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Looking After the 800
"We track, as we've said, 19,000 objects or so, but we only do a conjunction analysis or an assessment of whether they're going to come close to another body on a subset of that—primarily DOD payloads, certainly manned payloads, the shuttle, the International Space Station, and those payloads that support the US government in some form or fashion. … Certainly if you look to the future, … we are ramping up to be able to ultimately do conjunction analysis on the 800 or so satellites that can maneuver. So obviously if a satellite can't maneuver, even if you know that there's a piece of debris coming toward it, there's not a whole lot that that particular satellite can do. But for those that can maneuver, the intent is to do that conjunction analysis, provide that potential warning."
—Lt. Gen. Larry James, commander, 14th Air Force and US Strategic Command's Joint Functional Component Command for Space, responding to a question about the Feb. 10 collision between an Iridium satellite and defunct Russian military satellite during a House Science and Technology Subcommittee on Space hearing April 28. 

Do We Want To Be in Control?
"I think Lieutenant General James and the [Joint Space Operations Center] are doing a great job. But I also think that as a nation we haven't decided whether we want to be in the space control business or not. Is this something that we want to take on either alone or with other countries for the world? … We do not have something that approaches an operational space traffic control system, and I think that's a policy decision that this nation needs to make.
—Richard Dalbello, vice president, government relations, Intelsat General, responding to the same question (see above) during the House Science and Technology Subcommittee on Space hearing April 28.