Sometime in the 1970s and 1980s, a strange thing happened to the defense research and development process. An enterprise that had put a nuclear submarine to sea with 16 long-range nuclear-tipped ballistic missiles in four years, and taken a spyplane from drawings to operational missions in two years, seemingly became incapable of developing bigger than a primary trainer in less than 20 years.
Customer-funded R&D may not be the only culprit behind quarter-century development cycles, but it is certainly a factor. And it's surprising that (as far as I know) nobody has proposed, let alone conducted, a Packard Commission-like investigation into the increase in development times. Could it be that nobody really wants to know what the answer is, let alone have it come out in public?
Sometime in the 1970s and 1980s, a strange thing happened to the defense research and development process. An enterprise that had put a nuclear submarine to sea with 16 long-range nuclear-tipped ballistic missiles in four years, and taken a spyplane from drawings to operational missions in two years, seemingly became incapable of developing bigger than a primary trainer in less than 20 years.
Customer-funded R&D may not be the only culprit behind quarter-century development cycles, but it is certainly a factor. And it's surprising that (as far as I know) nobody has proposed, let alone conducted, a Packard Commission-like investigation into the increase in development times. Could it be that nobody really wants to know what the answer is, let alone have it come out in public?
(emphasis added)
Yes. Because fast and efficient development does not suit the interests of the Military Industrial complex which Eisenhower warned us about.
How they gonna get ahead without profitable cost overruns and such?
‘What all the wise men promised has not happened, and what all the damned fools said would happen has come to pass.’
— Lord Melbourne —
Wouldn't it also make sense that contractors may purposely withhold research advances to milk government money? It just seems more probable that profit-based companies are acting in the interest of profits..
If I remember correctly, the lightning advances in early aviation were mostly the result of self-funded R&D (first example being the Wright brothers). The government teat didn't get sucked until a working prototype had already been demonstrated. The Macnamara/Harvard Business School takeover of the aerospace industry emphasized "metrics" ("if we can measure it, we can control it"), the most important metric being profit. Innovation has declined ever since, now that aerospace is just a money-machine like the insurance, entertainment, etc. businesses. It's difficult to apply the word "industry" when new airplane development is trending towards 25-30 years.
At least in regards to contracts to develop X weapons platform / system, the time lag is typically because the customer keeps wanting to modify or add to the program. Initially it would be "developing X will take Y number of years and Z expensive" as an approximate. Shortly afterward they want to start add +1's to the development, especially as technology changes. You get a perpetual development cycle where the venders are constantly trying to update the product with last years technology even though the product hasn't been released yet.
the time lag is typically because the customer keeps wanting to modify or add to the program.
Yes.
The development of atomic power, though it could confer unimaginable blessings on mankind, is something that is dreaded by the owners of coal mines and oil wells. (Hazlitt)
What I want to do is to look up C. . . . I call him the Forgotten Man. (Sumner)
The other big show slowdown is the customer wanted item one.
But in reality he wanted item two and wrote the contract thinking he was getting item two.
Contractor delivers item one per contract to find out the customer wanted item two.
Can not get a new contract for item two so now the contractor must make item one work by modification and changes.
End result it cost more than getting item two outright and the end user has a product that is unsatisfactory in delivering its performance because it design base was build off of item one specs..
WELCOME TO MY WORLD.
I am not a nuclear physicist, but play one on the internet.
