Embed Size (px)
Citation preview
N
R
C
NAS
NAE
IOM
YEARS OF SERVICE
1962-1987
Air Force Studies Board
Proceedings of a Symposium, lb November /^s'"7
REFERENCE COPY
FOR LIBRARY USE ONLY
r For e~£ S-kwAi^s Pjoo v -* - >,. on
rW V ore t, Qt'.»'j ». . * : - ' -,-
25
YEARS OF SERVICE
1962-1987
PROCEEDINGS OF THE AIR FORCE STUDIES BOARD
SYMPOSIUM ON AIR FORCE RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT
16 November 1987
PROPERTY OP
NRC LIBRARY
DEC 1 4 1988 V-t-oml Ttthflfcil
!;.f. ,:ni:;on Service
National Research Council
Commission on Engineering and Technical Systems
Washington, D.C.
1988
NOTICE: The project that is the subject of this report was approved by the Governing
Board of the National Research Council, whose members are drawn from the councils of
the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering, and the
Institute of Medicine. The members of the committee responsible for the report were
chosen for their special competences and with regard for appropriate balance.
This report has been reviewed by a group other than the authors according to
procedures approved by a Report Review Committee consisting of members of the
National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering, and the Institute of
Medicine.
The National Academy of Sciences is a private, nonprofit, self-perpetuating society
of distinguished scholars engaged in scientific and engineering research, dedicated to the
furtherance of science and technology and to their use for the general welfare. Upon
the authority of the charter granted to it by the Congress in 1863, the Academy has a
mandate that requires it to advise the federal government on scientific and technical
matters. Dr. Frank Press is president of the National Academy of Sciences.
The National Academy of Engineering was established in 1964, under the charter of
the National Academy of Sciences, as a parallel organization of outstanding engineers. It
is autonomous in its administration and in the selection of its members, sharing with the
National Academy of Sciences the responsibility for advising the federal government.
The National Academy of Engineering also sponsors engineering programs aimed at
meeting national needs, encourages education and research, and recognizes the superior
achievements of engineers. Dr. Robert M. White is president of the National Academy of
Engineering.
The Institute of Medicine was established in 1970 by the National Academy of
Sciences to secure the services of eminent members of appropriate professions in the
examination of policy matters pertaining to the health of the public. The Institute acts
under the responsibility given to the National Academy of Sciences by its congressional
charter to be an adviser to the federal government and, upon its own initiative, to
identify issues of medical care, research, and education. Dr. Samuel O. Thier is president
of the Institute of Medicine.
The National Research Council was organized by the National Academy of Sciences
in 1916 to associate the broad community of science and technology with the Academy's
purposes of furthering knowledge and advising the federal government. Functioning in
accordance with general policies determined by the Academy, the Council has become the
principal operating agency of both the National Academy of Sciences and the National
Academy of Engineering in providing services to the government, the public, and the
scientific and engineering communities. The Council is administered jointly by both
Academies and the Institute of Medicine. Dr. Frank Press and Dr. Robert M. White are
chairman and vice chairman, respectively, of the National Research Council.
These proceedings represent work under Contract No. F49620-87-C-0122 between the
United States Air Force and the National Academy of Sciences.
Copies are available from:
Air Force Studies Board
National Research Council
2101 Constitution Avenue, N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20418
Without vision, the people perish.
- Proverbs 29:18
General Bernard P. Randolph
Preface
These are the proceedings of a symposium held in com
memoration of the 25th anniversary of the Air Force Studies
Board. The presentations are the opinions of the participants
and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the National
Research Council or the Air Force Studies Board. The contents
of this document have been edited only for clarity or brevity.
CONTENTS
Executive Summary ■ 1
Welcome ■ 8
Frank Press, President, National Academy of Sciences
Opening Remarks ■ 9
John L. McLucas, Chairman
Reflections of the Original Chairman ■ 10
Brian O'Brien
Air Force Systems Command, A Historical Perspective ■ 13
Bernard A. Schriever, General, USAF (Retired)
Discussion ■ 20
The Ones That Didn't Fly ■ 24
Alexander Flax, Home Secretary, National Academy of Engineering
Discussion ■ 31
The Winners and Why ■ 34
Robert T. Marsh, General, USAF (Retired)
Discussion ■ 38
Project Forecast I and // ■ 45
Lawrence A. Skantze, General, USAF (Retired)
Discussion ■ S3
The Future of Air Force R&D ■ 59
Panel of Three
The Future R&D Environment ■ 60
Daniel J. Fink
Capability and Bureaucracy ■ 64
Samuel C. Phillips, General USAF (Retired)
Technology and the Future of Air Force R&D ■ 68
Gerald P. Dinneen
Discussion ■ 72
Meeting the Challenge ■ 87
Bernard P. Randolph, General, USAF, Commander, AFSC
Discussion ■ 93
Dinner ■ 103
Presentation of Medals ■ 103
Dinner Address ■ 104
John J. Welch, Jr., Assistant Secretary of the Air Force,
Acquisitions
Closing Remarks ■ 109
John McLucas
Symposium Agenda ■ 111
Board and Committee Members, 1962-1987 ■ 113
Reports by the Air Force Studies Board, 1961-1987 ■ 141
Biographies of the Symposium Speakers ■ 148
1
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
The Air Force Studies Board celebrated 25 consecutive
years of service to the National Research Council and the United
States Air Force on November 16, 1987, with a symposium
reviewing the last 25 years of Air Force research and develop
ment, and projecting lessons learned into the future.
The AFSB was formed in 1962 at the request of General
Bernard Schriever, then Commander, Air Force Systems Command.
The AFSC had been recently created as the focal point for Air
Force research and development. General Schriever wanted an
impartial study board that could evaluate critical science and
technology issues, and help guide the Air Force in making
reasoned judgments about management organization and weapons
systems development.
During the intervening 25 years the AFSB has maintained a
close relationship with successive AFSC commanders and has pub
lished 86 studies on such diverse topics as jet and rocket pro
pulsion, optics, satellite time transfer, battle management, and
avionics troubleshooting.
Approximately 150 dignitaries associated with the Air Force
attended the symposium, including former secretaries and'assist-
ant secretaries, generals, chief scientists, senior program man
agers, and the past and present members of the Board and its
committees.
Frank Press opened the meeting with a review of the
AFSB's history and accomplishments. He gave special recognition
to key participants who helped form the Board and to those who
have been instrumental in leading its many activities. Most
notable among these are the current chairman, John L. McLucas
and the three past chairmen, Brian O'Brien, Brockway McMillan,
and Julian Davidson.
A highlight of the symposium was an address by the
Board's original chairman, Brian O'Brien, who reflected on the
origin and development of the AFSB. Dr. O'Brien helped organize
the Board and served as its leader for 12 years.
General Schriever set the stage for a substantive review of
the past 25 years of Air Force research and development by giv
ing a historical perspective of the Systems Command, its origins
and its role in the Air Force. He began with an assessment of
2
the primitive state of the Army Air Corps after World War I. He
noted that it generally takes a crisis to change things and the
Air Corps' attempt to handle commercial air mail was an early
crisis that got the nation to commit to R&D in aviation. This
effort helped prepare us for World War II.
During WWII, the scientific community accepted the chal
lenge and developed many technical breakthroughs. However,
after the war they returned to their civilian jobs. Through
General Hap Arnold's foresight the postwar Air Force established
close ties to the scientific community that continues to this day.
In 1960 the crisis of space was still in the forefront.
Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense Roswell Gilpatrick offered
to assign the responsibility of military space to the Air Force if
it could develop a management scheme that would resolve the
conflict between systems development and logistics. Thus the Air
Force Systems Command and the Air Force Logistics Command
(AFLC) were created with General Schriever in command of AFSC
and General McK.ee commanding AFLC. To enable him to have a
direct relationship with the scientific community, General
Schriever asked the National Research Council to create the Air
Force Studies Board.
General Schriever concluded that in recent years the Air
Force's relationship with the scientific community and industry
has been detrimentally affected by too much micromanagement by
Congress and the OSD staff. As a result, the Air Force is
unable to use its resources and people efficiently.
In discussion with the symposium participants, General
Schriever offered these further observations:
• Working closely with the scientific community gives the Air
Force leverage it would not have if it relied solely on internal
decision making.
• The military is the one agency that should be taking some
risk to introduce new technology, however, the present system
is not conducive to risk taking.
Alexander Flax, Home Secretary of the National Academy of
Engineering, and General Robert T. Marsh, former AFSC Com
mander, presented specific lessons learned . Dr. Flax agreed with
General Schriever that the 1950s were the Golden Age of Air
Force R&D. After World War II, we initiated missile programs at
the "drop of a hat." We were learning by experimentation, by
3
doing. We can no longer function in this mode, it is too
expensive. But we also suffer from excessive oversight. Dr. Flax
reminded us that great civilizations fall because their administra
tive bureaucracies grow too large and cumbersome to efficiently
manage their domestic affairs and international obligations and
interests.
He reviewed approximately 20 programs that were initiated
but never became operational. He stated that programs fail
because:
• requirements change,
• policy changes,
• strategy changes,
• the programs are too technically difficult, schedules are too
long, they are too costly, and patience runs out,
• the program does not have support of the operators.
John McLucas added in discussion that many programs fail simply
because they have low priority and because the DoD budget is
limited.
Dr. Flax did mention the positive contributions of some of
these programs and that they may be revived later. He pointed
out that in R&D, if nothing fails, one has taken no risks. But,
he said, the Air Force should never try to rush into an oper
ational mode until it is sure the thing works. This is a current
potential pitfall. Air Force procurement practices tend to commit
industry to design and build systems before the R&D has been
done, before the problems have been identified.
In a juxtaposition, General Marsh reviewed successful pro
grams. He looked at the acquisition and beyond into the oper
ations and support phases to develop three criteria for selecting
the winners:
• Acquisition must be efficient and expeditious, consistent with
need, technical risk, and magnitude of the understanding.
• The system must make a quantum and enduring contribution to
our warfighting capability.
• It must be affordable.
General Marsh spoke about first generation and second generation
weapons systems. The first generation systems were acquired
from the late 1950s to the early 1970s. The second generation
were those systems acquired after 1970 but do not include the
most recent ones, such as the Bl-B, the Peacekeeper missile,
4
GPS, AMRAAM, and the DSCS III. His conclusions:
• Our concept of decentralized execution of systems acquisition
is sound.
• The winning programs adhered to the following principles:
•• good front-end definition,
•• well balanced concurrency among development, test, and
production,
•• program stability,
•• tight cost control,
•• program managers were delegated the authority required to
get the job done,
•• high quality program managers,
•• good support within the Air Force, DoD, and Congress.
General Marsh added the following thoughts:
• To the extent practical, we should attempt to build in growth
potential to meet the changing threats.
• We have swung too far in the direction of competition for
competition's sake, and should use competition only when it
makes sense.
• If prototyping is to succeed, it must be funded with money
earmarked for DARPA or OSD that is over and above the
services' TOA.
• VSTOL aircraft will not be acceptable to the Air Force until
they can be designed with much better payload-range capabil
ity.
General Larry Skantze provided a nexus between the past
and future with a discussion of Forecast I and II. The original
Forecast, which was conducted by General LeMay and Secretary
Zuckert, identified and promoted technologies that made several
of our current operational systems possible. Having worked on
Forecast I, General Skantze was convinced that such a technol
ogy push should be done every 20 years. When he became com
mander of Systems Command, he proposed Forecast II, which was
completed in February 1986.
General Skantze discussed the organization and methodol
ogy of Forecast II. Of the 2,000 ideas considered, 70 were
finally selected to be pursued. The technologies that turned out
to enable many systems and the systems that turned out to
enable many capabilities tended to be the ones that filtered
through as the most valuable in the screening process. The ideas
s
could be classified into categories: revolutionary, pervasive,
older ideas enabled by new technology, and synergistic combin
ations of ideas. General Skantze provided an overview of some
of these ideas. He stated that AFSC did not stop with this
study. They have actively pursued a program of briefing indus
try, have committed 10 percent of the S&T budget to Forecast II
projects, have asked for a two percent increase in TOA to sup
port these projects, and have convinced the Chief of Staff of the
Air Force to treat S&T as a single program element. The result
is positive support of the Forecast II initiatives. General
Skantze concluded with the recommendation that a Forecast be
done every 20 years.
In follow-on discussion, General Skantze noted that he is
disappointed with the way the government has responded to the
Packard Commission report, and would in particular like to see
the recommendations implemented regarding the qualifications for
Undersecretary of Defense for Acquisition.
A look into the future was provided by a panel consisting
of Daniel Fink, Samuel Phillips, and Gerald Dinneen. Mr. Fink
discussed the future environment for R&D in the U.S. He voiced
concerns that we tend to wait for a crisis before we make
progress and that we are not supplying enough qualified scientists
and engineers to provide for our future R&D needs. He stated
that the Air Force and other institutions should actively motivate
students to pursue science and engineering.
Mr. Fink concluded that in the future other nations will
lead in certain technologies which will present problems of
reverse technology transfer. The United States will have to
pursue more meaningful cooperative R&D programs with our
allies. Also, more DoD programs will be joint efforts and will
have development times that will take decades. Special manage
ment skills must be developed to deal with the problems pre
sented by these conditions. We must return to rational decision
making that precludes the need to second guess OSD or Congress
and provide contractual procedures that do not erode the profit
ability of industry. Finally, in the future, the DoD and Air
Force must take the initiative in developing many technologies.
They can no longer depend on the civilian economy to do the
work.
6
General Phillips addressed two issues that will have a
bearing on the effectiveness of Systems Command: capability and
bureaucracy. People and facilities, he said, are the fundamental
capability of Systems Command. The Air Force must have a high
level of technical and managerial competence in its blue-suit and
civil service personnel within the Systems Command, the Air
Staff, and in the joint staffs that make the decisions and plan
the programs. To provide this competence, the management of
talent both in uniform and in the civil service sectors of the
Systems Command is absolutely vital. This includes the tenure of
key people and attention to developing a career path for prom
ising technological and program managers.
The astute management of both government laboratories
and FFRDCs will be critical if we are to continue to provide the
necessary in-depth technical and scientific support. We must also
be concerned with Air Force relations with other agencies, NASA
in particular. A cooperative environment is essential and such a
relationship must be cultivated at all levels.
General Phillips concluded by saying that at times institu
tions reach a point where bureaucracy becomes so cumbersome
that the only way to really make progress is to throw out the
old and start over again. We are getting close to that point in
systems development and acquisition. We must improve the
process and a good way to start is to move in a direction that is
consistent with the Packard Commission report.
Gerald P. Dinneen completed the projection into the future
by discussing some of the technologies that he believes will be
important to the Air Force in the coming years, and what we
need to do to ensure that they are available. He began with a
retrospective of his career and concluded that the biggest prob
lem we face in R&D is converting technology into products,
which for the Air Force means weapons systems. He covered
several technologies and concluded that two technologies that will
have greatest impact in the next 10-15 years will be Al/expert
systems and semiconductors. The confluence of those two give
us tremendous opportunities.
In the discussions, Thomas Cooper, former Assistant Sec
retary of Air Force for Acquisition, offered a perspective for the
future political environment. He stated that we are facing a
political environment that is probably as tough as the technical
environment. We must find a way to work in it. He believes
7
the solution is: good people, good management systems, good
organization, and a very clever use of our resources. Dr. Cooper
said that the key congressional staffers that work on the com
mittees are probably the best friends the military have and he
urged the younger participants to get to know them.
After the panel discussion, General Bernard P. Randolph,
current commander of AFSC, responded with his thoughts on how
the Systems Command will meet the challenges of the future. He
began by addressing some current concerns; these include: a 42%
retention rate for officers with engineering skills, the decreasing
defense budget, problems with software and electronic warfare,
micromanagement by Congress, a growing threat, technology that
is being transferred to the Soviet Union, and the "not invented
here" syndrome that inhibits the use of available technology. To
respond to these concerns and to meet the challenges of the
future, General Randolph has set three goals for AFSC:
• Recognize that AFSC exists for the using commands.
• Stress the need for acquisition excellence.
• Place an increased emphasis on technology development.
He is pursuing these goals by promoting a better communication
among the operating commands and AFSC personnel, making man
agement training more readily available, combining Development
Plans and Science & Technology into one deputate, and treating
technology funding as a corporate interest.
The climax of this event was a dinner address by the
Honorable John J. Welch, Assistant Secretary of the Air Force
for Acquisition. He discussed the reorganization of the manage
ment of science and technology in the Air Force. He believes
that the reorganization will give more attention to S&T and
provide an opportunity to have one community working to support
S&T and acquisition. His concerns about acquisition management
include:
• The need for career management and continued training of
acquisition personnel.
• Recognition of the need for excellence in acquisition.
• Designing new systems for long life and growth potential.
• Congressional micromanagement.
• Taking advantage of the opportunity to use automation to aid
in systems management from design to maintenance.
• The challenge of joint, including international, programs.
8
Proceedings of the Air Force Studies Board
25th Anniversary
Symposium on Air Force Research & Development
November 16, 1987
Welcome
[John L. McLucas, Chairman of the Air Force Studies Board,
introduced Dr. Frank Press, president of the National Academy of
Sciences.]
Dr. Press: Thanks, John. I'd like to welcome the participants to
this symposium, organized on the occasion of the 25th anniver
sary of the Air Force Studies Board. It is entirely appropriate to
look back at what was achieved, and to look ahead to the next
25 years, which I am sure will be an exciting period.
The Air Force Studies Board was formed in 1962 at the
request of General Schriever, commander of the Air Force
Systems Command. The AFSB has had the good fortune of being
chaired by a succession of outstanding leaders. The first
chairman was Dr. Brian O'Brien. Subsequent chairmen were
Brockway McMillan, Julian Davidson, and currently John McLucas.
John Coleman, a former executive director of the National
Research Council, helped to originate the Board. Ken McAlpine
became the executive director shortly after the Board's inception
and very ably guided and supported the Board for some 23 years.
During its 25 years of service, the AFSB produced some 86
reports. [See Appendix D for list of AFSB reports]
As with all NRC boards, the membership of the board
rotates. We try to find the most qualified and experienced
people to serve on our boards, and the Air Force Studies Board
is one of our best. If you look at the current list of members, I
think you will agree that it is a very distinguished group.
9
It is the height of public service to participate on a board
like this because the members serve without stipend. They are
all busy. Those who are retired are engaged in many activities
and those who are employed have responsible positions. To take
a significant amount of time and render public service without
compensation, I think, requires a strong public commitment.
The Board maintains a close working relationship with the
Air Force and meets at least twice a year with the commander of
the Air Force Systems Command, currently General Bernard
Randolph. As a proactive board, topics of our studies are
suggested in many ways. The Board members, having participated
in the Board activities, and bringing in diverse backgrounds, are
a very good source of advice about topics for analysis and study.
The network of scientists and engineers, literally thousands of
them across the country, are also important sources of advice
about important topics that might be considered. And our
sponsor, Air Force Systems Command, will suggest topics for the
board to undertake. These diverse sources of input are what
make our boards function well, particularly this Board.
