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Month: December 2019

Palmer Luckey talks defense industry and China

December 31, 2019 Eric Lofgren 3

I think the West has created something incredible. We’ve had a period of unprecedented peace and unprecedented human rights. It’s not perfect, but it’s better […]

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Space Force may have significant autonomy, except in the budget process

December 30, 2019 Eric Lofgren 0

The program acquisition strategies developed under a dedicated Space Force SAE [service acquisition executive] will then get fed into the planning, programming, budgeting and execution […]

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Acquisition headlines

December 29, 2019 Eric Lofgren 0

Chinese Navy Sets New World Record, Launching 23 New Surface Warships In One Year. Lots of pictures. Meanwhile, back in the US… Pentagon proposes big […]

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The disease of restricting competition isn’t limited to Europe

December 28, 2019 Eric Lofgren 0

I have been repeatedly impressed in putting this paper together by how often unexpected and great discoveries and progress came about during or as the […]

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A cautionary tale of trying to leap-frog at expense of proven tech in war

December 27, 2019 Eric Lofgren 3

Here are some excerpts from an excellent sci-fi story by Arthur C. Clarke, Superiority, in which a galactic power engaged with an inferior power ultimately […]

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Two issues holding the Pentagon back from commercial “deep tech”

December 26, 2019 Eric Lofgren 0

After cashing in from relatively simple internet applications like Facebook, Snapchat and others, entrepreneurs have started tackling harder problems. “Deep tech” requires significant capital and […]

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Is poor software design/testing the REAL cause of the USS McCain crash?

December 25, 2019 Eric Lofgren 0

A 19-year Navy veteran, Sanchez had watched as technicians replaced the ship’s traditional steering controls a year earlier with the new navigation system. Almost from […]

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Podcast: Agents of Innovation with John Kuehn

December 24, 2019 Eric Lofgren 0

In this episode of Acquisition Talk, I speak with Dr. John Kuehn. He is a professor of military history at the Army Command and General […]

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One of the last vestiges of central planning left on Earth

December 23, 2019 Eric Lofgren 0

Here’s a humorous story shared by SecDef Donald Rumsfeld back in 2001: A man and a boy were walking down the street with a donkey […]

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Acquisition headlines

December 22, 2019 Eric Lofgren 5

How Big is the Space Economy? Probably around $415 billion, 79 percent is commercial. Another breakdown is 58 percent consumer services, 33 percent manufacturing and […]

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Who’s in charge of US military strategy?

December 21, 2019 Eric Lofgren 0

What’s the role of the services these days compared to World War II? In World War II, George Marshall and Hap Arnold on the Army […]

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Zuckerberg wisely advocates big bets on tools and people, not outputs

December 20, 2019 Eric Lofgren 0

The government is the largest and most important funder of science, but the grants tend to be very spread out across a lot of people. […]

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An excellent argument for the Space Force from Steven Kwast

December 19, 2019 Eric Lofgren 0

We get trapped. Here in America, three times in the last 100 years we have failed to optimize the technologies that have come about to […]

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Are program managers “little more than an errand boy”? Views from David Packard

December 18, 2019 Eric Lofgren 1

Packard said he had seen cases “where the project manager is often little more than an errand boy for all the service officers, both above […]

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What is the “water-scrum-fall” method, and is it dangerous?

December 17, 2019 Eric Lofgren 2

In a previous post, Nicholas Chaillan brought up the term water-agile-fall, or water-scum-fall. This is a situation where an organization that has traditionally worked with […]

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Featured

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