Military officers charged with conducting a war with Iraq, if it occurs, will get far more assistance and information from U.S. space forces than their predecessors did during the 1991 Persian Gulf war. And in any future conflicts, milspace forces may bring even more firepower to the fight, such as quick-response conventional versions of today's Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs).

A decade of operations-oriented joint Air Force, Army and Navy milspace commanders have converted the community from a secretive scientific-based one to a specialized cadre integrated with air, land and sea combat forces. The image of "space geeks" huddled over computers behind cipher-lock doors has given way to "space-smart" officers and enlisted troops working closely with traditional warfighters in Combined Air Operations Centers (CAOCs) in the volatile Middle East.

During the gulf war, milspace "was in its formative stages. We only had 16-17 GPS satellites back then [for example]. That was a rudimentary capability compared to what we have now," said Gen. Lance W. Lord, commander of Air Force Space Command (AFSPC) here. "[Our] people are deployed throughout the Centcom [Central Command] Area of Responsibility . . . and are part of the Expeditionary Air Force, that's for sure.

"One place you see [milspace] capabilities come to bear is in the Combined Air Operations Center at Prince Sultan AB in Saudi Arabia. We have a space team on duty round-the-clock in the CAOC, helping coordinate GPS, intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance, weather and communications--all the things 'space' is capable of doing. It makes sure 'space' is fully integrated into any campaign planning and operations [now], and will be fully integrated into any future [war] operations--should they happen," Lord said.

In late November, Lord and his AFSPC staff visited Southwest Asia for a first-hand look at how the command's deployed milspace professionals are supporting counter-terrorism ops in Afghanistan and preparations for apossible Iraq war. What they found were space specialists well-ensconced in CAOCs and on senior command staffs.