I would like to congratulate all of the past and present
participants of the Air Force Studies Board, and commend our
chairman, John McLucas, for taking on these important duties.
Opening Remarks
Dr. John L. McLucas, Chairman, AFSB
Dr. McLucas: Thank you, Dr. Press. Many things started back
25 years ago and we think the Air Force Studies Board is one of
the good ones. When I called General Schriever and said "we're
thinking of having a 25th anniversary of the Air Force Studies
Board and you started it," he said "I never started anything
called the Air Force Studies Board." Well it turned out the name
had been changed, and sure enough he did start it, but it was
called something else. Maybe he'll explain that to us. Today we
want to go over what has happened in that 25 years and project
10
ahead and see what lessons we've learned, if any. I hope we've
learned some, and that we will determine how we can use what
we've learned to help us in the future.
Right now the AFSB is doing three major studies for the
Systems Command: optical data collection for missile tests,
advanced robotics for Air Force operations, and hypersonic
technology for military applications. We will be considering new
studies at our next meeting and we will start three or four
depending on General Randolph's needs.
Reflections of the Original Chairman
Dr. Brian O'Brien
[Note: Dr. O'Brien was the founder of the Air Force Studies
Board and its chairman for 12 years. He is now 90 and prefers
not to travel. To enable him to participate in this commemora
tive occasion, we patched his phone into the public address
system of the NAS auditorium. This segment of the program is
presented in its unedited, informal format.]
McLucas: I think it's time to call on our eldest chairman
emeritus, Brian O'Brien, and so I'd like to find whether Dr.
O'Brien is tuned in and if he's ready to speak with us. Dr.
O'Brien, are you available?
Dr. Brian O'Brien: Yes, here I am.
McLucas: Great.
O'Brien: Is this John McLucas?
McLucas: This is John McLucas. Hi.
O'Brien: Hi. Don't be too formal. The name is Brian you know.
McLucas: Well, we start out with Dr. O'Brien.
11
O'Brien: Okay. "Doctor" is fine, but don't forget we're old
friends.
McLucas: Well, I remember running into you at MITRE about 20
years ago.
O'Brien: Oh yeah, we've been around. So have you. I'm very
glad you've taken the chairmanship.
McLucas: Well, thank you. I understand you have, what shall I
call it, a prepared statement you want to make?
O'Brien: Yes, to give a little background.
McLucas: Okay.
O'Brien: I think a brief mention of some factors leading to the
formation of this Board and its early operation may be of
interest.
In 1957 and 1958 two rather ambitious summer studies for
the Air Force were conducted by the National Academy of
Sciences. The chairman was Theodore von Karman, assisted by
Vice Chairman, William Sears, with the many details of operation
managed by John Coleman. These studies were very successful,
due to good management and the high quality of the people who
took part, and led to an increasing interest in Air Force-National
Academy collaboration.
Somewhat later, General Bernard Schriever, commander of
the Air Force Systems Command, discussed with the Academy the
need for a committee to report directly to his Command. There
were a number of details to work out, causing some delay. These
were taken care of, largely by John Coleman, and in 1962 I was
asked to head the committee. I had the good fortune to secure
Kenneth McAlpine as Executive Secretary, and in November he
and I went to see Schriever. Schriever knew what he wanted,
primarily the study and solution of specific problems, and we
went to work with a very good group with the title of Advisory
Committee to the Air Force Systems Command.
12
The general was fun to work with and almost at once we
became good friends. One of our early activities was to assist in
securing consultants for Project Forecast, which is now called
Forecast I. Our practice was to meet at different Air Force
bases to learn of problems which did or might involve the
Systems Command. This arrangement continued generally
throughout my service. Following Schriever, we served with
Generals Ferguson, Brown, Phillips, and Evans. All were fine to
work with. I missed the opportunity to serve with General Lew
Allen when he was Systems commander. However, I had the
pleasure of working with him some years earlier on a very
interesting special assignment.
In 1974, after 12 years as chairman, I felt a change was
desirable. With Sam Phillips' approval, I persuaded Brockway
McMillan to accept the post. Needless to say, he did a good job.
At this time it was apparent that our problems were related much
more to engineering than to pure science. I discussed this with
Brockway McMillan, Sam Phillips, and the presidents of the two
Academies, Phil Handler and Bob Seamans. All were in agree
ment, so before handing over the reins to Brockway McMillan, we
changed the committee name to the more appropriate Air Force
Studies Board and arranged to have it assigned to Engineering.
Ken McAlpine was with me throughout my service, and his work
was invaluable on every count. John Coleman was not directly
connected with the Board, but as Executive Officer of the NAS
and the NRC, both with President Frederick Seitz and Philip
Handler, he gave us a great deal of help on many occasions. I
think the Board's subsequent performance has been excellent and
I am very proud to be associated with it.
[After these remarks, Dr. O'Brien exchanged greetings with sev
eral participants, including General Schriever, General Phillips,
and Dr. Dinneen. An abbreviated summary of their comments to
Dr. O'Brien follows.]
Schriever: Even at this late date I want to thank you for
everything you did for me, and for establishing this activity
which has grown to become such an important part in the Air
Force's dealings with the scientific community.
13
Phillips: Hearing your message helped to make this meeting a
pleasure for me and I'm sure for most of us. So I'm joining Ben
Schriever in saying thanks to you for the contribution that
you've made in helping the Air Force make such magnificent
progress in carrying out its mission.
Dinneen: I did want to say that I enjoyed working with you and
with the Air Force. I remember how you always brought me up
short by suggesting new areas where technology could serve, and
I wanted to thank you for that.
Air Force Systems Command, A Historical Perspective
General Bernard A. Schriever, USAF Retired
McLucas: Thank you, Brian. It's time now to introduce General
Bernard Schriever, one of our true heroes in the Air Force. He's
certainly one of mine and he's a good friend, whom I've enjoyed
working with over the years. It's a great pleasure to introduce
him.
General Schriever: Thank you, John. You know, this is quite a
task that I've agreed to undertake: to put in perspective the Air
Force Systems Command. To do that I'm going to broaden the
subject and talk about R&D in the Air Force. Let me begin by
saying that I'm very pleased to see that what was the Advisory
Committee to the Air Force Systems Command, now the Air
Force Studies Board, is so active. I don't think Brian or I
visualized it as an ongoing operation that would continue to grow
and expand, although I'd hoped that it would. As he indicated, it
did take a little doing to get the National Academy of Sciences
to go along with tying it in directly with a command, such as
Systems Command, but I'm glad we hear that the other services
are benefiting as well as the Air Force.
I'd like to trace the R&D activities in the Air Force as I
saw them during my career, and not just from an AFSC perspec
tive. First of all, I'd like to go back to the post-World War I
14
period because that's when I entered the Air Corps as a cadet, at
the flying school at Randolph Field in 1932. We hadn't pro
gressed very far in technology up to 1932 since the end of World
War I. I can remember being at Camp Stanley near San Antonio,
Texas, in my summer camp days at Texas A&M. They had some
airplanes at that time. The Army was thinking about airplanes
primarily for artillery spotting, and maybe some reconnaissance,
and that's about where the Air Corps stood in the eyes of the
Army in those days.
I have found by my experience that it takes a crisis to
change things. We didn't think there was any danger of war
after World War I. We had made the world safe for democracy.
But in 1934 Roosevelt cancelled commercial air mail, and the Air
Corps was called upon to fly it. I know most of you have read
the history of the Air Mail debacle in early winter of 1934. I
happened to be flying between Salt Lake City and Cheyenne,
Wyoming, a nice little route to fly in open cockpit airplanes right
in the middle of February and March of one of the coldest
winters we'd ever had. One day I lost two of my classmates in
separate accidents, both having taken off from Salt Lake City. A
board was set up by the President to investigate. Their recom
mendations were: "Let's modernize the Air Corps. Let's get more
people in it." As a result, by the time I had arrived at Wright
Field, in Dayton, Ohio, in 1939 as a test pilot, all the aircraft,
that we flew during World War II (pursuit aircraft, as we called
them, and bombers), with the exception of the B-29, were under
test there.
So I guess it was quite fortunate that we had a crisis.
Without it I doubt very seriously that we would have been ready
to fight in the air in World War II. The air mail crisis created a
very, very strong impetus to the research and development activ
ity. We had the people at Wright Field and we had the procure
ment practices, and I think the Air Force did a tremendous job.
All it needed was the necessary policy and direction to allow us
to go ahead.
During the war in 1941-45, the Air Force's job was one of
massive production and model improvement to existing aircraft. I
think we went from B-17A to the B-17H; it was about that many
different models. And the same thing applied to practically all
of our aircraft in World War II.
15
The scientific community really entered into defense
activities during World War II, and provided all the technical
breakthroughs. It ushered in the nuclear age. Radar was simply
the tip of the iceberg, chronicling the advent of the electronic
age. Many laboratories were created. Von Karman was at the
Jet Propulsion Lab. We started first with jet propulsion for
assisted take-off and of course the Germans had broken through
with rocketry with their V2s. It was that period of technological
breakthrough that we inherited at the end of World War II.
After the war, scientists went back to their civilian jobs,
exodusing from the laboratories that had been set up by the
government. They were going back to universities, to private
laboratories, industry, and so forth. Hap Arnold came back from
the war. He was chief of the Army Air Forces at that time and
was a very visionary man. He said the next war will not be
fought like the last one, that to win we must maintain our lead
in science and technology. He stated in very clear terms that we
needed to establish a long-term close working relationship with
the scientific community, and we went about creating certain
institutions to bring that about: the Scientific Advisory Board
under Von Karman and the Rand Corporation. The first job he
gave the Rand Corporation was to determine the feasibility of a
reconnaissance satellite. He also created the Office of Scientific
Liaison, and appointed me its head after I returned from the
Southwest Pacific in December of 1945. He said, "Bennie, I want
you to work on establishing the closest possible relationship with
the scientific community. We need them, we need them badly,
and we need to work together." And that's how I became closely
associated with many of the scientific community. Many of you
sitting here I've known from those early days.
From 1945-50 we created the flight test center at Edwards,
the missile test range which was Banana River (now Patrick
AFB), and Cape Canaveral. We centralized electronics activities
in Rome and in the Boston area at Hanscom. The Arnold Engi
neering Development Center was the dream of Von Karman, and
legislation was passed in 1950 creating that organization. So
things were moving and moving quite rapidly.
However, from an organizational standpoint, there was still
one major "hangover" from World War II. The procurement
people at the Air Materiel Command still had the power of the
16
purse. They had all the procurement dollars which were the
major dollars that were being funneled in the acquisition process
to industry. Air Research and Development Command also had
been created in 1950. They had the technical responsibility, they
made the most of that, but the procurement problem still divided
the authority for the systems acquisition process.
At the Air Staff level the technology was overshadowed by
the operational requirements. Operational Requirements probably
was the strongest office in the Air Staff during the period
following the war until at least into the early 1950s, when a
number of committees were set up. I think many of you will
remember the Doolittle Committee, the Ridenour Committee, and
key players in the scientific community: Von Karman, Ridenour,
Doolittle, Getting, Compton, Merv Kelly, Milliken, Perkins, Stever;
Al Flax came in about that time as well. I didn't name all of
the people that were on the Scientific Advisory Board, but we
had a very outstanding group.
Now, many top military leaders were involved in studying
the rearrangement, and giving technology a greater voice in
decision-making for future weapons systems. Hap Arnold laid the
groundwork, established the foundation. He was followed by
Tooey Spaata in Vandenberg. Bill Craigie was in the Pentagon at
that time. He and Don Putt were the prime movers at the
deputy level at the Air Staff. And then we had some young
turks: Walkowitz, Dempsey, Shank, Vince Ford, Nunziatto, and I
put myself in that category. After the war I spent nine years in
Washington, four years as scientific liaison chief and then
another four years in the development planning office, with a
year at the National War College in between.
But the institutionalization of research and development of
technology came about in that period. By the 1950s technology
had been positioned so that it would have a great influence on
the decision making process.
We had established close working relationships with the
scientific community. The Air Force definitely took the lead in
this. Air Research and Development Command had already been
established. The Deputy Chief of Staff for R&D had already been
established. Operational requirements came under that office.
And development planning had been created in 1950. Ivan
Getting was the first Assistant for Evaluation. He was there for
17
a year. When I left the War College in 1950 I became his
deputy. And when he left to go back into academia, I was given
the job and we changed the name to Assistant for Development
Planning. So new technology did have a voice in the decision
making process and new technology in the period from 1950 to
1960 did flow to the operational inventory of the Air Force in
great profusion and in a high quality.
We introduced supersonic flight. The electronic revolution
really took off. Ballistic missiles came into being. Not only in
the Air Force but in the Navy. We talked about space. I made
a speech in San Diego in February 1957, where I said the ICBM
platform provided the foundation for us to move into space. The
next day I received a wire not to use the word space in any of
my speeches in the future. Then Sputnik came along in October,
1957, and from that time on we were always being asked, "why
can't you move faster in getting into space?"
So things change in a hurry in this country, but here again
we had another crisis. It was the crisis of space. In 1950-60,
scientists continued to play a very important role in major Air
Force decisions. For example, the Von Neumann committees.
The first Von Neumann committee was set up under the SAB to
determine the feasibility of a dry thermonuclear weapon. They
confirmed what both Teller and Von Neumann had said at an SAB
meeting at Patrick AFB in the Spring of 1953, that we could
have a small size, dry thermonuclear weapon, weighing 1500 lb.
that would give us a yield of one megaton. That changed the
whole picture with respect to the feasibility of a long range
ballistic missile.
Von Neumann was then appointed through Secretary Wilson
along with Trev Gardner to head up a committee to review all
long range strategic missiles. That committee made its report,
called Teapot, in February 1954, and said that an ICBM was
feasible, that we could have it operational by 1960 /'/ we created
a special management arrangement that could bypass the normal
bureaucracy. The SAB continued to play a very important role
during that period. Industry was embracing long range develop
ment planning. The 1950s were the golden years of the influence
of new technology in making decisions on major systems acquisi
tions.
18
President Eisenhower, when he came back from World War
II, and was chief of staff of the army, wrote several memos and
made several speeches pointing out the tremendous importance of
teamwork among the military, science, and industry. So he
understood during his presidency the relationship of industry,
science, and the military. And he established priorities, and he
was able because of his background to delegate authority as well
as responsibility, which I think today is done very poorly.
Responsibility is not delegated, it is given, but the authority to
go along with it often isn't there. In the 1950s, we accomplished
a lot. And I can say again what was done in creating the
institutions which allowed science and the Air Force to work
closely together really paid off in spades.
As we moved into the 1960s that hangover of divided
authority between ARDC and Air Material Command (AMC)
remained. AMC still held the procurement dollars and we had
joint SPOs and so forth, and joint anything is not very good. In
1961, when President Kennedy came in, Roz Gilpatrick called in
Tommy White, Air Force chief of staff, and told Tommy, "Look,
we'll assign the responsibility of military space to the Air Force
if you'll straighten out that mess between AMC and ARDC."
Well, it was straightened out post haste. And out of that came
the Air Force Systems Command, and the Air Force Logistics
Command, with the AFSC having total responsibility and the
funds to do the acquisition job.
In 1961, when LeMay took over as chief of staff, I went
over to see him. I told him "McKee is the commander of the
Logistics Command and I am commander of the Systems Command.
We're going to resolve all of our problems between the two of
us. We're not going to submit one letter to Air Force head
quarters of a disagreement and let some of your majors make the
decisions for us." And we established a system where we met
every month. We put all the major problems between the two
commands right on the table. It wasn't long before the staffs of
Systems Command and Log Command understood that we meant
business. We didn't want them to come and see that we couldn't
agree. We never once sent a disagreement to the Air Staff for
resolution. When McKee came in to be vice chief of staff, and
Bradley took over, then Hobson, I had the same relationship with
Gen. Bradley and Hobson. We never once sent a disagreement
19
forward. I think that tradition continues, but I'm not 100 per
cent sure. I know it held for a good while.
Let me say a few words about how this Board got started.
The first task I gave Brian O'Brien was the study of laser
technology, to determine whether or not it could be weaponized,
either for defense or offensive purposes. The findings of that
study group established the foundation for our laser work that's
been going on for these many 20 odd years.
Brian mentioned working in Project Forecast, and they did.
The Advisory Committee to the Systems Command was very active
in Project Forecast. During the early days of the Systems
Command, I had a disagreement with General Bim Wilson, who at
that time was deputy chief of staff for R&D, concerning the
relationship of the Systems Command to the SAB. I knew that
the SAB was a group responsive to the chief of staff of the Air
Force, but, after all, Systems Command was the major arm of the
Air Force for carrying out research, development, and systems
acquisition and we needed to have a direct working relationship
with the Scientific Advisory Board. Well, what finally evolved
out of that was the creation of the Division Advisory Groups
(DAGs), which still exist today. They were extremely helpful to
me during my tour as commander of the Systems Command and I
know they're extremely helpful to the division commanders within
the Systems Command.
Hap Arnold and Eisenhower had the vision to recognize the
need for the military to work very closely with the scientific
community after World War II. They would be very happy with
what has been accomplished. I'm sorry to say that some of the
relationships with industry have certainly broken down. We have
too much micromanagement from the top, both from the Congress
and from the OSD staff, which has grown and grown and grown.
And everything in between has to grow some too, so that by the
time you get down to the working level, you have many levels
above that have a lot of authority to say no but no authority to
say yes. We have an adversarial relationship between the defense
department and industry which I think is sad. We have regula
tions, inspectors, legal eagles, contracting officers, and I'm afraid
that the influence of technology that came about during the
1950s, and remained for a while, has been eroded to some degree,
maybe quite a lot.
20
With the help of Sam Phillips and a number of other pro
gram directors during the period that I was on the west coast
and also in ARDC and AFSC, we prepared a report that we sent
to the Packard Commission and, as a matter of fact, Sam's
document is attached to the report in full. That was sent to him
last year. I have a copy of that report here and if you all want
to make copies, John, you might just distribute it to people.1
But it gives in more detail some of the concerns that we see
based on our past experience related to some of the problems
today. As far as people are concerned, I've maintained close
contact with the blue suiters and the scientific people. We have
the resources and people, the know-how, probably to a much
higher degree than we had at the time that I was on active duty
because we have a tremendous educational program in the Air
Force and we do have qualified people. We just hog tie them
with bureaucracy.
The fact that we had to have a Packard Commission
indicates that there are some problems today, but there are
certainly no problems as far as I can see in the relationship of
the Air Force and the scientific community, and I am very happy
that I was able to play a small part in achieving that. Thank
you.
Discussion
McLucas: I thank you, Bennie, for that retrospective. We have
some time to ask General Schriever a few questions. I'd like to
start out with a question myself. Although you referred to this
item I'm not sure I completely understood your comment. And
this is my first session as chairman of the AFSB, therefore I can
put myself in the position of a pupil and ask the teacher a
question. Since the SAB had already existed, why did we need to
create the Air Force Studies Board?
