upon space . Just in summary , our information , our navigation and our communications are all space-dependent . It ’ s ubiquitous , but it ’ s invisible . We don ’ t see those lines to space . If they were all tethered by some wires , we ’ d be wrapped up in it like Lilliputian , like Jonathan Swift . But in fact , we are dependent , but not conscious in many cases of how dependent we are . So , with that dependence , we built this
system , the GPS system especially — as my predecessor in this role said , we built a glass house before we knew about stones , in that we have a vulnerable system , but we built it without consciousness of that vulnerability . So now those satellites , that GPS system upon which we depend , has been unprotected . We need to be able to protect that capability , and we need to deter others from attacking our GPS satellites , and we need to replace the current satellites with less vulnerable , more jam-resistant and protected satellites .” ( Forbes , 2020 ).
Bidding the USAF Farewell
Even though her tenure with the Air Force has ended , Barrett took the opportunity to share some parting words during her farewell ceremony on January 14th at Joint Base Anacostia-Bolling in Washington , D . C . She commended the “ superstars ” she led and mentored by accentuating their
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