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It took the Air Force about a quarter-century to bring the F-22 air-superiority fighter from the drawing board to reality. Most of the Pentagon’s major weapon systems have gone through similar protracted development. At this rate, it won’t be long before the U.S. military falls way behind the technology curve, lamented Sen. Kay Hagan, D-N.C., chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee’s subcommittee on emerging threats and capabilities. “With a rapid, rapid pace of global technological development, we no longer have the luxury of thinking about an idea, developing it, waiting a decade or more to field these weapon systems,” she told a panel of Defense Department officials who represented the Pentagon’s research-and-development agencies. “Threats evolve much faster than the time it takes for us to actually develop these systems such as the F-22 fighters,” she said during a committee hearing last week.
Hagan’s observation might seem a blinding flash of the obvious to anyone who has ever worked on or followed weapons programs. But the issue has resurfaced in Washington as lawmakers and defense analysts become increasingly alarmed by the poor return on the Pentagon’s technology investments. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel recently expressed frustration about weapons systems “taking longer, costing more, and delivering less than initially planned and promised.”
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Read some of my prior posts I have been advocating this for years especially with rarely built systems like ICBMs and even nuclear warheads with an inert 'package' if that works. The purpose would be to integrate the newest technology as well as keep active, exercise the industrial base and train the next generation of scientists and engineers.
http://www.nationaldefensemagazine.org/blog/Lists/Posts/Post.aspx?ID=1123
Hagan’s observation might seem a blinding flash of the obvious to anyone who has ever worked on or followed weapons programs. But the issue has resurfaced in Washington as lawmakers and defense analysts become increasingly alarmed by the poor return on the Pentagon’s technology investments. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel recently expressed frustration about weapons systems “taking longer, costing more, and delivering less than initially planned and promised.”
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Read some of my prior posts I have been advocating this for years especially with rarely built systems like ICBMs and even nuclear warheads with an inert 'package' if that works. The purpose would be to integrate the newest technology as well as keep active, exercise the industrial base and train the next generation of scientists and engineers.
http://www.nationaldefensemagazine.org/blog/Lists/Posts/Post.aspx?ID=1123