Schriever: I was having so much difficulty with the air staff in
creating the right kind of relationship that I thought was
Copies of the report are available from the AFSB office.
21
necessary between the SAB and the Systems Command that I said,
"Well, to hell with it - I'll get the National Academy of Sciences
to give me a hand." And that's how that really started, at least
from my point of view.
McLucas: You made the comment about the Air Force forming a
relationship with the technical community and in fact being in
the lead. There was a Navy anniversary here recently where
they said that the Navy was the leader in that. Is that true?
Schriever: Well, you know, if you'd asked me that question
before I went to the National War College and got broadened, I
would have said, "Hell no, it's not true," but having been
broadened by the National War College, I'll have to say maybe.
McLucas: Okay. I went to a Navy program about five years ago.
John Lehmann was still secretary and he gave a speech on Navy
space. He talked all evening and never mentioned the Air Force.
And I thought, you know, there's something wrong here....
Schriever: Let me comment on that, John. Red Rayburn is
always bragging about the Navy's Polaris program and the solid
propellant, and all of us in the Air Force know how the solid
propellant program got underway in terms of the long range
ballistic missile. We initiated a feasibility program recommended
by the Von Karman study group which we set up in 1955 on the
west coast. We carried out that feasibility program, and from it
decided to proceed on the Minuteman. Dan Kimball called me
one day and invited me to lunch, and he asked, "Will you make
available the technology that came out of your solid propellant
feasibility program to the Navy." I said, "Yes, it's not just for
the Air Force. The Navy can have any of it and all of it." I
had previously discussed this subject with Savvy Sides, when he
came out to visit with me early on the ICBM program. The Navy
was talking about having an intermediate range ballistic missile,
and they were going to have a shipborne cryogenic missile. I
said, "Savvy, that doesn't make sense. You ought to wait until
you can get one that has the solid propellant." But they went
ahead with it anyway and that's how the Jupiter program got
started. The Navy doesn't often give the Air Force much credit.
22
I'll be very happy to give the Navy credit where it's due, but
when it's not due, I'll speak up.
Dr. Grant L. Hansen: What are the considerations that go into
determining whether a particular subject should be addressed
internally by the Air Force Systems Command or by an outside
advisory group, and has your perspective of that changed over
the 25-year period since the Studies Board started?
Schriever: Well, I think number one, we generally are always -
talking about new technologies, not necessarily basic research,
but exploratory technology that has a high potential. We would
like to get the benefit of the expertise and the scientific minds
and an objective view on the feasibility of such technology
before we move forward into hardware. Internally, we have very
good people, but there is always this matter of their own axe to
grind. So to have this outside view of the very top people in
the scientific community is very very valuable in the decision
making process. I've always looked at it from that point of
view, and, after all, it isn't just making studies but it's also the
contributions that the scientific community makes to the Air
Force, new ideas that are generated.
Too often we have our nose a little bit too close to the
grindstone. The operational requirements office is more inclined
to move forward through some modification process, to improve
to a small degree the performance of a particular system rather
than saying, "okay, our technology now has the opportunity to
leapfrog that and provide a much superior capability, even
changing certain matters of operational tactics and philosophy or
even doctrine." Working closely with the scientific community
gives us the leverage that I don't think we'd ever have just by
trying to make those decisions internally.
You remember that the scientific community has great
credibility, and particularly on specific studies that are important
to the future capabilities of the military. They give credibility
to move forward on something that has a degree of risk involved.
In my opinion the military is the one agency that should be
taking some risk with respect to introducing new technology. I
mean if we don't we're crazy. We send people out to be shot at
and killed in wartime, so we should give them the very best
23
equipment. If we can't take some risks during peacetime to
introduce new technology to give everybody a better break, then
we'd better change our thinking. And our system right now is
not very conducive to taking risk. The contractual procedures,
the fixed price contracts on programs that nobody has ever done
before - it's asinine.
General Robert C. Mathls: General Schriever, you've mentioned
several times the problem that we have with the acquisition
process and the adversarial relationship between industry and the
department of defense. There's an adversarial relationship that
I've seen which has really deteriorated between the Office of the
Secretary of Defense and the services and it's a constant
problem. I'd like to ask what people like us can do to improve
that, because I've seen it just go downhill over the last 20 years.
It looks like it's at rock bottom, in spite of the Packard
Commission or Goldwater-Nunn, or whoever.
Schriever: Bob, I agree with you. I'm frustrated. I'm really
frustrated because if you make even simple recommendations,
they get lost in the shuffle. I've heard Nunn say, "Well, why
don't we take a few of the most important programs out of the
system and do a streamlined management?" We've done it before.
The precedents exist for that. The ballistic missile program isn't
the only one. There have been a number of other programs that
have been handled outside the normal system. You can't do that
to everything but you can do it to a few programs that are of
extreme importance to the nation. And I think you could
demonstrate that you could complete the programs more quickly.
Time is money. You'd save money. And yet you can't get any
action taken on that whatsoever.
Sam Phillips knows how programs are run when they're
taken out of the system. He's probably had more experience
running major programs outside the bureaucracy than anybody in
the country. So I think you have to demonstrate with a few
important programs that you can do better than you're doing
today. And yet we haven't had any response to that. Until we
do prove that we can do it and demonstrate it, I think we're
going to be in the same morass. We seem to be going further
and further downhill despite the Packard Commission report.
24
Dr. John J. Martin: General Schriever, what areas of technology
or science do you see exploitable in the next ten years or so?
Schriever: We do have some very important programs underway
today. I'm encouraged about that. Stealth, hypersonic flight,
the national aerospace plane. I think we become too optimistic
about what can be done over the short haul. One of the
committees of the Air Force Studies Board is studying hypersonic
flight. I was a huckster for hypersonic flight even before I
retired. And now it finally is coming back again. That has to
be an extremely important program. Development of the com
posites has been slow but I think their role in future generations
of aircraft is assured. I haven't studied Forecast II in detail, but
I have looked at some of the technologies identified therein and
many look quite promising; they should be supported. We are on
the threshold of another period where technology has much to
offer to national security, and to the civilian aviation community.
The Ones That Didn't Fly
Dr. Alexander Flax, Home Secretary, NAE
McLucas: Thank you, Bennie. Al Flax is here today because we
felt it would be worthwhile under the heading of Lessons Learned
to talk about things that worked and things that didn't work.
Dr. Alexander Flax: Ladies and gentlemen, it is a great pleasure
to be here and the first thing I'd like to say is that I completely
agree with everything that General Schriever said. The 1950s
were indeed the golden age for Air Force R&D. The big question
is why did the golden age end? I don't profess to be able to
give a complete answer to that. Maybe there's some subtle
message here in the fact that in choosing somebody to talk about
the failures they chose somebody who had served in the Head
quarters, not in AFSC. But, I'll assume that's not the case. You
will have to draw your own conclusions.
25
Now, also I hope that people didn't come here just to have
lunch, because if you go away after my talk you're going to get
the impression that the Air Force didn't succeed in anything
except Minuteman. That's really the only thing that we've really
covered, and you should hear Tom Marsh tell you proudly about
all the successes. When I talk about what did not fly, I'm not
going to be very strict. I'm going to talk about things that flew
but didn't fly very well, very far, or very long because they're
equally important in understanding what happened. / would like
to remind every one of what the great historian Toynbee said
about why great civilizations fall. It's not from external attack
primarily, it's because they have gotten so wound up in the
complexities of managing their domestic and international affairs
that they fall of the weight of their own bureaucracies. And as
General Schriever already suggested, we're moving in that
direction, though I'd be far from being able to make a projection
as to when things will get so bad that they fall apart.
But things that don't fly are an important part of any
robust R&D program. If nothing fails, if everything works
exactly as you planned it, it's almost certain that you are taking
no risks and not really pushing very hard. On the other hand,
you don't want too many things to fail. Furthermore, if they do
fall short of expectations, you'd like to detect that fairly early
in the program so that you don't spend a lot of money on things
that don't work. In other words, exploration is a good and
essential feature of every R&D program, and the people can
differ as to whether exploration in any given case can be
completely and exhaustively done on paper, in the laboratory,
with a prototype, or an experimental vehicle. That we still argue
today.
Programs that fail for one reason or another (I use this
broad definition of fail: they don't achieve their expected
potential) usually don't fail for technical reasons. There are very
few things that were just technically infeasible. They failed
because requirements changed, the international situation
changed, the domestic policy changed, strategy changed, or they
turned out to be much more difficult than anticipated, therefore
had a longer schedule, and growing costs, and patience ran out.
So timing the start of a program to have a finite length, one
that strains the span of attention of decision makers not too
26
much is very important and I think you will see that in some of
the examples.
The period we're talking about over the life of the Air
Force Studies Board was preceded by a great educational program
in the United States. I called it the "57 varieties of missiles"
program. Right after the war we initiated missile programs at
the drop of a hat. It was understood that they would not all
reach operational status. We were learning by doing and
encountering all the pitfalls. Many people were trained: Air
Force people, industry people, and academic people. And so we
came into the sixties out of that period. It couldn't continue.
The Air Force alone had 26 programs in 1947. One of them was
Atlas, or what preceded Atlas, MX 774, and that was cancelled in
1947, not to be fully restarted again until the mid-1950s. But we
were hedging all the bets. It was a time of change.
We had not only manned aircraft - manned strategic air
craft - but also intercontinental missiles, and some of them were
airbreathers like Snark and Navajo. Snark actually reached
operational status briefly but ballistic missiles were too much of
a success story and they drove all these things out.
We also had other aspirations. We had all kinds of space
programs that were started or thought about or studied. They
were talked about in the mid to late '50s and then went under
all kinds of classification so it's hard to keep track of them.
Another thing that had happened at that time and it's a
theme that comes back again and again. The nuclear age had
come upon us in the war and somehow there was the innate
feeling that we had to have nuclear power in Air Force systems,
and that was tried in numerous ways. The nuclear bomber
aircraft, the nuclear cruise missile - so-called SLAM - nuclear
rockets, and then we had studies of how to use nuclear weapons
directly, the Orion or "Putt-Putt" program to launch heavy
payloads into space. So there were no inhibitions about studying
these programs and pushing them as far as anybody thought they
could go, and in the nuclear era we pushed them pretty far
before it became apparent that all of them were not leading to
viable operational systems.
There were not only operational problems, there were
technological problems, there were environmental problems, and
of course competing systems, notably the ICBMs were far too
27
well established and on any grounds of cost effectiveness which
came into vogue at that time, all of these systems fell apart.
Similarly we had one launch of a reactor into space, SNAP 10,
and it was a dead end. Solar power was fulfilling all the
requirements admirably well at that stage of things, so that died
too. It's being revived. All of these things are never completely
dead and buried. The nuclear airplane keeps cropping up
periodically. People will propose that we embark on some new
approach, new angle, new technology making possible what was
previously not possible. But they really have not gone very far.
There were also all kinds of advanced schemes for gas core
reactors, glow plugs, things of that nature, to try to push up the
specific impulse of launch vehicles and otherwise apply nuclear
power. Again, these things did not turn out to look very
practical in light of the competition.
Now, there is another class of vehicles that were embarked
on; these were the supersonic cruise vehicles, as exemplified first
by the B-58 bomber, which was a limited success, but did serve
an operational role. The B-70, which was to have been a
successor, and the F-108 interceptor; these were victims of many
things: changes in the threat, changes in technology, changes in
requirements, the de-emphasis on continental air defense. While
the F-108 was cancelled, out of the black side of the house came
the YF-12. Its more capable successor, the F-12, was proposed.
In 1963, although it was never stated explicitly, we started a
phase-down of continental air defense because the missile threat
was so overwhelming that aircraft didn't loom very large in the
picture. While you can debate that philosophy, that actually was
what happened. So we never deployed any supersonic cruise
interceptors, in spite of magnificent studies by General Glen
Kent, showing how effective they would be if we wanted to
mount a sufficient level of defense.
Skybolt was also a victim of a decision to check the
growth and proliferation of new varieties of strategic weapons.
Again the Polaris, the Minuteman, and their improvements and
follow-ons looked so good that such things not only as Skybolt
but the train-mobile Minuteman, which you may remember, were
all cancelled in the early sixties. All these things crop up again.
We now talk about a proposal for a train-mobile MX.
28
We had several space programs. One of the most visible
that was cancelled was the X-20, or Dina-soar, and there the Air
Force was the victim of a big con game. They were first told by
the powers that be in the administration that this was not to be
an operational system, but a research vehicle like the X-15.
That sounded reasonable, so the program proceeded on that basis.
Then in early 1963, NASA voiced concern that the program would
be a diversion from their own manned program and withdrew sup
port of the notion that this was a useful research vehicle. OSD
came back and said, "Now you must prove the operational utility
of this system." That went down the drain very quickly, al
though I remember editing a very long and impassioned statement
by the Air Force about why this program should be continued.
In the early 1960s there were research programs like Asset
and Prime, unmanned programs, which provided technology that
can be used to support such things as the aerospace plane.
These programs ended and, until NASP, no other research was
done in that flight envelope. As a consolation prize, the
Secretary of Defense gave us the manned orbiting laboratory. It
was a military manned orbiting laboratory doomed to failure in
part because the mission was so classified that it was impossible
to give a justification to the newspapers or in open hearings. It
was also a very narrow concept without much likelihood of
success and couldn't justify the costs. There were broader
applications which could have been pursued. I note, however,
that the Soviets seem to have taken the white program descrip
tions to heart: if you look at the volume and external features,
Salyut-Soyuz is not very far from what the MOL was described
to be.
Recently, I was on an OSD committee to review the
current aerospace plane program and at the first meeting I
announced that I had already written the report, dated 1961, and
the elements of that program were very much like the elements
of the program described today. The difficult thing was that
there were some technologies which were not far enough along in
development and I noticed that some of the early studies of the
AFSB had to do with supersonic combustion ramjets. Well, we
just discontinued most of that work over the intervening time, so
technologically we are about back where we were. Although
there were a few small cells, monasteries, so to speak, where the
29
technology was preserved by two or three people, here and there,
no major programs were mounted in support of that technology.
Coming out of Forecast I, we had a boundary layer control
experimental airplane, the X-21, which was a modified B-66, and
it was very intriguing. It showed we didn't understand enough
about how to be consistent in maintaining laminar boundary
layers, but we were making some progress. There were some
good flights. There were issues of insects collecting on the
leading edge, and dust and dirt, and things of that nature. But
that was not pursued much further. To some extent that was a
victim of our growing involvement in Vietnam and the need to
turn R&D resources to some of those problems.
Then we have the search for the will-o-the-wisp, which we
and many other organizations, both the other services here and
abroad have been working on for a long long time, and that's
vertical and short take-off. During the 1960s we had two pro
grams that really were stimulated by the army but which were
converted by OSD into tri-service type programs. The XV-4 was
based on jet ejector thrust augmentation. It didn't work. The
full scale didn't behave like the laboratory. The XV-5 was the
GE fan in the wing and it sort of worked on the margin. And
the only thing that came out of that that did work was the XV-
6. The XV-6 was then successor of the Hawker P-1127, then
called the Kestrel, and now known as the Harrier. That is the
only one of those programs that came out with a result that
entered the operational inventory in the United Kingdom. Also
our forward looking marines in this country saw it as a means of
satisfying some of their own peculiar mission requirements. Over
considerable opposition from many quarters, they pushed it
through. So that's the only operational vertical and short take
off airplane in the U.S. The only other one operational in the
free world is its counterpart in the UK, and of course on the
Soviet side, we have the Yak 36.
We also had the McNamara-Von Hassell agreement, the
U.S.-Federal Republic of Germany vertical and short take-off
fighter. This was never for real. It was a purely political
maneuver. We went through the motions of setting up the
program, but it wouldn't survive the first budget cycle. It had
little support from the operators and no program goes very far if
you call it a fighter and you don't have operators behind it. It
30
also wasn't very well thought out. It was a compromise between
U.S. and German views of what it ought to be.
We did have limited success with an experimental prototype
of a transport, the XC-142. That actually flew. It was not the
ideal flying machine. Its handling qualities over the speed range
left much to be desired but it did fly and it could have formed
the basis for an operational aircraft of limited capability but
nevertheless having this unique feature of vertical take-off as a
possibility, or at least vertical landing.
We also had the X-19, which was a tilt propeller, not a tilt
wing, but we were buying that on the cheap. There was only
one experimental aircraft. It crashed for reasons having nothing
to do with its basic characteristics, so that ended the program.
We had many many stops and starts in the area of
unmanned aircraft. We operated drones rather successfully over
North Vietnam, during that conflict; the system died as soon as
the war was over. There were many studies, but only in recent
years have we come back to considering drones, RPVs, and
unmanned aircraft, for various missions. There is a big gap of
about 10 to 15 years in our progress in that area.
One of my favorite systems, a C3I system, which never
went anywhere, is the precision emitter location and strike
system, PELS. It's been around since the Vietnam days, has had
its vicissitudes, difficulties, delays, mostly long, stretch outs in
funding, but I think primarily it failed because either the R&D
concept was wrong or it has had too little operational support.
During my days in the Pentagon the largest percentage
overrun I ever encountered was the Mark II avionics on the F-
111. Nobody really wanted it, but a combination of political and
other forces bulled it through, leaving the Air Force with 96 F-
11 1Ds, which never were satisfactory. I understand they are now
in the process of stripping out the avionics, which was too
ambitious, aimed ahead of its time, and unreliable and marginal in
performance, and that's another message: don't rush into the
operational mode with things you're not really sure can be done.
I think the Air Force has done much better in its later avionics
suites. Sometimes they're a little bit behind the latest and best
but they've gone a long way in the packages to be found in F-
15s and 16s. They can always be modernized, half-way through
31
the life cycle at some cost, but not near the costs involved in
the F-111D program.
So we have a mixed bag. I would say that the programs
that were conducted in the main contributed to the learning
process but that education in some cases cost too much. We
should really look at the learning process as something to be
managed economically.
The world, unfortunately, has changed and it is no longer
so easy to start these programs, to proceed in a provisional
manner. We're too busy checking and balancing from every level.
The congressional staff, including OTA, now numbers over 10,000
people. And studies of weapon systems are being made in very
unlikely places: in the Congressional Budget Office, the Con
gressional Research Service. Anybody at the drop of a hat can
enter the fray. We're busy trying to prevent all future catas
trophes, and that process itself may be the greatest catastrophe.
We had said as a result of the C-5 procurement action, which
was called total package procurement, that this was a terrible
thing, that it was counter-productive and that we were never
going to do it again. So we eliminated the name "total package
procurement," but if you look at what's actually being done in
some of the recent procurements, it amounts to a return to total
package procurement. We're attempting to commit the contrac
tor, before the R&D is done, to long production runs at fixed
cost of something he hasn't built yet. And that is a very very
chancy procedure. We did learn some lessons and hopefully wiser
heads than ours will glean greater benefits than we have from
these lessons. Thank you.
