Colonel touches on space safety, drinking water contamination in State of the Wing address

The commander of the 21st Space Wing and Peterson Air Force Base outlined what’s in store for the space wing in the next year as part of the State of the Wing event on Thursday.

During his speech, Col. Douglas Schiess said there will be a strong focus on increasing the U.S.’s security in space.

“[Other countries] have been watching how we do war fighting, and they know that our soldiers, sailors, airmen and marines use space to make our war fighting capabilities more effective so one way to take away that effectiveness is to go after our space assets. To be able to either degrade them, or make them so they can’t use them and we have to fight without them,” said Col. Schiess.

In addition to implementing more advanced radar, there will also be a new focus on training space operators.

“We are giving them more advanced training as a part of this space mission force, and so while before they were great, they were doing awesome, but in that benign environment, they were kind of just doing that day-to-day job. Now, they will be trained on the threats that are out there, and it will make us a more effective fighting force,” said Col. Schiess.

Col. Troy Endicott is the commander for the operations group that will oversee the new radars. Before, they could track objects in space that were as small as a basketball. Under the new radars, they’ll be able to track things the size of softballs. Endicott said it’s increasingly important as more debris orbits the earth.

“As we put more things in space, more active things in space, I think you need more capabilities to know what’s going on space,” said Col. Endicott.

In his address, Schiess also touched on Peterson Air Force Base’s role in solving the water contamination problems impacting southern El Paso County. Initial tests indicate perfluorinated compounds found in local drinking water in Security, Widefield and Fountain may have come from firefighting foam on Peterson Air Force Base.

Schiess said it’s been years since they used that type of foam. Now, the base will start digging wells to pinpoint exactly where the PFC’s are seeping into the water.

In addition, Schiess said Peterson will continue to provide funds and expertise to the local water districts.