NRO Releases Portion of 2009 Budget Justification
The National Reconnaissance Office, which develops, launches and operates U.S. intelligence satellites, last week released most of the unclassified portions (pdf) of its Congressional Budget Justification Book for FY2009. While those unclassified portions are only a small fraction of the full budget document, they still provide a fresh glimpse or two of the agency and its four directorates (IMINT, SIGINT, Advanced Systems and Technology, and Communications).
“The U.S. is arguably more reliant on overhead collection that ever before,” the NRO says, while “intelligence problems are becoming more complex and increasingly require synergistic, multi-INT, multi-source solutions.” See “National Reconnaissance Program,” FY2009 Congressional Budget Justification, February 2008, released under the Freedom of Information Act July 2009.
The NRO has suffered serious acquisition failures in recent years and it has been rumored, unconfirmably, that the agency may be broken up or reorganized. (“Spy Agency May Face Ax” by Colin Clark, DoD Buzz, July 1, 2009). Meanwhile, President Obama reportedly issued a directive last spring — Presidential Study Directive 2 — ordering a review of classified space activities. (“President Orders Sweeping U.S. Space Policy Review” by Amy Klamper, Space News, July 6, 2009).
Cities and states are best positioned to design policies to accelerate clean energy, innovation, and economic development because they can design approaches that work in different social, political, and economic contexts.
Outcome-Based Contracting reframes procurement around the staged achievement of measurable mission outcomes rather than the delivery of predefined technical artifacts.
The real opportunity of AI lies not just in the tools, but in an educator workforce prepared to wield them. When done right, this investment in human infrastructure ensures AI accelerates learning outcomes for all students, closing the “digital design divide.”
If carbon markets are going to play a meaningful role — whether as engines of transition finance, as instruments of accurate pricing across heterogeneous climate interventions, or both — they need the infrastructure and standards that any serious market requires.