Discussion
McLucas: We'll take a few questions. Bennie said that our
problem is we don't take enough risks, and Al said that the Mark
II avionics demonstrates that we reach too far, so that implies
there's a happy middle ground, if you're lucky enough to figure
out where it is.
You talked about the MOL briefly; I remember when that
was cancelled because Bob Seamans insisted on a hearing with
32
President Nixon, and he went over and he spent over an hour
with him. But I guess everyone in the room except Bob knew
that it was already hopeless. I think a lot of systems that didn't
make it really had nothing wrong with them. It was just a ques
tion of timing or perhaps they just fell off the bottom of the Air
Force priority list. It doesn't mean they weren't worthy. I
think of things like the AMST which I don't think anybody found
anything wrong with, but we just couldn't keep the funding in
there year after year. If, for example, the C-17 program goes
down then I think it will not be because of technical mismanage
ment but rather the inability to keep it on the priority list.
Dr. William L. Lehmann: You've talked about the operators-
some systems failing because the operators didn't want them.
You've talked about systems that were based on technology we
wanted to push forward and because you could build them. Have
the operators ever come to the technology people and said:
"Hey, we need this!" Does that process for the operators-
knowing what they need, having some ideas, and advocating it to
the technology - does that work at all? Or is that a weak link
or Achilles Heel?
Flax: No. For the systems that succeed that process of
reaching mutual understandings between developers and operators
works quite well. You know you can always point to some flaw
in the system, but by and large it works quite well. Sometimes
there's a gap in understanding or communication, and a most
notable one I remember was the laser-guided bomb. When that
thing breezed through development with great speed, nobody in
the Seventh Air Force wanted it. Harold Brown, who was then
the Secretary, went out and said, "You know, we can increase
production right now to 600 a month or whatever you want," and
they said "We don't know what we'd do with it." It wasn't until
General Jack Lavelle, who had been working that kind of problem
here and was more conversant with the capabilities and potentials
went to the Seventh Air Force that they suddenly created an
overnight shortage of laser- guided bombs.
Now I don't fault the operators too much. It's as much
the fault of the R&D community; they probably should have been
inviting the operators down if they could get them away from
33
what they were doing, serious business in Vietnam. They should
have been inviting them down to participate in the early dem
onstrations in some way, shape, or form and kind of building up
acceptance, and that wasn't being done. It was such an expe
dited program that nobody even thought of that.
Hansen: I recall a program called Bambi, which I believe got
killed by a treaty which said not to put those kinds of things up
there. Also, I was an engineer at Douglas Aircraft at the time
Skybolt was cancelled, and we were told that the program was
cancelled because it was failing in its flight tests and was not a
good program technically. After that the remaining missiles on
the program were flown out quite successfully, but the feeling
was that success came too late to affect a decision on a program
that had been decided to be a poor program because it wasn't
working. Do you have any recollections that match with that or
is that just what we were told?
Flax: No. I was the chairman of the ASD advisory group that
reviewed Skybolt and we found that the igniter on the second
stage was not playing its flames onto the propellant grain
properly and once that was fixed it worked. The underlying
reason for its cancellation was a desire to cut back on the
proliferation of strategic weapons. Also, Minuteman was so
successful that competing systems had a real rough time.
McLucas: There's a program that Al appropriately did not talk
about, but that would have been on my list for about 15 years
and that was something which eventually became AWACS. Now
maybe Tom Marsh will talk about it this afternoon, but I
remember as I said that for the first 15 years of its development,
I kept saying, "Why do we keep putting money in this? It's not
going anywhere." It seemed to take forever, then finally, some
body made a breakthrough, and we got a very successful program.
But there are a lot of things you struggle with for years before
you achieve any relative degree of success.
34
The Winners and Why
General Robert T. Marsh, USAF retired
McLucas: General Robert T. Marsh, otherwise known as Tom, is
a graduate of the Military Academy and a graduate of Michigan,
and he's done great things in the Air Force. He was commis
sioned in 1949. He's been a space systems project officer,
director of reconnaissance in electronic warfare, had various jobs
in R&D in the Pentagon, and was the commander of the Systems
Command for four years.
Al Flax told us about the ones that got away. Now Tom
will tell about the other side, the ones that did good things.
General Robert T. Marsh: Thank you, John. And good after
noon, ladies and gentlemen. I congratulate and commend you for
your valuable support to the Command and to the Air Force over
these many years. You've tackled some tough issues and helped
all the AFSC commanders steer a course through this technologi
cal thicket.
In thinking through the selection of the top winners, I
found it difficult to set aside the "inside the beltway" views and
influences and really settle on an objective set of criteria with
which you could judge programs. The politicians and pundits are
quick to judge our acquisitions as losers as soon as they en
counter their first test difficulty, any kind of management
irregularity no matter how small, or take any kind of an
excursion off their planned acquisition cost and schedule. The B-
1 and the Peacekeeper come immediately to mind.
But on the other hand, it doesn't necessarily follow that
programs meeting their acquisition costs, schedule, and perfor
mance plan are all top winners; as one might first think. For
example, the A- 10 was acquired generally to plan, but it is facing
an unusually early phase out due to its lack of growth potential
to stay abreast of the threat. Now I would not classify it as a
top winner. And I'm sure you can think of other examples.
Therefore, I thought that I should look at both the acquisition
phase and beyond into the operations and support phases to
develop criteria for selecting winners.
35
After some thought I settled on three criteria for judging
top winners. First, acquisition must be efficient and expeditious,
consistent with the need, the technical risk, and the magnitude
of the undertaking. Second, the new system must make a quan
tum and enduring contribution to our war fighting capability, and
implicit in that statement is sufficient growth potential to
maintain effectiveness in the face of a reasonably expected
changing threat. And finally, it must be affordable in terms of
the eventual numbers and skills of personnel and other resources
that are required to operate and maintain it.
Now if you accept these as reasonable criteria for selecting
the winners, then you must judge only those systems that are far
enough along in their life cycle so that their mature war fighting
readiness and capability, their adaptability to the changing threat,
and their actual operating and support costs can be observed.
It's too early to judge our third generation systems, the
B1B, the Peacekeeper, the GPS, the AAMRAM, and the DSCS III.
On the other hand, our successors - this room 25 years from now
- may judge some of these current systems as top winners, and
in fact I'm confident they will.
As I looked back over the many systems fielded by AFSC
over the years, I divided them into first and second generation
systems, the first generation being those acquired in the late
'50s, '60s, and into the early '70s, the second generation being
those from the early '70s to date. I wanted to see if the major
reforms that were instituted by David Packard from 1969-73
affected my perception of winners, either in numbers or quality.
The Packard reforms were intended to address the problems
encountered with the acquisition of some of the later first
generation systems under Robert McNamara's highly centralized
management of the requirements and system acquisition processes.
The C-5A and the F-111A are the most notable examples of
systems acquired under that centralized concept.
I'm not sure I could see much difference in the quality and
number of winners before Mr. McNamara's centralization and
after Mr. Packard's reforms. As for the period in between, that
is, from about the late '60s to the early '70s, I looked hard at
both the C-5A and the F- 111, and they're both fine systems
today. But they do not satisfy my criterion for efficient and
expeditious acquisition. Incidentally, I've been on the fence on
36
the C-5 as to whether it's a winner or not. We had terrible
trouble giving birth to it, but it's a fine weapons system today,
except that it's Operations and Support costs are high, and that
was my swinger.
There are clearly a number of real top winners in both the
first and second generations in Air Force Systems. As for first
generation winners I like the B-52 bomber, the Minuteman
missile, the F-4 fighter, the C-141 cargo airplane, and the AIM 7
Sparrow air-to-air missile. Among the second generation systems,
I selected the F-15, the F-16, the airborne warning and control
system (AWACS), the defense support program (DSP), the defense
communication satellite system (DSCS II), the Maverick antitank
missile, and the laser-guided bomb.
I believe these systems meet all three of my criteria. I
think probably more test missiles were lost in the Minuteman test
program than in the Peacekeeper test program to date, and more
F-4 test aircraft were lost than in both the F-15 and F-16 test
programs together to date. The AWACS and the DSP had sched
ule delays, and some cost overruns. The Maverick as refined still
does not solve all the Air Force's all-weather tank-killing needs.
And DSCS does not have all of the communications capability
that we desire. However, each of these systems represented a
quantum increase in war fighting capability and all have lent
themselves to cost-effective upgrading over many years to cope
with the increasing threat.
Incidentally, I had not thought much about the growth
potential of systems. I was always acquisition-oriented. But I
really have begun to think that one can't ignore how well a
system can adapt to the changing threat over time. That's a
judgment that can only be made retrospectively, but I think it's
a very important judgment as to whether or not a system really
was a top winner.
AFSC has proved its ability to acquire superior weapons
systems. Our concept for decentralized execution of systems
acquisition - that is, assigning the total responsibility to the
program manager and his program office and providing him with
commensurate authority and support - is sound. There's a need
to continually refine and improve management tools and tech
niques and to improve the process wherever possible. Cost
estimating capabilities are being constantly improved and are
37
helping to reduce the frequency and severity of cost overruns.
Baselining techniques are forcing more thorough definition of the
systems requirements and their associated costs earlier in the
acquisition process, thereby introducing more stability into the
programs, but I see no need for reform of this process or the
institution, as some are advocating.
As I look over the winners, I note that all have been
managed in accordance with the principles which we today
advocate for all programs:
• All had undergone good front-end definition, either by way
of extensive requirements and preliminary design studies as
in the case of the F-15, the Minuteman, and DSCS, or they
were preceded by prototyping or breadboarding efforts, as
in the case of DSP, the F-16, and AWACS.
• All were structured with well-balanced concurrence between
development, test, and production. Risk was identified at
the outset and it was managed well, specifically managed.
• All were stable programs, by that I mean there was good
funding support from the front-end through production.
Didn't get the rates we always wanted in production, but
we had continuity of funding.
• All of the program managers emphasized tight cost control
and the program managers were delegated all the authority
required to get the job done.
• In every case, these program managers were of high
quality. They were leaders and well-experienced in the
acquisition business before taking on these assignments.
• In nearly every instance, there was good support for the
program within the Air Force, the DoD, and the Congress.
And in the cases where support was lacking, a concerted
effort was made to garner such support.
AWACS didn't have the congressional support that we
wanted it to have in the early days, but we made it a fun
damental objective of the Air Force to get that support and we
finally got it. Maverick didn't have all the support that it
needed throughout its lifetime. You couldn't get the B-l
resurrected today, as I think everybody in this room would agree.
Any program that lacks support either within the service, within
OSD, or on the Hill is doomed to failure. On the other hand,
38
where such support is unanimous the probability of success is
very high.
Some believe that the black acquisition process produces
more winners than the conventional process. And I must say
that in this era of grandiose micromanagement, the black process
does serve to insulate the program manager from much of this
outside scrutiny and it tends to cut the naysayers out of the
pattern. More winners should result. However, in the cases that
I've selected, the Air Force fixed the responsibility clearly on
the program manager and provided him sufficient authority to
ward off such outside meddling, and I think we can still do that.
The streamlining recommended by the Packard commission
was aimed at just such unconstructive meddling. Now, while I
didn't agree with the commission's particular fix, it's far
preferable, I think, to institute such a system than it is to color
too many programs black for managerial rather than security
reasons.
I really want to thank Vern Miles for posing the question.
He made me take a different look at the results of our acquisi
tion efforts over the years. The results serve to reaffirm my
confidence in our Air Force acquisition processes and system, and
in the Air Force Systems Command, which provides the institu
tional framework within which this highly difficult, complex, and
extremely important systems management can be carried out so
effectively. We know how to acquire quality systems. The
challenge is to create the congressional and administration
environment to allow the system to fulfill its purpose. Thank
you.
Discussion
McLucas: Thank you, Tom. I don't remember your using the
term "configuration control." Did you use that term?
Marsh: I did not.
McLucas: You want to say a word about it? Do you believe in
it?
39
Marsh: I think change management is fundamental to the process
of keeping a program on track, and stability of the program is
exceedingly important. Change management begets stability. I
think a much better job of definition at the outset by way of
baselining tends to flush out many second order configuration
questions early on. Get those settled early on and then only
make modifications that threat changes dictate.
McLucas: Maybe you can clarify what you said. It sounded to
me like you were saying "We didn't get smarter because we didn't
have any more winners after than before, but we did get smarter
because now we know how to do it." What did you say?
Marsh: We learned at the outset, as we formed the Command
under Bennie's vision, how to acquire systems. We began
immediately to develop the expertise of systems management, and
I think that the challenges of the earlier times didn't demand as
much as they do today. The task of keeping the public and the
congressional support for the program is more difficult today.
Dr. Gerald P. Dinneen: One of the characteristics of the winners
is that they all had a fairly long lifetime. Many of them are
still very important. That means that either by design or by
good fortune we were able to go through many upgrades and
were able to evolve those systems. Is that implied in what you
said in the three characteristics or is that something that you
think we should be doing more of?
Marsh: It is certainly implied in my lesson learned for the
future that I think that we do need to pay specific attention to
growth potential. We need to postulate the threat impact on
weapons systems as the threat evolves and, to the extent that it
is practical and possible, we ought to attempt to build in that
kind of growth potential. I guess, to be honest, I believe it's
more happenstance than planned, in the cases I cited.
Unidentified Speaker: Could you comment on the changes in the
contracting laws over the years, whether you think that con
40
tinued growth of competition is going to change our ability to
keep programs growing and maintaining momentum.
Marsh: I think that we have swung too far in the direction of
competition for competition's sake. We must return to using
competition as a good business practice when it makes good
business sense. If we don't make such a return, I think it will
inhibit moving forward in both the fundamental acquisition
business and in the modification of systems to keep them current
and abreast of the threat.
Dr. Martin: General Marsh, Al Flax mentioned that Congress had
added something like 10,000 people to its staff during the last 20
or 25 years. And you seem to be saying that it doesn't make
any difference what's going on in Congress if we can still have
winners as frequently as we did before. Does Congress make a
difference? Does that oversight have some relevance or is it
just that we work harder and are just as successful?
Marsh: We have the capability and the know-how to acquire the
systems today as well as we ever did, but unless we find a way
to keep the meddling out of the process, then the process will
fail. Within the Air Force we have, as a result of the recent
Packard recommendations, instituted ways to keep meddling under
control and allow the acquisition process to proceed efficiently.
I don't have any solution to the problem of the increasing
congressional meddling. If we don't turn it around, its going to
constipate the system, and we won't get any acquisition job done.
Congress must reform its practices. All we've done so far is
reform the practices within the Department of Defense, while
Congress has taken no steps toward reform - and they must or
we will not improve the overall process.
Dr. Lehmann: Tom, there's a piece of the system that neither
you nor Al Flax, nor Bernie Schriever, nor anybody in this room
has mentioned. Over the past 40 years the airbase has been
almost totally ignored. Hap Arnold said that air power is airmen,
aircraft, and airbases. We've worked the aircraft problems and
Al Flax would probably say you've got about a 1.2 orders of
magnitude improvement as you went from the P-47 and the C-47
up to the F-15 and the C-141s, and they are superb in the air.
41
When you come down to the base, people just assume that the
base will be there in wartime.
In World War II, when you had those P-47s and the C-47s,
they'd take off on 2000 or 3000 ft. strips, which would be gravel.
The Air Corps engineers were putting in one base every 33 hours
from the time we had Normandy on through the time that
Germany collapsed. Today the basing of our systems has simply
gone down. We now need aircraft that require 8-10 thousand
feet of smooth concrete runway, and if you disrupt that you're in
as much trouble as if you drop a few bombs on some of the
bridges in Washington or on the beltway, you tie the whole thing
up.
The Air Force ran a test called Salty Demo. They had the
best in the Air Force, fully equipped, fully manned, fully sup
plied, ready to go. They knew it was coming on a Monday in
May 1985, and that's all they knew. It was a disaster. There's
no other way to describe it. The Soviets would have had time to
get back and hit us three or four more times before we could've
gotten the first airplane off of that airbase. The Air Force
doesn't accept that and says it wasn't a realistic threat. What is
a realistic threat? You know the experiences in Bien Hoa,
Vietnam.
The Systems Command is responsible for all three parts of
the system. It has solved the airman problem with training and
with human resources and human systems. The aircraft has done
a superb job. But the airbase has received moderate support at
best, no leadership at worst. One could make a very credible
case that they [the Soviets] could put our air power out of
action on the first day. It can't be defined away and it can't be
wished away. There are things we can do, but they haven't been
done in the last 40 years, and its a challenge to the Studies
Board and Systems Command. You were a commander at Systems
Command. You must have thought about it. I'd be interested to
know how you looked at that problem, if you considered it, and
if you did, what was your bottom line?
Marsh: Bill, your implied criticism is correct. I think we have
not done enough in this area, although I've noticed in the last
six or seven years a lot more attention has been given to the
problem than earlier. An airbase survivability program office was
42
formed at Eglin, and a lot of projects were undertaken there,
including the clearing of bomblets from airfields, alarms of
various kinds for chemical attack, and others. Civil engineers
have examined the runway repair problem carefully, and I believe
you'll find that runway repair kits stockage throughout the world
has been stepped up considerably. I think you'll see a lot more
effort put to defensive counter air to protect our airbases with
our air assets, which is fundamental to keeping the enemy from
our airbases. I think you'll also see a lot more emphasis on
STOL. The F-15E has a take-off and landing distance of 2000
ft., loaded. I'm not positive of those numbers so don't hold me
to them. I think a lot has been done, a lot more needs to be
done. Every senior leader is aware that this is a very important
area and more work must be done. In the past 10 or 20 years it
did not receive the priority it deserved, but I think it's starting
to get that priority.
Dr. Lawrence M. Weeks: I'd like to ask General Marsh, why you
didn't include in the launch vehicle world some things that a
young Colonel Schriever started at Ballistic Missile Division
(BMD) almost three decades ago. The Titan was a fairly good,
flexible changing device. They did Titan 2, and then the Gemini
launch vehicle, and then General Bleymaier did a pretty good job
on Titan 3, and now Titan 4 has sort of come back. Even old
Atlas, of which 600 or so were built, is still in use as a Centaur
Atlas. Couldn't you find one of those to meet your criteria, sir?
Marsh: I didn't want to pander to the Ballistic Missile crowd. I
gave Minuteman. I think you're absolutely right. They are
winners and very good capabilities. A little earlier than the time
frame I used. I started in the early '60s really for my systems,
and those were born in the late '50s, although I did make an
exception in the case of the B-52.
Hansen: Dave Packard, in 1969-72, talked about competitive
prototyping from a point of view of wanting to do some proto
typing on a lot of different things, not necessarily just compet
ition for the same program, but for competing programs. This
would be done so that decisions could be based on hardware and
test results instead of on just piles of paper. I can't remember
Atlas Centaur
43
what his public declarations were. His private feelings were that
the competitive prototyping thrust that he tried to inject in the
system was frustrated or defeated by the fact that the advocates
of the losing prototypes, the ones that were not judged to be the
very best, weren't willing to give up. The combined forces of
the military and the Congress and the industrial people, once
something was started, would never believe that it could possibly
be destined to not continue into production. They would force it
into production.
