Massive NRO Growth?

DoD Buzz reports on some of the fall-out of the DNI-directed Obering panel as it affects the NRO. Besides the options of 1) maintaining the status quo and 2) rewriting the NRO charter to give it all USAF and intel community space, there is a third option.

The third option will be for the NRO to operate all U.S. military and intel space and ISR assets. If the story is true, this third option would be organizationally revolutionary. Basically, we’d be talking about a Space Corps or something approaching a U.S. Space Force.

Wait, Maybe We Do Need Exquisite Satellites

How much value does strategic space provide? That is impossible to say, but just for exquisite electro-optical, we're willing to apparently pay at least $20 billion. How long does it take? Up to TWENTY (that is not a typo) years.

So for some applications, it would appear exquisite may actually be the minimum standard.

The link reports the Next Generation Electro-Optical system was not competitively bid and that it will indeed have exquisite capabilities. Since GeoEye can already produce 16 inch resolution commercially, I'm thinking exquisite will be...better.