New report warns the US wouldn't be able to rebuild its space military in the event of a war with China or Russia due to a lack of qualified experts

RAND report claims the civilian space contractor workforce in the US can not support rebuilding lost satellites within 12 to 24 months of a war with either Russia or China The benchmark timeline is based on RAND's own assumptions and calculations surrounding a protracted war with either regional superpower The report highlights labor gaps that are as dire as 19:1 in certain cases when it comes to engineering replacements A new report has warned the United States might struggle to replace satellites lost in a space war because it lacks the requisite workers.

The report, "Breaking Glass, Missing Hands" , was sponsored by the Vice Chief of Space Operations and conducted by RAND Project AIR FORCE, the Department of the Air Force's own federally funded research center, as part of a fiscal 2024 project titled "In Emergency, Break Glass." It does not, however, focus on the Department of the Air Force's internal workforce or Space Force civilian employees; instead, it highlights shortfalls in the civilian sector.

An overly ambitious reconstruction timeline? RAND's report identifies shortfalls in three groups: engineers with bachelor's degrees or higher, skilled touch labor (technicians and assemblers), and advanced-degree specialists in electro-optical sensing and radiation hardening.

None of these are easy to replace or replicate in a short period, but one must consider that the 12- to 24-month target is one RAND has self-assessed in an industry that can take as much as a decade to replace satellites on average.

RAND notes that no such formal requirement exists, adding that the creation of the Space Force in 2019 could be read as a tacit acknowledgment of near-term dependence on space.

The people the report is most worried about, interestingly, are cleanroom technicians, welders, and solderers, not scientists, because of the labor shortages in play that already come to roughly nineteen jobs for one qualified individual.

This is further exacerbated by RAND essentially trying to set a somewhat aggressive standard that the Pentagon has yet to define formally.

It also cited security clearance delays as a hiring bottleneck, with initial Secret investigations averaging more than 87 days in fiscal 2024 and Top Secret cases running close to six months.

Interestingly, RAND notes that in a conflict where the adversary can destroy systems faster than the United States can launch replacements, building exact replicas with known vulnerabilities may accomplish little, especially in a protracted war.