I believe that Dave's concepts on competitive prototyping
were good and there are some examples where it has worked
well. As you think about the successes of the past and look to
the future, do you think that there's more of a role for competi
tive prototyping of competitive systems? I'm not talking about
the same airplane being built by two firms, I'm talking about a
manned aircraft versus a drone, for example. Do you think
there's more of a future for competitive prototypes than has been
realized so far, or do you think that's a concept that just didn't
work because of the forces of our system?
Marsh: We tried after Mr. Packard left to include funding in our
program for prototypes, competitive prototyping as well, but that
funding was the first to go. If you had an important need, or if
you could perceive an important need out there for a job to be
done, you put a program together to go after that job. After
the budget crunch, prototyping funds disappeared. On the other
hand, DARPA was successful in spending on the order of $300-
400 million a year in prototyping efforts, but many of those were
inhibited by the bureaucratic problem of DARPA not being able
to persuade the services to follow through on those prototype
efforts. DARPA didn't work hard enough in my judgment to get
a military input to their prototype selection.
An argument has been made that if one is to set aside
$300-400 million a year (or perhaps today a half a billion dollars)
for prototyping, then one might compete it out in the services.
It must be over and above their TOA. I don't like to see a lot
of little rabbit ears formed, but prototyping may be so important
that there ought to be a sum of money set aside to do competi
tive prototyping. Now I think it does have all the pluses going
for it that you suggest, but it will not survive in the current
44
way we do our budgeting. So I believe a way to do it might be
to earmark a sum of money for DARPA or OSD, and have them
run a prototype competition among the services to compete for
those dollars over and above their TOA. That's the only way I
can see getting it done.
McLucas: Tom, when I went into the Pentagon in '69, the Air
Force had colonels in charge of some of the major programs, and
those that got in trouble soon had two-star generals in charge.
Do you think that putting those generals in charge improved the
chance of success? Did it improve their chance of getting
funded? What was the result of upgrading the rank of those
people?
Marsh: We deliberately elevate program manager rank based on
the importance of the program. We've come to accept that. I
don't think there's a good sound rationale for it.
Unidentified Speaker: I'd like to follow on Bill Lehmann's long
speech with a short question, General Marsh, at least I hope it's
short. Given that the airbase is not a sanctuary anymore and is
more vulnerable than it used to be, why hasn't the Air Force
ever really embraced the VSTOL program and come up with a
VSTOL aircraft?
Marsh: I'm not well informed in that subject to answer that
question. I would guess that based on the VSTOL designs that
I've looked at, they just didn't have the payload-range capability.
The technology is probably around the corner or about to make a
good payload range capability possible with VSTOL, but until it
does, the Air Force will not invest in something that will carry
500 pounds 500 miles. That's not our job and we will not put
resources into that kind of a capability. As those numbers grow
dramatically, and they've got to grow a lot from what I last saw,
then I think they'll become competitive.
45
Forecast I and II
General Lawrence A. Skantze, USAF Retired
McLucas: In 1962 I went to the Pentagon. I was on the third
floor and we had people on the fourth floor that were very
excited about something called Forecast. It was conventional
wisdom on the third floor to scoff at what was coming out of
this particular study and I guess I was naive because I thought
there was some good work going on there. And I still think so.
Here to talk about this is General Larry Skantze. Larry is a
Naval Academy graduate and also an AFIT graduate. He served
in the Navy for a number of years. He's a bomber pilot, had a
lot of engineering assignments, and during those engineering
assignments he had programs to manage like SRAM, and AWACS.
He gradually progressed through the system until he's just now
finished a tour as commander of Air Force Systems Command.
Forecast I
General Skantze: I am pleased to have the opportunity to talk
about Forecast, the original one and the one we recently
completed, Forecast II. The first Forecast was sponsored by
Secretary Zuckert and General LeMay. We were looking for ten-
year technology pushes. It involved not only the government but
industry people who worked on it full time. The environment to
involve industry people was a lot different back then than it is
today. And I think through that process they built a fairly good
consensus.
Products that came out were things like composite mater
ials, and high-bypass turbofan engines, which in turn produced
the large cargo transport, the C-5. We looked at enhanced
radiation weapons because we had a weapons panel strongly
represented by what was known then (and probably still is today)
as the "nuclear mafia." The advanced manned strategic airplane
(AMSA), successor to the B-70, was the forerunner of the B-l.
The reusable space launch vehicle gave birth to the shuttle, and
was the early genesis of the national aerospace plane.
46
When I became commander of Systems Command, I decided
that we should do a Forecast every 20 years, so I proposed it to
the Chief of Staff and to the Secretary. They wrote me a
charter, and that was our kickoff for Forecast II.
Forecast II
Not having the largesse of Schriever's budgets, I decided
we'd do Forecast II in Washington, but we still needed to create
an environment where the technologists and system thinkers
could be detached from their day-to-day jobs and work together
in a synergistic environment. We did this by taking some space
from ANSER in Crystal City.
We were going to look ahead more than 10 years. We
wanted to push the state of the art and have a spectrum of
things we could do, some that might be achievable in the near
term and some so far out that they obviously would have to wait
until the next century, but would still have sufficient potential to
warrant our attention. Because of the environment, I decided we
couldn't directly involve industry, so we instead created a series
of seminars. We brought in those industries that were function
ally oriented to certain aspects of technology, had a day-long
seminar, and exchanged views from our point of view (the Air
Force) as both users and technologists and their point of view
from the industry. In retrospect, I think that worked out pretty
well. After the study was over, we went out of our way to
debrief industry, tell them all the things we had done because we
wanted to build a consensus within the industry.
This was the organization chart [see Table 1]. The
original Forecast had a much more elaborate structure. There
were a number of mission panels dedicated to individual opera
tional areas. Jerry Paige, who some of you remember was sort of
the chief bright planner for the Air Force, had a panel on what
wars would look like five and ten years ahead, and we had a
number of review groups who were there full time and who in
many respects served as filters. And, in some cases bright ideas,
in my opinion, didn't surface because they didn't pass the filter
test. In a few cases it was a "not invented here" problem of a
c
ASSISTANT FOR SUPPORT
LT COL WILLIAMS
ADMINISTRATIVE SUPPORT
DEPUTY DIRECTOR
AF/XO-LG HUGHES
H
DEPUTY DIRECTOR
AF/RD--LG RANDOLPH
ASSISTANT FOR PROGRAMMING
GM IS BAINBRIOGEMAJ GLASGOW
DEPUTY PROGRAM MANAGERS
GM- 15 GOLOSTAYNAT COL NEIREITER
TECHNICAL SUPPORT
t-
TECHNOLOGY PANELS
CHAIRMAN BG STEB8INS
DEPUTY DR. KULP
PROPULSION ft POWER
MATERIALS & PRODUCIBILITY
VEHICLES ft STRUCTURES
ELECTRONICS t SENSORS
INFORMATION PROCESSING
ARMAMENTS ft WEAPONS
COMMUNICATIONS
LIFE SCIENCES
ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES
'ft MAINTAINABILITY
MISSION PANELS
CHAIRMAN MG DURKIN
OEPUTY COLMcOANIEL
STRATEGIC OFFENSE
STRATEGIC DEFENSE
THEATER WARFARE
LOW INTENSITY CONFLICT
BATTLE I
ANALYSIS PANELS
CHAIRMAN-COL FRIEL
DEPUTY COL WALTON
SYSTEMS ANALYSIS-
SYSTEMS COSTING
THREAT/RED TEAM
Table 1 Project Forecast II Organization
47
bright idea that didn't conform with what somebody on the high
level review panel wanted to look at.
We put this organization together for Forecast II and the
people who did all the day-to-day work were the program
managers. Eric Nelson, who was the planner at Systems Com
mand at that point, is now the Vice Commander of ESD; and
Charlie Stebbins, who ran science and technology, ran the full
time day-to-day work. Charlie focused on the technology panels.
Bob Durkin, who was director of requirements in the Air Staff,
came over and was the mission panel chairman. We used Colonel
Friel from the Space Technology Center to do the actual
analytical work to make sure that we understood enough about
feasibility, that we understood a fair amount about the costing so
it could be credible in terms of looking at it as a keeper.
We solicited quite a few people and quite a few resources.
I signed a number of letters that addressed these issues to these
people and asked for their views. Either they could come in and
talk to the people in Crystal City in the panels or they could
write in their views. This they did to some degree and it was a
good input to the final product.
We ran the study from June 1985 to February 1986. We
had 175 participants. When we went through the divergent
phase, we wound up with 2,000 ideas from all sources including
industry and in-house people. In the convergent process we had
a methodology to look at these ideas and to select the very best,
whether they were in a proposed systems concept or pure
technology. These became the 70 projects split almost equally
between technology and systems, which we call the keepers.
We did have both a senior review group of outside experts
in the research technology and development area and a military
advisory group. We scheduled two meetings. We scheduled one
review when we had gone through the preliminary process and
felt like we had made the first cut at the best things we were
doing. Then we brought them back about a month before we
concluded the project to get a final check. The purpose of this
group in my parlance was to provide "sanity checks." We wanted
to be sure that we didn't have a system proposal or technology
proposal that really didn't make sense.
The military advisory group was made up largely of the
vice commanders of the operational organizations in the Air
48
Force. We also had a hidden agenda in that we were going to
need broad-based Air Force support to make any advocacy
arguments that we needed for an increase in the budget share.
Again, we brought them back twice and they provided the sanity
checks we needed.
When we screened the ideas we looked at the technologies
on their own merits, built a matrix to compare those against
systems, and identified the systems as they compared to capabil
ities. Smart built-in test is a pervasive technology in that it
plays into many of the systems concepts. The hypervelocity
vehicle, in turn, provides a capability that is pervasive in
covering a wide variety of capabilities that may be desired by the
user. So the technologies that turned out to enable many
systems and the systems that turned out to enable many capabil
ities tended to be the ones that filtered through as the most
valuable in the screening process.
We could classify the ideas that we came up with into
several categories. Revolutionary ideas include the pursuit of
anti-matter. Pervasive ideas include artificial intelligence, which
fits across a broad spectrum of things one would like to do.
Older ideas enabled by new technology is characteristic of the
National Aerospace Plane program. That is not a new idea, but
we've determined that the technologies available or anticipated to
be available allowed us to look more strongly at the achievability
of that objective. We also looked at synergistic combinations of
ideas on things like a very smart cockpit. Here you're using the
better symbology presentations that you can give to a man flying
a fighter combined with the artificial intelligence and expertness
you can put in a processor, to give him what we would call a
smart cockpit.
I'm going to run through a quick menu of several of the
technologies we selected before I come to a conclusion to kind of
give you a flavor for what we did. For each one of these we
determined the descriptor, the enabling technologies, the funding
profile (which was not unrealistic, but consistent with what we
were trying to sell), and the milestones. As a result of this, and
recognizing where DARPA was in the Copper Canyon program, I
proposed to Secretary Aldrich that we form a National Aerospace
Plane program office and put the program office at Wright-
Patterson to report directly to me. That way we had the
49
initiative to include not only DARPA, but the Navy and NASA in
this program. We formulated it, got Secretary Weinberger's
approval, then got the President's endorsement. It still enjoys
congressional support. One point I would make in this context
was to propose an X-type of vehicle, and somewhere in the
bowels of the Pentagon where they do those dastardly things,
there emerged an X-30. An X-30 conjures up a sort of definitive
configuration; it implies that there's something more definitive to
that vehicle than there really is at this time. The date 1990 is
what I call a moveable feast: if the technology shows you that
you're not quite there, you move the date. You then pursue the
other part of technology that you need to do. I think that the
X-30 got the connotation that the date was absolutely fixed and
we knew exactly what it was we wanted. Nevertheless, I think
the program, while fragile in some respects, appears to be
enjoying the support from the Hill and the administration and it
appears to be appropriately funded in 1988.
Sparse Arrays in Space. We came up with the idea that
perhaps as we looked ahead to things like the space-based radar
it might make some sense to explore the idea of building a large
number of sparse arrays, each of which would be about 40 inches
square. The idea was that we might be able to deploy them in
quantity, have the flexibility to distribute them in space in such
a way that you could use them coherently to focus in on what
you needed to detect or communicate with, and at the same time
by virtue of numbers, would have a survivability associated with
that. So that was a keeper. It is funded. We have the
milestones and we are moving ahead with people in Lincoln Lab
and ESD and other elements of Systems Command exploring the
feasibility of proceeding.
High Altitude Reconnaissance Aircraft. We also recom
mended a very high altitude (90,000 ft.+) unmanned reconnais
sance aircraft that could stay up for about two weeks on station.
It would have smart skin and photonics. I think we're doing a
little work on the design tradeoffs, and there are some other
candidates in the mill that are being looked at but basically it
was to see the feasibility of fulfilling that capability as a desired
systems concept enabled by some of the technologies that came
out of Forecast.
so
Autonomous Weapons. There's a considerable amount of
work going on in this field in the Air Force and Navy labs and
in industry. We're interested in using dual sensors for en-route
and terminal guidance sensors, and in the ability to launch a
vehicle and let it recognize and strike a target of value. Some
of these characteristics have been demonstrated in conceptual
flight tests at Eglin, and a considerable amount of effort is going
into this area as a near term achievement. We're working on
very smart seekers on small weapons and on the captive flight
test plan for the cruise missile advanced guidance.
Smart Cockpit. The cockpit development at the Avionics
Laboratory at Wright-Patterson is part of the effort to get pilot-
assist capabilities. A lot of this work on an evolutionary break
out basis is intended for use in the Advanced Technology Fighter
and would be equally applicable to the Navy's Advanced Technol
ogy Attack aircraft. There's considerable effort going on in this
area not only in the Avionics Lab, but in the Human Resources
Lab, and the Armstrong Lab out at Wright-Patterson. It is
probably as heavily funded and motivated an activity as we have
going on today.
High Performance Engines. One of the things that came
out of the original Forecast was higher temperature turbine
engine materials. One thing we didn't do as well as we could
have in the original Forecast was to build a consensus. We did
some, but it was an assumption that a lot of these projects would
have a life of their own. While that was true for some of the
more visible items like AMSA and the C-5A, it was not equally
true of materials work. So the amounts that were recommended
to go after higher temperature materials never got fully funded.
One of the things we tried to do in coming out of Forecast II
was to build that constituency. Charlie Stebbins and Eric Nelson
spent one year on the road, literally, and we went everywhere to
brief everybody on everything on Project Forecast II. We did
this so that we would have that constituency, so that we could
build it and so that it would be self-sustaining. Certainly we
saw the high-performance turbine engine as a very distinct
reality achievable by the end of the next decade if we pushed on
the critical technologies, which are high temperature materials
and advanced aerodynamics within the core structure itself. As
Tom Marsh pointed out, if we could get this technology to
Sparse Arrays in Space
51
provide a 20 to 1 thrust-to-weight ratio, the Air Force would get
very interested in VSTOL because it would preserve the kind of
payload/range mix that they would want, and he's absolutely
right. That was simply the thing that prevented the Air Force
from looking at something like the AV8A or AV8B. But this was
something that we thought was clearly achievable, and so there is
a major effort to develop that componentry in the engine 6.2 and
6.3 program area.
Smart Battle Management. The leverage provided by smart
battle management is really a very important element of what
we're trying to do with expert systems, powerful algorithms that
help us to fuse, sort, and filter data and present the battle
manager with only the kind of critical information he needs.
Beyond year 2000 the battle manager may operate in a simulated
environment holographically projected around him, in effect
putting him in the middle of the battlefield. The Rome Air
Development Center (RADC) Battle Management Laboratory is
spearheading that work. Electronic Systems Division (ESD) has
the SDI battle management program office for the Colorado
Springs test bed. Most of our laboratories involved in human
interaction, such as the Human Resources Lab, are working on
the perceptive systems and the smart algorithms to facilitate this
particular area of the technology.
Photonics. We became interested in the possibility of
creating integrated photonic systems from optical sensing to
processing to display, taking advantage of the inherent powerful
characteristics of photonics. People in industry are developing
optical arithmetic units and its seems to us we have a very
exciting area here. RADC is the photonics center of excellence.
They're working on photonic elements to forge the way to the
future where we can replace electrons, avoid the electromagnetic
pulse (EMP) arena totally, and raise the processing speed.
Robotic Telepresence. We see an opportunity to use a
dumb robot with a cathode ray tube (CRT) for a head, and tactile
sensors with mechanical advantage so someone on the ground
could use his fingers and dexterity and translate those movements
to a robot in a hostile environment, be it in space or in a
chemical or nuclear environment. And we're proceeding on this.
Much of the work is being done at Armstrong Lab and at the
Human Resources Lab.
52
High Powered Microwaves. If we could generate gigahertz
of microwave power from a 2,000-lb. class bomb, we could prob
ably wipe out all electronics at an airfield, and create havoc. A
lot of basic work is underway to try to determine if we can
realize the powers and densities required within a predictable
timeframe.
Smart Skins. Harry Davis always complained that we
designed airframes and then "oh, by the way" stuck avionics in
them. He said, "Why don't you design an avionic airframe and
then go fly that?" Smart skins is a way to get Harry Davis'
airplane. If you look at the work being done on conformal
arrays, in using active elements so that you bunch up a number
of elements on a wing root or on the side of a fuselage, that
begins to approach smart skins concepts. If you look at some of
the antenna work that's being done to create multiple frequency-
use antenna, then that begins to conjure up that not only could
you use it for detection, you might also use it for communication.
We think this is a very exciting area with a great future. It
certainly gives you the 360 degree coverage, so maybe we could
eliminate the surprises of the 6 o'clock position. And it cer
tainly enhances the low radar observability because you're not
stuck with bubbles and parts and radomes.
We spent a good bit of time thinking about how we'd go
out and sell the program. In one of the first big meetings we
pulled industry into Kirtland and briefed them on the results in
some depth to encourage them to look at things that we thought
were important and to include them in their IR&D programs. We
also scheduled them to come back 6-9 months later to tell us
what they were doing in IR&D. That had the healthy effect of
focusing them, and they came back and we reviewed what they
had done. I think we were very pleased to the extent that
industry came on board.
Another thing I did was to establish a principle: We can't
go to the Air Staffs and the Chiefs and the Secretaries and ask
for additional TOA unless we demonstrate some faith in what
we've done. So we took 10 percent of our budget in the S&T
base and replowed those dollars into Forecast II initiatives. Then
when I went to the Air Staff and asked for some real TOA
increase, and 2 percent is a goal (2 percent of TOA); we got a
pretty good hearing. Furthermore, I was able to convince the
S3
Chief that he ought to treat the tech base as a program element
and not to have people in his panels over there mucking around
picking out one 62 project versus another. He agreed to that
and he formalized it in a document that said the S&T base will
be considered a program element. So we did get a lot of healthy
support, and, in fact, I think that the S&T base is still in a plus
up in the 1988 budget at this time. I think that's been very
gratifying because nominally S&T is the last to be fed and the
first to be starved. So there's some reason to feel very positive
about the fact that we have been able to make that case and
that we have been able to engender that support.
