Lessons for Today: Opposition to ballistic missiles in the 1940s/50s
There was, without question, deep and sincere opposition to the accelerated development of ballistic missiles. It was chiefly effective in the years between 1950 and […]
Blog Posts
Role of government in the innovative ecosystem
There’s plenty of private money out there and interest rates are very low — the money will flow into where ever there is a good […]
Acquisition headlines
Blue Origin Fact Sheet on New Glenn, Engine Development. “To date, Blue Origin has invested an unprecedented $2.5 billion into the development… the seven engines […]
Program offices may face hard choices with Air Force Ventures
Here is Air Force acquisition chief William Roper talking at an Ask Me Anything webinar. He was discussing the pitch day events, which starts at […]
When should cost-effectiveness studies start?
… you can’t apply cost effectiveness to really basic research. Otherwise you never would discover new genes in biology for example if you had to […]
New proposals for the military’s tech transfer problem
These two groups [military operators and lab technologists] have different cultures and values, and frequently speak different languages. To operators, risks are to be minimized […]
Rickover on profits invisible to government
Suppose it costs the parts supplier $100 to make the parts. To this he adds 10 percent for profit. He then charges the motor manufacturer […]
Podcast: All about Other Transactions Authority with Richard Dunn
In this episode of the Acquisition Talk podcast, I speak with Richard Dunn about commercial contracting, and in particular, Other Transactions Authority (OTAs). He is […]
Startups won’t scale in defense without budget flexibility
These challenges can be met. But the concept still requires a major feat. Congress must amend the budget process so that relatively big dollars can […]
Acquisition headlines
“This represents a single front door for the DoD, where small companies can access a portion of the approximately $1.5 billion of DoD SBIR funds […]
Commercial contracting for space launch, then and now
Working together with industry to identify and resolve problem areas, NASA has evolved innovative contracting approaches which emulate good commercial contracting practices while retaining some […]
Healthcare analogies for defense acquisition
I think we have to remember we have good people in healthcare. We are all attracted to the healthcare profession out of a sense of […]
Why have America’s best technologists and investors turned away from defense?
When the Cold War ended, there were 107 major defense firms. By the end of the 1990s, there were five. And since then, the middle […]
Elon Musk recommends reasoning from first principles
Well, I do think there’s a good framework for thinking. It is physics. You know, the sort of first-principles reasoning. Generally, I think there are […]
IP rights, enterprise tools, and the new Software Acquisition Pathway
A crucial component of the acquisition strategy is a plan for intellectual property (IP). As the recently released intellectual property policy specified, IP plans emphasize “the criticality […]