What makes SpaceX different?
Imagine if you had gone to work at Space X in 2005 and gotten in the ground floor of the Falcon 1 program, or imagine […]
Month: August 2021
Acquisition headlines (8/24 – 8/30/2021)
Pentagon poised to unveil, demonstrate classified space weapon. (Breaking Defense) “In space, we over-classify everything,” Hyten told the National Security Space Association (NSSA) on Jan. […]
Does efficiency in weapons acquisition equate to the absence of industry profits?
Clearly, efficiency in the conduct of weapons programs is a desirable objective… What do we mean by efficiency in this context? There is a tendency […]
Podcast: Science & Technology for national security with Lisa Porter
Lisa Porter joined Jordan Schneider and I for a discussion about Science & Technology (S&T) in the national security arena. She is co-president of LogiQ, […]
The “valley of death” is but one symptom of the broader governance problems found in PPBE
The PPBE was really a revolutionary and radical idea. One of the things it was trying to do was reduce duplication and overlap. You might […]
Did SpaceX and Palantir transform government contracting? A VC’s view
The DoD is starting to run commercial-like procurement processes as opposed to purely cost-plus contracting. In traditional government contracting, the government comes up with a […]
Acquisition headlines (8/16 – 8/22/2021)
Skunk Works will hand of ARRW production to missiles and fire control. (Air Force Magazine) Skunk Works itself has the capacity to produce 8-12 per […]
DoD invites setbacks by relying on sequential measures of progress
Systems engineering techniques themselves contribute to disaster because they all are paper techniques and there are only two instead of N dimensions available. What we […]
IP and CMMC — two issues that could derail defense innovation efforts
… there are two thorny issues that need to be effectively addressed on this innovation journey: intellectual property (IP) and security. Both issues have seen […]
Getting out of an acquisition system based on predictability and compliance
Jared Serbu: You already have the problem of DoD having the build a budget that they are not going to execute on for another two […]
The future of DoD’s Future Years Defense Program
Here’s Jeff Jordan on the a16z podcast: Back when I was at Disney I started in the strategic planning group, and one of the tasks […]
Acquisition headlines (8/9 – 8/15/2021)
Pentagon advances experiments with autonomous barges to replenish aircraft. (Nextgov) “Autonomous marine navigation company Sea Machines is the prime contractor steering the work. On Thursday, […]
If Congress doesn’t make multi-billion dollar weapon decisions, who should?
Senator Karl Mundt expressed it in hearings on PPBS conducted in 1967: We used to face the question: “How much should we spend for a […]
NASA, SpaceX, and the development of extravehicular space suits
In 2017, NASA decided to design, test, and produce xEMU [Extravehicular Mobility Units] suits in-house. As a result, the Agency would serve as the prime […]
When can DoD get by without competitive prototyping?
Pierre Sprey testifies before Congress in a 1971 hearing “Weapon Systems Acquisition Process.” … if we cannot afford to execute a program under competitive prototype […]