I think we have generated the right kinds of programs.
We didn't limit the scope. I told Edward Teller that we believe
we ought to do something on anti-matter. And he said, "What
year?" And I said, "Maybe about 2025." And he said, "2075." At
any rate, we built the consensus. I think we balanced evolu
tionary and revolutionary. The Army is about to start its own
Forecast and CNO invited me over last week to talk to the Navy
long range planners at dinner and in essence asked me to tell
them how to do this. So I think it's been a great effort on the
part of people in the Air Force both in Systems Command and
others and ought to be done every 20 years. Whoever is going
to be around in 2006, remind people we've got to do another one.
Thank you.
Discussion
McLucas: Thank you, Larry. I wanted to ask you, Larry,
whether the Air Force will ever get serious about RPVs (remotely
piloted vehicles).
Skantze: I think they are, John. I think there's enough going
on (not necessarily visible), but there's enough money going in
that some of those things are going to come to pass. I was
gratified that Seek Spinner got a new life. I think that was
very inappropriately terminated a couple of years ago and it has
come back on its own and I would hope that comes to pass.
If you'll indulge me, the thing I always liked about Seek
Spinner was if you could build it for about $20-25,000 as a
54
terminal device against radiating emitters - if you launched a
thousand and only 50 of them hit something I believe you shut
down the whole system. And that was the whole idea. It was a
harassment drone and not a .9 PK device.
Unidentified Speaker: Larry, what's your assessment of the track
record of Forecast I in picking the major technology payoffs of
the past 20 years, and how many things that you did pick in
Forecast I turned out to be duds?
Skantze: I think the purpose of a forecast is to give you a set
of goals as you best perceive them. To say that in the follow-on
process you won't come up with more new ideas you didn't think
of is kind of foolish because innovation hopefully will do that.
For example, the Air Force never had a requirement for low
observables, never wrote one. That came to pass because some
bright guys were looking at something. So I wouldn't fault a
forecast for what it didn't discover necessarily held over a period
of 20 years. Maybe if you said in the next 10, but you know
some things come to pass and we get more bright new ideas, so I
think what they did produce was good. They established a
mechanism for doing something which fortunately someone could
come back to later and do again and, hopefully, someone will do
in another 20 years.
Dr. Robert H. Korkegi: Back in the '50s we closed down all our
best transonic wind tunnels because we thought we knew it all.
And after 10 years or so we decided we ought to revive some.
We did the same thing with hypersonics. I once ran the Hyper
sonic Research Laboratory at the Aeronautical Research Lab and
under some pressure for a couple of years I finally changed the
name. Now we're reviving hypersonic, getting all kinds of things
out of mothballs and out of closets. Do you see any safeguards
in the future against making such mistakes?
Skantze: Well, I think you know you've got to develop the
advocacy if you think the technology's important to pursue even
though people don't perceive the payoff. You're absolutely right;
in the mid to late '70s, in particular, and into the first couple of
years of the '80s we could not get tech base programs in
55
hypersonics to survive. We tried. We would advocate them from
Systems Command and say this is good technology, we ought to
be doing it. But it never survived. For one reason or another it
was not perceived as being "relevant," in some cases on the third
floor, in some cases in Congress. It wasn't that we didn't
perceive that as a gap. In fact I was running Aeronautical
Systems Division (ASD) when Tom was my boss, and we used to
talk about the fact that we ought to be doing something, but we
couldn't seem to get it sponsored.
Dr. George H. Miley: General Skantze, I understand the rationale
for the 20-year time period for a new project, Forecast III, I
guess. What worries me is that technology is advancing so
rapidly it seems that that's a very long time period in that scale.
I wonder if there's any provision for periodic updates so that
this doesn't become obsolescent.
Skantze: One of the things that I didn't perceive when I said
we were going to put 10 percent of the tech base into Forecast
II projects was that that funding became the real motivational
drive within the labs. All of a sudden the labs grabbed those
projects and started to work them. When Charlie and I went out
to review what they were doing, it suddenly dawned on me that
the labs had developed their own momentum in these areas.
That's why the efforts are surviving and ongoing and very
productive. I think within the context of all those tech program
initiatives, which in the technology arena is something on the
order of 38 or 39, that they will tend to sweep in further
advances in technology if something fundamentally new is
discovered. But I think that there's a synergism that now goes
with what the labs are doing internally in-house, and, I think
you know, anything that would occur within the pushing of that
technology will tend to surface.
McLucas: I had a question on robotics. You mentioned taking
the abilities of the fingers, the dexterity, and converting it into
mechanical form. I've heard criticisms to the effect that we try
to build to low-grade people instead of building intelligent
machines. Are we making a mistake if we try to duplicate human
performance versus starting out with what a machine is good at?
56
Skantze: I think it's a case where if you can develop the tactile
device you can easily use the man to be able to do some main
tenance, mechanical efforts in a hostile environment without
trying to develop a very sophisticated robot who is adaptable to
a whole series of situations. If you had to fix three or four
different satellites and you had to do different things to fix it,
certainly that device would allow the man to adapt very readily
because he sees what needs to be done, whereas the robot would
literally have to be programmed for a wide variety of things.
Dr. Delbert Tesar: During the 1960s we had an unusually high
growth of robotics technology in the military. A lot of very
interesting contracts were being pursued during that time. We
had growth during the 1970s in industrial robotics, for example.
The $6 million effort by Cincinnati Milicron to develop an
industrial robot; the NASA people produced a $100 million effort
to produce their RMS machine, which is now flying. They're now
pursuing a $200 million effort for a flying telerobotic servicer.
Unfortunately, since the 1970s the major corporations have
gotten out of robotics, so less technology is coming onto the
shelf.
I have to raise the question of magnitude for our funding
of the present initiative. It just doesn't seem to be in propor
tion to the magnitude of the technology that we need to bring
forward. Do we have any chance to put more funding into it?
Skantze: I think you're right. Industry rushed forward and
found there were many things they could do which, from the
point of view of return on investment, didn't make sense. My
perception was that part of the problem was that they couldn't
get the accuracy in placement in robots that they needed for
some very sophisticated manufacturing processes. I think we've
tended to try and look into the smart applications like the one I
described which requires development of new technology but that
we're not putting money into industrial robots because what's out
there now doing things in the Air Force interests are very
suitable to the job they're doing. Other than fine tuning the
placement, using optical sensors to allow you more flexibility, and
get you out of the registration function, I don't know that we
57
have any great thrusts in any other direction. George Moore is
sitting back there not too far behind you. You may ask him the
same question afterwards.
Dr. Carroll O. Alley, Jr.: I'd like to comment that in your
Forecast II, I didn't see much mention of very accurate sensing
of space and time or very high resolution capabilities which
another aspect of lasers and atomic clocks now give us, where
one can measure distances with laser radar in the millimeter
range. We have done this to the moon with 7.5 mm recently.
One can measure time down in the tens of picoseconds region
now with existing atomic clocks. So it would seem to me that
some modest investment in what one might call space-time
geodesy, where this kind of precision requires a full knowledge
and understanding of general relativistic effects in space and in
the tracking of very high speed vehicles, might be a prudent
thing for the Air Force to follow in future years.
Skantze: I might point out that we kept all 2,000 ideas reviewed.
We just focused the funding on the others. Charlie, do you have
any recollection of whether we had a project in that domain?
BrigGen. Charles E. Stebbins: Sir, we do not. We do have
ongoing efforts on precise clocks at Naval Research Laboratory
(NRL) and at RADC, Hanscom. But nothing came out of Forecast
II in that regard. I'd be happy to talk to you after the meeting.
Skantze: I want to comment on something. I spent a lot of
time with Dave Packard and Bill Perry and company, putting
together some ideas, actually some language, for the Packard
Commission report. My view was that it was an attempt to
create a single focal point, a knowledgeable focal point for DoD
acquisition. When Dave Packard was Deputy Secretary of Defense
he used to chair the DSARC, and so by virtue of chairing the
DSARC he had the biggest vote. You can have split decisions in
the DSARC, and if Dave Packard said we're going to do this, we
did it. I reminded him that he made a decision on the short
range attack missile, SRAM, for five years' worth of procurement
for 1,500 missiles, and the vote was 3 for and 2 against. Then
he, the chairman, voted for it and we went ahead. I was the
58
program manager. When Dave left, Bill Clements refused to chair
the DSARC and it's been a meeting of equals since. The decision
making process is least common denominator. That was one of
the reasons that the thrust was put in there - to create a single
focal point.
The other thing that was very key was that Packard's
report recommended that it be put in statute that the Under
secretary of Defense for Acquisition be someone who has in-
depth experience in the defense industry. That didn't happen and
that was one part of the problem. The other part of the prob
lem is that the turf battle never got settled. There was simply
no way that an individual, be it Dodman or somebody else, was
going to be able to do his role without having primacy in the
acquisition area. It has been very very sad to see that happen
in terms of that very important commission report. I think,
frankly, that everybody's going to wait for the next administra
tion.
McLucas: Well, we have to support what you said, but I would
like to think that the Packard panel, since it did so much work,
would achieve something. It's not only a good idea to have a
fine report with lots of good recommendations, you've got to
execute it. As I think about the Packard era, it seems to me
that it was sort of unique. I happen to be a fan of his. He had
the rank, the brains, and the experience. If you don't have all
three of those, you can't hack it.
I would like to ask you if you were a strong user of the
Defense Systems Management College, and if so, if the people
you got that have been there do a better job.
Skantze: Well, the Air Force always has been the strongest
proponent of that. You know, it's now mandatory. We always
have tried to put everybody we could through there. In fact, we
filled quotas when the other two services have missed them.
Because I think that absent the numbers of good technically
qualified or management degree people that we get, we can take
our bright people and send them through there and get a lot of
practicality to rub off on them. I think we've been a fan of
that place and we've used it to the maximum.
59
The Future of Air Force R&D - Panel of Three
McLucas: Where do we go next in Air Force R&D? We have a
distinguished panel of three speakers, each of whom will address
this subject for approximately 15 minutes. Then we will take
questions as a panel.
The first speaker is Dan Fink. Dan is an MIT product.
He did four years in the Pentagon in DDR&E, when that still
existed. He operated in the Space Division of GE, and I typically
associate him with space programs and also visiting him at Valley
Forge. Dan has been a consultant and adviser to NASA and DoD
for many many years, and we're glad to have him on the panel.
The second speaker will be General Sam Phillips. I
remember when General Phillips left the Air Force Systems
Command and we talked about whether an upstanding Air Force
general could work for TRW without a conflict. He found a way
to do it and he did it very well. He's a Wyoming graduate, and
also Michigan, and one of his early claims to fame was managing
the Minuteman program. After the Minuteman program, Sam
achieved still greater fame on the Apollo program and did a lot,
I think, to make that a success. I won't mention his tour at
NSA, because it's probably unmentionable. Anyway, Sam was one
of the distinguished leaders of the Systems Command.
Our last speaker will be Dr. Gerald Dinneen. A math
ematics graduate, of all things, at Queens College, and then
Wisconsin. Vice President at Honeywell. I knew him as head of
Lincoln Laboratory for a long time. He ran the Air Force SAB
for many years and was active on the Defense Intelligence
Agency Advisory Committee and the DSB. In the Pentagon he
brought a high degree of sophistication to many of the problems
in the area of C3I. And anyone who can deal with all of that
and not be completely beat down in that process has my admi
ration.
So let's go back to the first of these three gentlemen, Dan
Fink.
60
The Future R&D Environment
Dr. Daniel J. Fink
Thanks, John. It's a pleasure to be here, although this is
one of those rare meetings when sometimes its more fun to look
back than it is to look forward.
Vern said, "Why don't you talk about the environment for
R&D for the next 10 to 25 years," so I agreed to do that. And
the more I thought about it the more depressed I got. Finally, I
saw Si Ramo at a meeting and went through this song and dance
with him and he said, "Oh you shouldn't worry, don't forget: we
make progress in this country when there's crisis." When enough
people and enough institutions realize that something must be
changed, they change it. So I guess the bad news is that things
are going to hell in a handbasket, and the good news is that
we're about to turn it around.
In talking about the future environment, I think one of the
first things we have to talk about is the supply of R&D people,
and talent, and the science education in this country. The data,
I think you all know, are not good. I have the 1985 issue of
"Science Indicators," put out by the National Science Board.
• Science achievement scores from the students aged 9-13
were lower in 1982 than in 1970.
• Tenth grade is the last time that most U.S. high school
students are exposed to any science.
• American high school students get about 1/2 to 1/3 the
course work as their counterparts do in Japan, Germany, or
the Soviet Union.
It's little wonder that the SAT scores have declined during the
same period for students that are expected to enter science and
engineering.
• In 1982 the United States graduated 64,000 engineering
bachelors. Japan, with about half our population, had
74,000, and the Soviet Union 330,000.
Now it's easy to poo-poo the Soviet educational system and point
out that many of these engineers are underemployed - and that
may be true - but with all that effort going in, something has to
come out.
61
• The Soviets have the largest R&D program either in
absolute terms or relative to GNP. Roughly, 10 of every
1,000 Soviet scientists and engineers are in R&D compared
to seven in the United States.
• In 1982 over 53% of engineering doctorates in this country
went to foreign students, and while it's true that over 40%
of those people stayed here, can we continue to expect
that trend to last, particularly as foreign R&D investments
increase?
• Between 1969 and 1982 the number of patent applications
applied by U.S. citizens abroad fell 50% while Japanese
external applications grew by a little bit more than that
amount.
Well, what do we do about it? In the short term, probably
nothing. In the long term I think the Air Force and every
institution that's interested in increasing the numbers and the
quality of scientists and engineers have to work on that pre-
college problem to motivate young people to pursue science.
But I think this will have certain effects on Air Force
management in the decade or so to come. For one thing, I think
we will need to look overseas more often for certain tech
nologies. We will be less self-sufficient. Many industrial
partnerships are underway between U.S. companies and overseas
counterparts, and I think we will have to pursue more meaningful
cooperative R&D programs with our allies. The accent is on
meaningful. They're much more difficult to manage, as anyone
who has been involved in a joint overseas program knows. But
that can't be a deterrent.
We'll have to worry about strange new things, such as
reverse technology transfer. We've had a hard line now for
several years, and I worry that it will come back to haunt us.
As a matter of fact, I happened to read the other day where the
Japanese, if you can believe this, are refusing to license, I think
it was McDonnell Douglas, some of the Japanese rocket engine
technologies. Can you imagine that?
Future R&D managers in the Air Force, and in DoD gen
erally, will have to manage more joint programs. Bennie
Schriever said that joint anything is no good. I'm afraid that's
going to be a way of life, not just in world commerce and
62
military alliances, but joint service and joint agency work, and
we must learn how to do that. If you don't like the joint pro
grams you'd better learn how to take a leadership position so
that you can at least lead those programs. SDI is a joint
program, in a way.
As an example, we can't go along with the kind of prob
lems we have in this nation developing a heavy lift launch
vehicle. The battles and the squabbles between the Air Force
and NASA are generally unproductive and that is not the way to
make progress in an important program like that.
There could even be joint programs with industry, where
both the industrial partner and the DoD or the Air Force will be
interested in the result, and I don't mean just cost sharing, I
mean a really joint program.
That's one trend I would see. Another trend that's going
to complicate management is the length of projects. We're going
to see more projects whose development time is measured in
decades. We have not learned to manage such programs because
they are usually cancelled on the way or they're distorted in
some way. MOL was mentioned this morning. It may have died
in part because of its development length and the amount of
money that had to go in for a long time before anything came
out. We fielded our first ICBM and IRBM in about 5 years from
inception to IOC. I wonder how long they'd take in today's
environment. And would we have persevered?
SDI, as originally proposed, was an R&D program that
started with the president's speech in 1983. It was supposed to
give a future president in the early 1990s the data on which to
make a full scale engineering development decision, after which
there would be another ten years until operational capability.
Over 20 years. And already you see that falling apart.
The danger is that we start giving them some kind of a
special focused mission, as we did with MOL, for example, and
then we pull the props out from under them. What about NASP?
That program will extend over a period of decades.
We have to develop the management skills, and those skills
must include management of the political process to successfully
run those long term programs. We must do it because our adver
saries do it. The Soviet Union seems to have less trouble.
We're already hearing the tortoise-hare analogue between the
63
U.S. and the Soviet space programs. I've studied their program.
They do have a very well planned out space program, both in lift
and in their military and civilian goals.
We need a more rational world. We have to get back to
rational R&D decision making. We just can't continue to go
along trying to read the tea leaves of OSD, as if OSD thinks
about it at all, or what some congressional staffer might think.
The successful programs that we refer to in the past, were
conceived and run by people who knew what they wanted, there
was an institution behind them who developed the data to help
sell the program. They stuck to it and were successful.
Contrast that with the debacle that we've had for the last
15-20 years in a follow-on to Minuteman, the whole land-based
missile force. Any good ideas were distorted or were, let's say
"downgraded" just to get something that would sell rather than
get what was really appropriate at the time.
What's the future of government-industry relationships? I
doubt they can get much worse. Perhaps we'll see that one turn
around. / think there's a danger that if we continue down the
road we're going, companies that can do something else with
their talent other than apply it to defense matters will do so.
They simply will not stand much further harassment or profit
erosion without diverting that talent.
We've recently begun to rely on civilian technology prog
ress for defense matters. And this has been quite right. Par
ticularly in electronics, the pull of electronics fueled primarily by
consumer demand, has made progress probably faster than the
DoD could have alone. I have some concern that we expect that
will be the wave of the future. In general, I think there's a
caution to be made here. It could happen in some degree but I'm
not sure there are that many analogues or the insatiable demands
of consumer electronics in other areas, so I think the Department
of Defense, and the Air Force in particular, are going to have to
lead in many technologies and not depend upon civilian economies
to do the work.
So the environment, as I see it, is tough. But I think we
can handle it if we can get the talent. All the organizational
things we talk about, the current one in OSD, they will work or
not work depending upon the kind of talent that we pull into our
system. And that to me is probably the biggest challenge we all
64
have. If we can increase our talent base, both uniformed and
civilian, then I have a lot of confidence that we'll handle these
environmental problems.
Capability and Bureaucracy
General Samuel C. Phillips
It really is a pleasure for me to be able to participate with
all of you in celebrating the 25th anniversary of the Air Force
Studies Board. You know, the Systems Command, is a mag
nificent acquisition organization with a tremendous capability.
It's probably the best in the world. It didn't get that way
easily, and those of you here who will determine its destiny have
a lot of work to do to keep it that way.
I want to talk about two things that will have a con
siderable effect on the effectiveness of the Systems Command in
future years. One is capability and the other is bureaucracy.
The capability that is today's Systems Command took a lot
of careful thinking, work, and political savvy, starting back in
the 1940s, to create. The fundamental capability of the Systems
Command is people and facilities. The development of people for
the future is a considerable challenge. After World War II the
Air Force launched an innovative program of large scale educa
tion of military officers, enlisted men, and civilians. Programs
were begun in the 1940s at the University of Michigan to estab
lish a guided missile course, and then the instrumentation course.
