The Air Force generally does a rotten job of managing and budgeting for space programs. That was the strongest message sent today by John Young, undersecretary of defense for acquisition, technology and logistics, as he discussed the 2010 budget and acquisition in general during a wide-ranging discussion with reporters yesterday.
Although Young said he didnt want to single out the service, thats just what he did repeatedly during the almost two-hour session.
Based on the 2010 POM they are not performing well, Young said, who separately described the interference and gaming of the services during the budget as a cancer. It began with a discussion of the Transformational Satellite program, T-Sat. Young said there are camps in the Pentagon that have consistently wanted to club the T-Sat for more reason than its a very expensive program. The camps identity became clear a few second later when Young noted that the Air Force underfunded T-Sat in the 2009 budget.
Then Young listed a litany of space programs the Air Force had either mismanaged or underfunded. Space Based Infrared System (SBIRS) is still emerging from a Nunn-McCurdy breach and apparently has not solved a software problem that has bedeviled it for more than a year. Ground terminals needed for the Mobile User Objective System (MUOS) werent built in time to receive data from the satellites. And the Air Force goofed and didnt budget to ensure the Wideband Gapfiller System would continue to provide data to 27 weapon systems. Its beyond me, Young said in exasperation with the MUOS oversight, adding that the Pentagon had found money to keep the data flowing.
I asked Young if he would move the executive agent for space, currently vested in Air Force Secretary Michael Donley, to a joint or OSD perch. The executive agent oversees all military space programs. Young made clear he did not think the Air Force was the right place: I would never put it there. He indicated that Deputy Defense Secretary Gordon England is being given analytic data to move the executive agent to a joint perch. One likely candidate for the job: Josh Hartman, currently director for space and intelligence capabilities in Youngs office.
In other acquisition news:
MRAP Light: Young said the Pentagon is moving ahead on just how to meet the need for well protected vehicles that can handle the rugged terrain of Afghanistan, saying the upcoming supplemental may have room for additional vehicles for Afghanistan. Young was very careful to avoid saying there is an actual program here yet, but they are clearly headed that way. One of the possibilities being discussed is grabbing the nascent Joint Light Tactical Vehicle program and getting it to Afghanistan as quickly as possible. Young was very cautious not to say that JLTV was the solution, but he did say it was being discussed as a possible part of the solution.
In a conference call with reporters this morning, the BAE Systems JLTV program lead told me that most of the subsystems on the JLTV prototype are at TRL 7 (Technology Readiness Level), the first level at which a system could be considered ready to undergo operational test and evaluation. When I told Young this, he laughed and said he bet that BAE Systems would sell their system for $1.98 a copy. Then he added, with a very big smile, that he appreciated BAEs input.
Read the rest of this exclusive story and other breaking acquisition news at DoD Buzz.
{ 13 comments… read them below or add one }
Again,what you are really seeing here is the crippling of the smaller aerospace industry companies & the eventual forced merger into one government controlled company(a Government/Corporation hybrid of the Military-Industrial Complex) where the government severely regulates & controls how many aircraft,both military & civilian,get built.
You can scream all you want to about “Air Force incompetence” but it is the specific industry & its workers who get hurt if a particular project gets cancelled or severely curtailed.
Out of this will come the forced merger between Northrop Grumman,Lockheed Martin,Boeing,& other nameless entities,from whose ashes will rise a single entity,both partnered with & controlled by the Government.
How many companies did there use to be that did business with the DOD,& how many are there now because of mergers & such?
You are about to see the “Bell Telephone” super corporation of Aerospace be born. It might even absorb both Bell Textron & Sikorsky into itself.
Oh noes roy is lose…
Roy i have to say i sometimes agree with you….sometimes…like 04% of the time
but dude your brain are belong to Ron Paul
but on the other hand i bet youd be a blast to go out and get drunk with lol
Valcan,
Let’s see who’ll be getting drunk after next Tuesday. Eat,drink,& be merry,for after next Tuesday,Obama is president elect,then the heavy drinking will really begin.
Personally,I think we should start a “bucket list” & list all of the things we want to do before Obama becomes president(because wouldn’t THAT be the same as “kicking the bucket?”). I want to get a Blu-ray disc player before Barack Obama is sworn in. I’d also like to get the Slingbox Pro-HD & Slingcatcher before that great day of woe & misery when Barack puts his hand on the Koran & swears into his presidency.
If Obama is elected,then I’ll understand what it’s like to have a terminal illness with only a few days left(before Obama is sworn in).
@roy
i’m flabbergasted that in fear of the homogenization of American industry and government your last act of freedom is to buy foreign-built technology which enables domestic media intrusion. the dissonance evident in this plan discredits your entire agenda.
unmannedanimal is right instead buy a barret light .50
ooo or a masada
“i’m flabbergasted that in fear of the homogenization of American industry and government your last act of freedom is to buy foreign-built technology which enables domestic media intrusion. the dissonance evident in this plan discredits your entire agenda.”
You know,instead of being paranoid & taking my toaster or microwave apart to see who is hiding inside,I scream my “Amalekian Anti-Semitism(the ABSOLUTE worse it gets)” into my digital cable boxes/HD Cable Box &/or HD DVR player hoping someone IS LISTENING!!!!!! I certainly have no problems doing it over the internet.
I am an Amalekite descended from Haman & a member of the Antient & Noble Order of the Gormogons.
I am a decendent of ancient lines also roy…THE SCOTS-IRISHand also the italians, english, and some prusian
Nice Raptor pic
Roy, get help. Seriously. As Colin Powell said last Sunday, “SO WHAT?” You think you’d have a problem with someone putting his hand on a St. James vs. a New English? How ’bout a Latin Catholic? Perhaps you’d bitch about Leiberman putting his hand on a Torah. What if someone demanded the Apocrypha?
Study up on this mythology, and you begin to realize that Unitarianism either has complete merit, or it’s the ultimate folly.
Me? Gimme Siddartha.
Keep looking up, Roy – it’s just the sky in your world that is falling. I hope it hits like the car drop scene in “The Blues Brothers”. Maybe you’re the one in the passenger seat. Remember his last words?
@roy
dvd/cable is a one-way path, from marketing to your frontal lobe. shout all you want, no one is ever listening.