As Space Symposium kicked off, retired Gen. John Hyten, former vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, reminded a packed ballroom Sunday marked the 65th anniversary of the first manned space flight around the world.
On April 12, 1961, a cosmonaut from the Soviet Union Yuri Gagarin, circled the world, beating the U.S.
“That was a threat to the United States, and we all understood,” Hyten told the crowd attending the Space Leaders and Stakeholders Roundtable at the Cheyenne Mountain Resort. The event brought together industry, military and congressional leaders as part of a symposium that draws thousands of attendees from across the world.
After Gagarin’s groundbreaking flight, America changed its policies to catch up in the space race, Hyten said.
Yet following China’s test of a hypersonic missile that circled the world and hit a target in China in 2021, there has been far less national buzz, he noted.
Hyten told the nation on CBS about the test, something the U.S. and Russia haven’t undertaken, and he expected a national uproar. But interest died down in about three days, he said.
“We have to understand, we are in a competition,” he told the crowd. The public must understand the threats to create a sense of urgency.
Hypersonic missiles are more dangerous than more traditional ballistic missiles because a ballistic missile travels in an arc like a cannonball, making its destination easy to predict, while hypersonics are harder to track because they glide side to side and travel much faster.
Chief Master Sgt. Jacob Simmons, U.S. Rep. Mike Rogers, and retired Gen. John Hyten participate in a Space Leaders and Stakeholder Roundtable discussion on Sunday, April 12, 2026. (The Gazette, Jerilee Bennett)
China is also investing heavily in on-orbit assets, including a satellite that pulled another out of orbit. The country is aiming to have a lunar base by 2035.
To help meet the threats in space, the Trump administration issued a sweeping executive order in December 2025 laying out ambitious goals, such as developing new missile defense technologies as part of the Golden Dome project by 2028 and building the basics of a lunar outpost by 2030. The recently successful Artemis II mission is a step toward that lunar base and ultimately a manned mission to Mars.
The administration is also proposing a big boost in defense spending, up to $1.5 trillion. It’s a proposal that more than doubles spending on the Space Force as part of addressing the threats, said House Armed Services Chairman Mike Rogers, R-Ala., who participated in the event. He noted that threats in space are one of the few areas that garner bipartisan agreement.
If approved, the defense budget would have a new baseline, Rogers said, sending the defense industry a clear signal about the government’s intended investment at a time when the world order has been called into question.
“We are working to meet the moment, and I have no doubt we are going to,” he said.