At other universities there were other kinds of courses. At MIT
support developed for what became the Draper Laboratory. And
over the years the Air Force, again going back to the 1940s, has
sent people to universities for focused education, graduate
education, in relevant subjects. That the ballistic missile
program was able to take off when it did in the middle 1950s
was a function of many things, one of which was that quite a
number of officers had been put through an education program.
The program of educating people in technologies and
sciences relevant to the military need has gone up and down over
65
the years. For a while in the 1970s, for reasons of budget
pressures and other things, the program was severely curtailed.
When it was my privilege to take command of the Systems
Command in 1973, I found that the education program through
AFIT and civilian universities and the program of sending officers
to the Draper Lab for education and training had fallen to a very
low level. The Air Force must have a high level of technical and
managerial competence in its blue-suit and civil service people
within the Systems Command, the Air Staff, and in the joint
staffs that makes the decisions and plan the programs. They
ultimately frame the efforts that guide what's done.
Four or five years ago, in one of my advisory activities
with the Air Force Space Division in California, I observed that
the officers available to manage the efforts of that very impor
tant organization had a very large number of very young recent
graduates, tremendous people, very bright, but with very little
experience. They still had a few of the older heads in the
colonel rank with lots of good experience and know how and
there was a big bathtub of people in the middle, the program
manager level of majors, lieutenant colonels. The effects of that
situation were being felt. I don't know just where that stands
today but my message is that the management of the develop
ment, the continuous development of talent both in uniform and
in the civil service sectors of the Systems Command is absolutely
vital. A few years from now a measure of the effectiveness of
the Systems Command as a premier acquisition organization will
correlate very closely with attention to the continued manage
ment of the development of people.
Over the years since World War II the Systems Command
has done a good job of developing organizations for engineering,
science, and technology support. It's played a role in developing,
supporting, and creating the need for the FFRDCs such as
Aerospace Corporation, MITRE, and government-owned, contrac
tor-operated facilities such as AEDC. Now that sort of thing is
a highly political subject and requires astute management to
continue the future maintenance, and the expansion in certain
cases, and the evolution of this very necessary in-depth, tech
nical, scientific supporting structure.
The role of Air Force laboratories has varied over the
years. They have played a tremendous role in the advancement
66
of technology and in the support of systems development. Here
again, there's a political challenge to manage the continued
development of the in-house laboratories. It's partly political.
But here too the development of technology to support the needs
of the Systems Command will depend very much on how well that
process is managed.
There's an interservice relationship and there's very clearly
an interNASA relationship in research and development. Over the
last year and a half now, I've spent a lot of time trying to
support Dr. Jim Fletcher, the current administrator of NASA, in
making some improvements in how NASA manages its business.
I'm very disturbed at the bad state of relations between NASA
and the Department of Defense in general, and the Air Force in
particular. It's a bad situation and if you compare it with how it
was 15 or 20 years ago, when I knew it more directly, I think
it's just unacceptable. As an example, there was a question this
morning about the biomedical area. This is one field where I
think that the future of the country's efforts in developing
meaningful and relevant systems in space is going to be very
dependent on an intelligent development of knowledge of the
human being and how the man, the human, can operate effec
tively in the environments that he'll be subjected to in future
years. It's really deplorable that there's not a better working
relationship in order to advance biomedicine or robotics or rocket
propulsion or aircraft propulsion. The relationships between the
Air Force and NASA need to be worked on at all levels. I've
been trying to cause some things to happen at the top of those
organizations and I think some of you here could be instrumental
in the near term, to say nothing of the longer term, to positively
influence that relationship.
The day's going to come when the role of human beings in
space for military purposes will have to be clarified. There have
been efforts over the past 25 or 30 years to define that role, but
the only way the Air Force will get meaningful manned flight
experience in the next few years is to work closely with NASA
in flying the space shuttle. So I urge for many reasons that the
bridges and the cooperation between NASA and the Air Force be
improved.
This is a tough problem and it's going to require good
efforts in a management sense to get good people. The competi
67
tion for people whether it's civil service or in uniform for
program managers or work in the technology areas is a tough one
to manage and I don't know the solution, but it's a challenge
that really needs attention.
I want to stress some of the principles that the Systems
Command has developed over the years that are important to
managing programs and will be important in the future. I've
seen a couple of very dramatic instances where practices,
procedures, and disciplines that were well developed and known
to work somehow fell into disuse and organizations got in
trouble. I saw that in industry and I put some time into trying
to correct some of those problems from the standpoint of one
company. I've now seen some of that in measurable ways in the
work that I've been doing with NASA for the last year and a
half. It requires constant management attention to know what
the right processes are, the right disciplines, the right practices,
and then building on those because they do require adaptation to
changing conditions. If you become complacent and inattentive,
they'll fall into disuse and there'll be troubles. They have to do
with such things as we've all learned:
• The need for tenure of key people in managing programs in
particular, but many other things; in other words being
with the program long enough to see it through.
• Attention to developing a career path for promising people
in the areas of technology and program management (and
that's going to get tougher now as laws are now in effect
that require a person to have filled a joint duty kind of
"square" before he can get a star). I assert from a
Systems Command standpoint that that is among the
subjects that will require real management attention.
I disagree with Tom Marsh about why generals are put in charge
of programs. In some of the big programs that level of exper
ience and ability to interrelate with the outside world is really
important.
A few words about bureaucracy. Somehow every 25 to 40
years our society reaches a point where the bureaucracy becomes
so cumbersome that the only way to really make progress is to
throw out the old and start over again. (That's fundamentally
what was done in 1954 when General Schriever was chartered to
form what was then called the Western Development Division.) I
68
have felt over the last few years that perhaps we're getting close
to that point again. Jobs we once did well in 4-6 years take at
least twice that long now, and probably cost more for that
reason. I hope that the current and upcoming generation can be
instrumental in trying to turn around the problems that the
bureaucracy has created for us in the R&D and the system
acquisition business. There's always the danger of over-institu
tionalizing a good process, and that to some extent has happened.
Many practices developed in the ballistic missile program got
written into regulations and got overdone and it was part of a
process that went too far and created problems. We have to be
careful about that. It is important for the Air Force to move in
a direction that is consistent with the intent of the Packard
Commission and to make things work.
Technology and the Future of Air Force R&D
Dr. Gerald P. Dinneen
John, congratulations to you and the members of the Air
Force Studies Board on their 25th anniversary. Ladies and
gentlemen, it's a pleasure for me to be a part of this celebration.
I want to touch on a few technologies that I think will be
important to the Air Force R&D and in meeting the Air Force
mission requirements over the next several years. But before I
do that I want to give you some idea of how I chose those
technologies. I'll have to tell you something about my back
ground and my experience. Let me begin by just asking the same
question with respect to the three careers I've had, and that
question is: What one objective, if it had been achieved, would
have made the biggest contribution to the R&D enterprise that
you were part of at any particular time? (and you ought first to
ask that of Lincoln Laboratory, where I spent 25 years) And the
answer to that question would be: More effective transfer of
technology to industry. More effective because we are effective
at Lincoln and we've been effective in the government and
69
industry but I'm asking: what would have made the biggest
difference?
I'll give you one example of where that transfer could have
been more effective. Lincoln Laboratory had a satellite com
munications program in the late 1950s and early 1960s. If they
could have been more effectively transferred to industry we'd
have reduced the time till we got to DSCS II or Fleet Sat Com
or any of the other effective programs that we had.
If I were to ask that same question about my time in the
Pentagon, I would say that we would have been better off if
we'd been more effective in moving products from the govern
ment laboratories or from industry out into the field. One of my
frustrations was to know how much technology there was in the
laboratory and in industry that we didn't have in the field.
Obviously there are many successes and many of them have
been mentioned, but I would agree with Al Flax and say PELS
was a frustration. One of my biggest frustrations was something
called JTIDS, Joint Tactical Information Data System. The
technology was there. We didn't get it into the field. I can tell
you horror stories about high frequency systems in Europe that
still used vacuum tubes when transistors were common elsewhere
in industry.
If asked that same question now with respect to my seven
years of experience in industry, the answer would be that we
must find a more effective way to convert technology into
products, not just products that will sell initially, but those that
will continue to be competitive in the worldwide market.
We've had successes but I think you can point to situations
where we've had unnecessary delays in taking that technology
(whether it's semiconductor technology or sensor technology or
whatever) into products that are competitive not just in the
United States, but worldwide. The Japanese certainly have shown
us how to take technology wherever it's developed and turn it
into competitive products. When I was at Lincoln and when I
was in government, we always looked to the Soviet Union. We
pointed out what they were doing. Since I've been in industry,
I've spent much more time looking at what the Japanese are
doing, visiting Japan and seeing what they do and how effective
they've been in turning technology into products.
70
With that background, you probably see that there's a
certain similarity in the answers that I gave: this business of
taking technology and turning it into a weapons system or a
product. But technology itself has not been the problem. The
problem has been something else. I have to hasten right away to
say that if we didn't have the technology, the technology would
be the problem. Obviously we need more technology. But we've
got to do a better job of converting it into weapons systems and
into products. There is now an unacceptable gap between the
technology that is now available and its use in our systems and
products.
Now let me discuss a technology that I think can make a
very important difference in the Air Force during the next 10 to
15 years. We've heard about the information age. I think
there's a tremendous amount of hype and I'm sometimes as upset
as you are by all the discussion of that. But if you take away
the hype and reduce the rhetoric maybe by half or even by a
tenth, you've still got a very important trend.
The Air Force has been dependent since World War II on
the collection, processing, storage, and dissemination of informa
tion. My first big system was the Sage system. If I describe
that as a concept it would look like one of the modern CSI
systems of the day. Unfortunately, our concept was a little bit
ahead of its time. Technology has now caught up, so a lot of
those things we achieved, such as digital transmission, real time
displays, real time control, and so on, can now be done much
more efficiently.
Let me highlight what technologies can do in each of those
functions. I'll begin with collection. There's been much talk so
far about platforms, so I will not talk about platforms, be they
spaceborne or airborne. But if you look at the sensors that
we're going to need for better collection, those technologies are
here now and are beginning to be used and will be used: very
large arrays of sensors, mosaics, new sensors, new IR sensors;
the promise of uncooled infrared sensors, and fiber optic sensors,
in addition to ring laser gyros and all the others that now exist.
After collection we have the problem of processing and
here's where the revolution has been fantastic. The develop
ments in semiconductors are explosive. However, there has
developed over the last several years the ability to design very
71
complicated integrated circuits, the ability to work with com
pilers, and with standard cells. Soon we'll be able to build
semicustom parts with 200,000 gates. I remember Whirlwind One
where a gate was the old flip-flop. Now we're putting 200,000 of
those on something the size of my fingernail. Compiler-based
standard cells probably can contain 450,000 gates, and for full
custom, 500,000 gates. Other things which will make a difference
in the future include diamond films and wafer scale integration.
Architectures are now available (the 32-bit microprocessors) to do
data processing, distributed data processing, and parallel data
processing, which give even more leverage to the semiconductor
circuits.
On storage, the one megabit dynamic RAM is here today,
from Fujitsu and Hitachi, but also from Motorola and TI in the
U.S., and from Siemans in Europe. Dan Fink said that we're
going to have to work technology around the world. The four
megabit is not too far behind. I've visited the NTT Laboratory
in Atsugi earlier this year where they've already demonstrated in
the laboratory a 16- megabit RAM. Optical storage, which we've
talked about for years and years, is probably almost here. We'll
probably be using compact discs for systems as well.
When it comes to dissemination, we focus a great deal on
satellite communications and on fiber optic links, but local and
wide area networks, which allow people to have access from their
PC or their workstation to many other machines, are going to
make the biggest difference to industry and to the Air Force.
Coupled with that is the importance of working with standards
and protocols and open systems so that one can easily access
large data bases. I've already mentioned the architectures that
allow parallel data processing distribution. The Air Force, if we
do this kind of thing, must also worry about security; and with
these integrated circuits we can certainly do end-to-end encryp
tion to handle that. The security in the computers, which Al
Flax mentioned earlier, is now possible from several manufac
turers.
I will summarize by saying that the two most important
technologies that will have an impact are artificial intelligence/-
expert systems and semiconductors. Artificial intelligence is a
word that goes back a long way and it gives us lots of problems.
But I'm really talking about expert systems, and the way they
72
can have an impact on the development of software, and how
they can make a significant difference in how we maintain our
aircraft and weapons systems. Many expert systems are in use
today in industry for maintenance, for helping the repair people
... to teach them. Those systems can clearly have a wide appli
cation. We can now develop and use them on small PCs.
And the second of those technologies of course is the
explosive work in semiconductors. These two go together.
There's no way that we could exploit the processing capability in
semiconductors if we didn't have expert systems to do the
computer-aided design of those circuits, and there's no way we
can do the expert systems without the integrated circuits. But
the confluence of those two things gives us tremendous oppor
tunity. Dan mentioned that we are depending a good deal on
technologies being developed in the civilian world. And that's
fine. At some point we will have to worry as we did with
VHSIC about developing our own. But if we can move to the
PCs, LANs, and open systems then we'll be able to upgrade our
defense systems. We won't have the situation we had with Sage,
or with some of the L-systems, which were unique and for which
new technology was very difficult to introduce.
I see great opportunity for improving the collection,
processing, storage, and dissemination of information, which are
going to be a central part of our Air Force systems.
Discussion
McLucas: I can't resist making a dig at Dan Fink, and he'll say
"I didn't say it and I didn't mean it." I'm reminded of a line
from a Tennessee Williams' play, which said, "My family's been
having trouble with foreigners ever since we came to this
country." He was talking about the large fraction of our grad
uate students that are foreigners and I want to know whether he
thinks it's bad that Einstein, Teller, Von Karman, just to mention
three, chose to come to the United States and gave us the ben
efit of some of their talents. The first thought that occurs to
me that they must be attracted to something that is very mag
netic here. Dan, you didn't say that was bad, did you?
73
Fink: No, that's very good. The point I was making was
expressing a concern that the future Einsteins and the Tellers
won't stay here because the other environments will be better.
They used to have to come here to earn a living and to get the
challenges. They may be able to get that back home.
Korkegi: General Phillips, you were decrying the deteriorated
state of cooperation between NASA and the Air Force in R&D
and in order to really have effective cooperation it must be
encouraged at the highest level. I presume this means the
Aeronautics and Astronautics Coordinating Board, but in fact it
happens at the working level. Is the breakdown at the high
management level, at the working level, or both?
Phillips: Both. There was a time probably four or five years
ago when there was a considered decision made on the NASA side
to abandon participation in the AACB structures. The current
administration has been trying to get that reestablished. There
was a period when the upper level coordinating structure just
wasn't working; they weren't meeting. So there is an effort to
get that reestablished. I think that's part of what's needed.
I've spent time at all the NASA centers over the recent months
and I find it very difficult to find what I consider to be an
effective working relationship in most any technical area between
the NASA technologists and the Air Force. Things are probably
going on that I haven't been able to discover, but there was
mentioned today a lack of coupling in this biomed area, and that
has a history of its own, but that's just one of several. I was
talking with one of the individuals who is here today from God-
dard who works on robotics and he wasn't aware of interchanges
that I think could be effective to both NASA and the Air Force.
Unidentified Speaker: I was wondering whether at the working
level we're getting to a point where a lot of the talent that
came into Wright-Patterson AFB in the 1950s is retiring. Is new
talent feeding in that can provide the elements for cooperation
with NASA?
74
Phillips: I would hope so. There is new blood in both organiza
tions. I think with the leadership from the top that could again
be rebuilt. I'm going to continue to help make that happen.
Mathis: General Phillips, I got heavily involved with NASA on
the shuttle. We built a small facility (Vandenberg AFB) on the
west coast that we really wanted to build and it cost us about $3
billion. It seems to me that something should be done to
enhance NASA-Air Force cooperation if we're going to use that
facility.
Phillips: I think a major national strategic error was made when
it was decided that the only way anything in this country could
get into space was aboard the shuttle. That decision was made
ultimately in the White House and I don't recall exactly when.
What's going on now bears this conclusion out. The problems
that arose from that decision have played a part in the last
couple of years right up to now in making a very difficult
environment between the two organizations. Some of the dif
ficulty had its roots back in that decision period and the fact
that the Air Force was placed at a considerable disadvantage.
With some strong leadership from Secretary Aldrich the Air Force
was able to start buying some expendable launch vehicles again,
that was well before the Challenger accident. This move started
to correct some of the problems that the shuttle commitment had
started. Hopefully, there's enough at stake now in terms of
broader national interests that ways may be found for more truly
cooperative and mutually supporting efforts.
McLucas: I second what you said about Pete Aldrich. I think
that he's probably made as many mistakes as the rest of us
secretaries. But on that one I say every night, thank God for
Pete Aldrich. Dan?
Fink: A lot of people besides ourselves are concerned about this.
I chair the NASA advisory council and just got an agreement
with the administrator that I would try to put together a joint
panel with the Defense Science Board to address what we can do
in the future to improve that situation.
75
Dr. Art Guenther: Jerry, you addressed the comments about the
sophistication and miniaturization of semiconductors and the lead
being in the industrial commercial sector. In the military, we
have to worry about these materials in adverse environments,
particularly space-qualified electronics that have to stay in orbit
for long durations. Do you see industry playing in that lead?
As we go to smaller devices that require smaller signal amplitudes
we make ourselves even more vulnerable to new threats such as
microwaves.
Dinneen: This business of whether the major contributions are
made by the Defense Department or by the commercial world has
varied over the years. The first contributions to semiconductors
were made by the military and they go back to the Minuteman
program. I talk to people in the Defense Department, particu
larly in the Air Force, about what they need. They clearly need
circuits that can work in that kind of environment - radiation-
hardened circuits, and there's work going on as you know in
various of the government laboratories, Sandia, in particular, and
there's also work going on in many industries, including my own,
for circuits which are radiation-hardened. There are many of
those ... bipolar ... that can do that. I think the role for
industry is to support the Defense Department. The primary
objective of the VHSIC program was not radiation-hardening, but
was to move the semiconductor field toward satisfying the mil
itary requirements; this has had a very positive impact on the
field. So there are specific needs in radiation-hardened memories
and microprocessors for space and there's a lot of technology
now available but that is more costly and will be driven more by
defense needs than commercial needs.
Don Thompson: We at Iowa State University are doing a consid
erable amount of research for the Air Force in nondestructive
evaluation, the development of new techniques to assure struc
tural integrity and quality structural materials and components.
We've also started a Center for NDE under the auspices of the
NSF, the university, and a number of sponsors, largely from the
Air Force and the aerospace industry. I had a background with
Rockwell before coming to the university, so presumably I know
the problems of the industry better. Though we have several
76
sponsors from aerospace who are very perceptive of the overall
goals that we've talked about here, which include industrially
relevant research related to Air Force needs, the development of
new people to take a hold on some of these things, and the
transfer of technology to the user, we still find a problem:
Industry in this country still has remnants of the "what did you
do for me today" attitude which is not consistent with the
development of new people. At the same time, we see Japanese
and some West German industries waiting in the wings, asking to
join the Center to take part in it. We're in a dilemma: we need
this kind of support to proceed with our work; on the other hand
we do not want to involve ourselves with foreign industry.
