MSIAC's M&S Journal Online: Volume 3, November 2006

Abstract : The topic of the first paper in volume 3 is "Weather Play in Exercises: Moving from Controlling to Enabling Decision Making". Nothing can change the pace of war faster than weather. It directly affects five of the principles of war-mass, offensive, surprise, economy of force, and maneuver. Yet, it can't be controlled or perfectly predicted. Thus, military leaders can certainly become slaves to it. On the other hand, these leaders should be trained to account for the effects of weather - to devise ways to mitigate its effects and to exploit opportunities presented by the weather. In fact, that's just what today's exercises and experiments are doing. Past training events employed weather as a way to control pace. Now weather works to enhance training objectives. The outcome - superior decision makers and more effective war fighting. The topic of the second article is "The National Space Security Institute Space Power Laboratory, Applying Simulation to Educate and Train the Warfighter". The National Space Security Institute (NSSI) has the mission to provide instruction of space systems knowledge, operational concepts and tactics required to prepare warfighters for joint military operations. To help accomplish this mission, the NSSI has developed the Space Power Laboratory (SPL). The SPL augments the student's education in the formal classroom and prepares space professionals to augment Air and Space Operations Centers (AOCs) during exercise and real-world contingencies. The SPL consists of an integrated wrap-around simulation system, communications system, A/V system and the command and control applications typically found in an AOC. This facility serves as a multi-media classroom, software application-training laboratory and simulated operations center. This paper will discuss requirements of the SPL, the architecture of the SPL, how the NSSI has adapted its instruction to take advantage of the SPL and the impact on the NSSI's mission.