This paper is an outgrowth of comments I heard and attitudes I experienced at the JFCOM Joint Space Concept Development and Experimentation Workshop in Norfolk at the end of March 2004. I presented a briefing on near-space at the conference along with colleagues from JFCOM, the Army Space and Missile Defense Battlelab, the Naval Research Laboratory, and the Navy Warfare Development Command. It discussed how many functions that are currently done with satellites could be performed for tactical and operational commanders using near-space assets much more cheaply and with much greater operational utility. The briefing was very well received with nothing but positive comments all around. However, once we broke into focus groups trying to develop exercise inputs for such subjects as operationally responsive space, the near-space concept was almost forgotten. It didn't fit into the normal mindset of what space meant, so it was difficult to convince other group members that it should be discussed in the same breath as, say, a TacSat-type program. After much thought, it was my perception that the problem was one of mindset as to what the word "space" meant to the warfighter. After reading space doctrine (Army, Navy, Air Force, and Joint), I discovered that the mindset I sensed at the workshop had actually been codified to define space as a place where we operate satellites. That mindset is counterproductive.

"The thesis of this paper is that space is currently a medium through which warfighters get effects- typically those effects are strongly related to Command, Control, Communications, Computers, Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance (C4ISR)-- not just a place and not based on a specific platform type. Until recently, most C4ISR effects have been delivered from satellite platforms (apologies to our manned and unmanned air-breathing ISR assets). The reason for operating in such a manner was that, in general, no other way existed to obtain similar effects. The extreme costs of space were justified due to their monopoly on the ability to provide those needed effects. However, with the advent of near-space concepts, those same effects can be obtained in a different way, especially for operational and tactical users. The paper discusses strengths and weakness of near-space, doing a top-level comparison with satellites, manned ISR, and UAVs. Satellites are shown to have great strengths for strategic missions where freedom of overflight is required. However, for operational and tactical missions-- primarily after or just before commencement of hostilities-- near-space holds strong advantages, especially over so-called tactical satellites."--Executive summary.

Near-space is defined as the atmospheric region from about 20 kilometer (km) altitude to 100 km altitude above the Earth’s surface. It has received much attention in recent years and several types of near-space vehicles are currently being studied, developed, or employed. “Near-Space Remote Sensing: Potential and Challenges” concentrates mainly on the role of near-space vehicles in bridging the gap between satellites and airplanes for microwave remote sensing applications, providing a top-level system description and aiming to encourage further research. Further, this book also describes several potential applications such as passive surveillance, reconnaissance, and high resolution wide swath remote imaging. The book is intended for geographers, transportation engineers and other researchers involved in remote sensing development and applications, in particular for near-space vehicles. Wen-Qin Wang is an assistant professor at the School of Communication and Information Engineering, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China.

Presents revised and edited papers from a October 2010 conference held in Taipei on the Chinese Air Force. The conference was jointly organized by Taiwan?s Council for Advanced Policy Studies, the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, the U.S. National Defense University, and the RAND Corporation. This books offers a complete picture of where the Chinese air force is today, where it has come from, and most importantly, where it is headed.