Return to Article: Overruns, delays plague satellite programs, lawmakers told
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How is it that the DSP program started in early 60s and completed in 1970 was not prone to the problem plaguing major space aquisitions today? Could it be that both technology of the complexitites of the prodcuts grew so rapidly as to leave the governemnts ability to managem such programs extremely lacking? Or could it be that the lawmakers and DoD buying commands were convinced by big corporate defense contractors that 'too much oversight is driving up costs and the aforementioed were too quick to adopt the 'contractor police thyself' philosophy? Now, finally after 30 years someone at the top is saying 'we need to get back to basics'. Something the workforce has been say ever since we began seeing this trend towards less and less government oversight. The fix, if it is doable will take several years to complete. Most of us who came in in the 70s and 80s will be retired or RID'd by them by governemnts 'do more with less' mentality. We see how well thats turned our.
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I think the SEC and DoD ought to think about asking the major defense contractors like Northrop Grumman, Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, and General Dynamics to start breaking themselves up into smaller independent companies. What we need is smaller more innovative, flexible, dynamic, DoD contractor companies that specialize in specific technologies: radar, communications, electro/optics, nanotechnology, etc. What we don't need is mega-stores oligopolies that don't really compete against one another; they just respect each others business areas for the various military service customers. In the satellite business, for example, we don't need NOC, LMH, Boeing, trading places each time a contract is issued, i.e. sensor payload, vehicle, platform, etc. We need many companies in each area of technology competing against one another and investing their own profits in their own R&D and intellectual property. For far too long, the DoD has been too quick to throw money at R&D, and each of these companies has reduced their own investments in R&D and training (technical) their employees accordingly.
Force these companies to break themselves up and increase competition.
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