Fink: I think that the industries that I deal with are acutely
aware of the need to support organizations such as yours. On
the other hand, they are pressed by "many worthy causes." I
recall from my experience at GE where we had MITs microelec
tronics effort, and RPI's effort, etc. At the same time, the
profits (and now we talk about the defense industry) are being
squeezed very badly, so there are two very antagonistic forces at
work here. One is the desire to correct the problems you're
talking about. The other is to husband one's resources. I have
no solution other than what has to really work, to keep working
on industry to make sure they don't lose that long-term sight.
Johnson: I think that's a very key problem because we do have
the need to keep operating. How do you keep foreign industry
out of the business until this long term concern comes back?
Fink: I'm not sure you can keep the foreign industries out. I'm
not even sure you should in some cases.
Lehmann: How ready are the services and how much should the
services pick up good technology coming in from industry?
Flight simulator got nowhere in the Air Force until the airlines
showed what they were doing with flight simulators, then the Air
Force picked up on that. Personal computers got nowhere in the
Air Force until they came in from industry. There are many
other examples in the civil engineering field. What is your
assessment of what's to be gained by the Air Force and the
77
other services exploiting existing capabilities of industry in the
commercial sector?
Dinneen: Well, I think that's changing. When I was in the
Pentagon, there were many times when people came and said
"instead of developing your own switches for communications,
why not buy one from this or that contractor." And when we
reviewed it at that time, the concern always was on the main
tenance, availability, continued availability, supply of spare parts,
and so forth. As these industries become better established so
that there is a solid source and one is not dependent on one
manufacturer, then I think we're going to see more use of that.
That trend has changed and we are seeing military services
taking more advantage of commercially available equipment,
particularly in communications.
Phillips: I'd give the Air Force better marks than you have. It's
true a lot of people didn't want simulators. Simulators took
away from flight hours and the commercial airlines were using
them routinely, at least for certain kinds of training. The Air
Force did invest in R&D and improvements in simulation,
particularly in computer-generated imagery resolution to the point
where they're responsible for a great deal of progress in that
field, which is now fed back to the commercial airline simulators
and into the Air Force. Regarding PCs, until recently large
companies really weren't making such great use of them as a
huge tool so I'm not sure the Air Force was behind even in that
area.
McLucas: Dan may be saying that in large companies bureaucra
cies are just as well entrenched as they are in the military.
Unidentified Speaker: How about universities, too?
Unidentified Speaker: General Phillips, in the relations between
NASA and the Air Force has any thought been given to the Air
Force taking a more active role in launching scientific satellites?
NASA has a tremendous backlog of things that have been prom
ised and never gone. For many years, the Air Force has had the
78
space test program, which has launched many interesting scien
tific satellites, but this bears on training younger people in the
technologies of space. There's a real reluctance for young grad
uate students and young faculty members to get into these long
programs because they'd never get launched. Could you comment
on that please?
Phillips: I agree with your last statement that there is a
growing reluctance, or at least it's a problem that some of these
flight experiments take so long to reach a stage where they fly
that there is a problem attracting people to work on them. You
mentioned the Air Force's own technology program in which the
space test project has over a number of years conducted their
own technology program, and it used to be, and I hope it still is
well coordinated with NASA. I'm not currently in a position of
knowledge to comment on what could be done, if anything, for
scientific experiments that have been developed under NASA to
get flights on Air Force boosters.
McLucas: Tom Marsh, is Systems Command still bringing in good
people to replace those who are leaving? I remember the 1950s
not as a time of a superfluity of talent, but looking hard to find
anyone with a college degree. Now the typical officer in this
business has a Master's degree and I just wonder to what extent
the Air Force has difficulty bringing in talent.
Marsh: // is a problem for the Air Force to retain good scien
tific and technical talent. It has been a severe problem for
about the last 15 years. Perhaps it's improved and I hope it has,
but I think the answer is probably not. At various Air Force
Systems Command facilities where there are great numbers of
bright young lieutenants, there's a big void in the middle grades
and a few of the older people. That tells you the inflow is
reasonably good, but the retention is not. I think that because
of the demographics of the future there is going to be a
continuing challenge to be able to hold on to good science and
technology youngsters.
It is also difficult to challenge many of these bright young
people who enjoy hands-on work and have come to expect that
when they get in the Systems Command they're going to be
79
involved in a lot of hands-on engineering. But we need them in
engineering management positions, and sometimes that's a
frustration to the top quality young S&Ts.
Dean Hanink: I have a statement to make regarding NASA and
Air Force cooperation. They have been cooperating. After the
Titan and shuttle disasters I think you've found great coopera
tion. Second, on technology transfer, perhaps the problem is
recognizing when it's time to transfer.
Hansen: When I was quite a bit younger there was a philosophy
that says, if you want something done in the best way that it
can be done, you go find the very best people to do it and you
give them the job. It seems to me that other priorities are
overtaking that. We're worried about spreading the wealth,
contracting in versus contracting out, etc. Are you concerned
that some of the evolving national priorities might be prejudicial
to the excellence with which we can do research and technology
work in the future?
Phillips: It's hurting us right now. I think it has been for some
few years. You know there are a number of legislative actions
that have a good intent, but the way they get enacted and
implemented creates problems. Take competition in contracting.
It's hard to argue against competition. Competition is good and,
if done in the right way and for the right things, can produce
some very good results. But the way legislation has been
imposed and implemented is stretching out the contracting
process, in many cases almost interminably. My answer is that
it's more difficult to do the right things and to attract good
people who want to work in some parts of this environment
because of these complications. It is hurting us. It's a challenge
for all concerned to try to help figure out what can be done to
try to turn some of that around.
Fink: I think, Sam, one of the things you talked about was the
educational system, the Air Force sponsoring various educational
programs. I think there's an area we might look at. We're not
going to change the legislation but if we can get more very good
people articulating what has to be done and the rational way it
80
should be done, we'd be a lot better off. Perhaps the Air Force
should start a program similar to that used to train doctors,
whereby people going to medical school are then obligated to
stay in service for some number of years. What about a program
where you'd have a combined PhD in some science and engineer
ing coupled with management or political science? Have those
people around to start working the problems and who can make
the case in the kind of adversarial situation that they're often
placed in.
Unidentified Speaker: Mr. Fink, if you look at the distribution
in the Science Indicators that you've mentioned, among PhDs in
different fields scientists are averaging about 20 percent,
materials science about 18 percent. You go down to the middle
level, you find chemical engineering at 6 percent and aerospace
at 4.4 percent. Electrical engineering 2.7 percent. Mechanical
engineering, which is what I represent, 1.5 percent. We have
about a 13 to 1 ratio from one end of that spectrum to the other
and I'm suggesting that there's an availability problem, an
advocacy problem for a distributed technology base. Universities
are not being driven to respond to the manufacturing issue
sufficiently to produce the mechanical engineers to deal with that
question. Logistics has the same class problem. We have too
few mechanical engineers in the universities dealing with that
class problem. Can we get this advocacy problem to self-correct
that dilemma?
Fink: There's always a lag, but I had the impression that the
recognition of the manufacturer and the lack of manufacturing
engineering already have been recognized and that several schools
have really accented that. And despite the ratios of specialties
you quote, my experience is that people are a lot more flexible
than their specialties would show. Look at the space program,
for example. Nobody was trained in space, yet mechanical
engineers, mathematicians, and physicists, all made the transition.
If the funds can be provided, the specialties will take care of
themselves.
Dinneen: John, could I just add to that? Those of us in R&D in
industry now are spending a lot more time worrying about the
81
total R&D picture, not just for new products, but for the whole
lifetime of the products, for the manufacturability of the prod
ucts. We haven't got the right word. Manufacturing is almost
too narrow a term, because you're really looking at the whole
life cycle from the design through the engineering development
through the manufacturing through the marketing through in- field
service. Most of the universities now are beginning programs as
Dan mentioned. MIT, Purdue, and Stanford each have one. They
and many others are combining engineering with business so that
the people coming into industry can have both those backgrounds.
So I think it's happening, and I suppose you have to have a
crisis to stir people to act. The crisis in our competition with
Japan has forced us all to look at that.
Unidentified Speaker: I want to get back to this subject of tech
transfer. Jerry, you pointed out that one of the things you wish
you'd done better at Lincoln Lab is transfer the technology out
of there. That was something that wasn't addressed when you
got to your present industrial job. What do you see that needs
to be done to make the technology in the federal laboratories
more acceptable to industry to make us more competitive when
we have these issues of exclusivity and licensing and what not?
Dinneen: You're really raising two questions. The easier one to
deal with is the Lincoln Laboratory or the government labora
tories into the military environment because that's what the
technology is for. And I raise this only because this is some
thing that would have made us more effective. Obviously, we
transferred a lot of technology. We need closer ties between
industry and either the government laboratories or places like
Lincoln. What happens otherwise is you finish the job, construct
the prototype, demonstrate that the technology works, and then
industry comes in and they start all over again because they
don't have all the drawings and specifications.
The other question you raised, which is the transfer of
technology from the laboratories to industry, generally is a much
more difficult one because the laboratories are working on
technology such as the one you mentioned earlier on radiation
hardened circuits and other kinds of things which are designed
for military applications. They aren't always well-suited to
82
commercial applications. But there's a lot more that can be
done. The "not invented here" syndrome is pervasive in this
country throughout industries, universities and in the government.
It's a very serious problem and many of us have worked hard to
overcome it. But there is something about doing it yourself.
People are more motivated by doing their own technology. They
don't get rewarded from going outside and finding a technology.
We're all searching for ways to motivate engineers and provide
some kind of incentive for them to go and find the technology
and apply it in their particular case. But it is a very difficult
thing to overcome.
Flax: I think we're dancing around the problem a little bit by
assuming that there's complete transferability from civilian to
military technology. The reason there is not is the very point
that Jerry Dinneen just made. Technology in itself is worthless.
It's the translation of that technology into a product that counts.
There's nothing the military could have done that would have
saved the automobile industry from its problems with the Japa
nese. The auto industry itself had to do that. So a crisis that
is real may have zero impact on military technology. The same
thing's true in consumer electronics. It has a very large impact.
Nevertheless, if you think about what is involved, there's no
military counterpart. In the total product realization sense, to
transfer technology you must make a product in the same
quantities at the same rates in the same total numbers or you
have the embedded technology in a piece of hardware but an
entirely different process technology which is needed to make it.
So I would ask whether it is not true that military technology
will have to ride on its own process base, admittedly with some
input from the civilian sector, but it's not going to be trans
ferable one way or another a hundred percent. The transfer may
be of only limited efficiency, 50 percent, 20 percent; it depends
on the technology. I don't think you're going to manufacture a
thousand radar sets, which is a big number, the same way we
produce a million VCRs.
McLucas: Jerry, I believe that you brushed too lightly over the
security issue. It's my impression that there are not very many
large-scale LANs in the country, where people of different
83
classifications can have access to the same system, talk to people
at their own clearance level, and not get into some sort of a
problem. Am I wrong?
Dinneen: No, you're right. I brushed over it too lightly. The
only point I was making was that it is conceivable now with the
ability to build custom circuits to go to end-to-end encryption.
Some systems have that capability, but very large-scale systems
do not. And it's a very serious problem.
McLucas: Well, maybe this is an example of what Al was saying,
that technology alone is not the answer.
Dinneen: I will point out though, John, that this is a problem
that many of us have worked on for a long time and we find it
hard to understand why people in the commercial world, whether
it be banks or insurance companies or hospitals, aren't more
concerned about that same problem. At some point they're going
to have to be and at that point we may see the volume of
research that will help the problem.
Unidentified Speaker: I don't think this is the question to end
on, but both Mr. Fink and Dr. Dinneen brought up the reality
that we no longer have a monopoly on cutting edge technology
and so now the question is how do we reconcile our desire to
cooperate, take advantage of high tech elsewhere, low cost
elsewhere with the need to support U.S. industry, for example, in
critical areas? You want to comment on that?
Dinneen: Well, that's the critical question. It will be impossible
to do that for a very broad area of U.S. industry. You simply
cannot close the barriers. I mean technology's going to be
developed in other places, we're going to have to have a free
flow. If you select a few very critical technologies, then perhaps
we can support them. "Industrial policy" is anathema to the
United States. We simply don't do it. Japan doesn't do it as
much as people believe. But we must recognize that technology
is developed throughout the world and we must take advantage of
it. For those few critical technologies, particularly for national
security, then we can support U.S. industry. We must look more
84
carefully at those technologies in other countries. I set up some
of my own people in Japan in the research labs so that I can
have access to some of that technology so that the flow can be
not just one way as it has been in the past.
Unidentified Speaker: Right now we're in an era where industry
thinks that invention is the mother of necessity. We invented it,
so by God you need it. But if the Air Force has a mission in
mind and it's not applicable to the mission, they tend to forget
about it. In a few years we're going into enter an era where
the rate of change of what's hanging from the threat tree is
going to be so rapid that neither approach is going to be very
useful. My question is: Have we already come into an era
where the threat tree is changing so fast that it'll affect how
you plan to do R&D, or if we get into that era are there plans
to handle something where every few months we might be faced
with coming up with a new system?
Fink: I think industry is much more sophisticated than you
state. And I don't think the threat is changing so rapidly. It's
getting much more complex and I think we also in some respects
have lagged taking the initiative. If we only react to the threat
without looking for our individual opportunities, we are not going
to get anywhere. This past summer I participated in a Defense
Science Board summer study on non-nuclear strategic applications.
Initiatives in the smart weapons business could drive our com
petitive posture quite dramatically. So there are a lot of
initiatives that could be pushed by technology, perhaps more than
driven by the thrust.
McLucas: Before we close this segment, I'd like to ask Tom
Cooper to speak.
Tom Cooper: I don't have any prepared remarks. John caught
me at the break and said the congressional staffer didn't show up
and since I held a position like that a few years ago, would I
care to make any remarks. The answer to that is no, I don't
have any lengthy remarks but I do have one comment that I'd
like to make and that's on the political environment.
85
I think the political environment we're facing is probably
as tough as the technical environment. In fact in many ways it's
probably tougher. But I don't think it's going to do us much
good to complain about it among ourselves. It's not going to
change any that I can see. In fact, if anything it's going to get
more complex. I think we just have to find a way to work in it.
The budgets are going down. There's still an awful lot of money
in the budget. In fact, more money than there's ever been if
you plot it in real terms. The Air Force budget is about $92
billion. Not too many years ago it was half that amount. We've
got more programs in the budget than we can support. I don't
think technology has been impacted that much by the political
process. It's our own internal doings and where we put our
priorities. Over the last five or six years we've been putting our
emphasis on big systems. If that's where we want to put our
priorities, so be it. On the other hand, if we really are con
cerned about technology I think it's an internal matter for us to
reprioritize and start putting more emphasis on the technology
base.
From the last year and a half, to support Forecast II, it's
been difficult to get the Air Force budget pumped up in the
technology base, not because of Congress or because of the
political environment, but because we've got such things as the
B-l, and the ATB, the ATF, the AAMRAM, the small ICBM. We
can complain about it, but I really don't think it's the political
environment that's hitting us there. The solution is - and I
think all the speakers have touched on it - good people, a good
management system, good organization, and a very clever use of
our resources. There's an awful lot of money still in the DoD
budget, though not as much as we planned for. The watershed
year for Defense was 1985. We requested something like $310
billion and got $295 billion. As I recall in '86 we got $289 and
in '87 we got $291, this year it's going to be $292. Congress is
telling us something. We probably will not get $300 billion.
That's like $1.98. We probably won't break that threshold. So
we need to be clever internally. It may involve some restruc
turing, drawing the programs down. But I'd like to think we can
still build an enormously effective Air Force if we're clever about
how we use our resources.
86
Over the last five or six years, there've been some
enormous success stories in the Air Force: F-15s, F-16s, and
notwithstanding the criticism we've got, B-ls and C-17s coming
on line; a magnificent MX missile, if we can get the guidance
system to work. The list of success stories over the last decade
has been as long as the list in previous decades. I think there's
a very bright future ahead. The political process is tough, no
doubt about it.
You wanted me to comment on congressional staffers, John.
There is a lot of criticism about congressional staffers, but the
key staffers that work on the committees are probably the best
friends the military have. I would urge you, particularly the
young guys in the room that are working the Hill, to get to
know those people. Try to take this very complex story that we
have to tell, simplify it so they can take it to the members, and
make the arguments for the systems we want.
I can think of very few Air Force systems that we've lost
over the last half a dozen years. In fact the one that comes to
mind is the T-46, and we killed that one, not the Hill Don't
give up. It's much more complex than it was in the past. Some
of these things with time will take care of themselves. In some
of the legislation the Congress has overreacted, and most of the
time when you do get legislation it is overreaction. Give it a
few years; perhaps we can roll some of it back. But I think
there's a bright future ahead. I'm not pessimistic at all.
McLucas: Thank you, Tom. I don't know if this is an appro
priate remark, but you remind me of the salesman trying to sell
a farming encyclopedia to a farmer. The farmer says, "I already
ain't farming as well as I know how now." I'd like to thank our
panel, and I think they've done a great job for us.
87
Meeting the Challenge
General Bernard P. Randolph, Commander, AFSC
McLucas: I don't envy General Randolph his position on the
program after a long day.
Randy, I mentioned a couple of times things that happened
to me in my brief career with the military. One of the first
things I was called on to do in 1962, when I came to Washington,
was to go over and meet with the President's Science Advisory
Committee. The first question I got was, "Sir, do you know
when the transistor was invented?" And I said, "Yes, back in the
late '40s." They said, "Well, do you know what year this is?"
And I said, "Yes, it's 1962." "Well," they asked, " when are you
going to start using transistors on airplanes like the TFX?"
They thought 14 years was long enough. On the other side, I
remember a conversation with Mel Laird in 1969. At that time I
was undersecretary and Bob Seamans was out of town, so he got
the first guy he could reach and he said, "John, I want you to
give me the name of any program you can think of that the Air
Force is doing a good job on."
Well, we have here the man who is now in charge of these
programs. And so we ought to find out from him. General
Randolph has been Commander of Systems Command ever since
August 1, so by now he must be on top of things. He started
out at Xavier University. He got one BS there. He joined the
Air Force and then he got another BS and a Masters from the
University of North Dakota. He did a couple of tours in the
Space Division. He did a Vietnam tour. He's been working his
way up through the Systems Command. He was sort of the
logical next head of the Systems Command, and lo and behold, he
is. So I'd like to introduce him. General Randolph.
General Bernard P. Randolph: Thank you very much. This is
kind of an unusual position to be in, right at the tail end and
everybody's wondering what's going to happen next. But none
theless, I'm going to talk a little bit about the things that
concern me.
88
First of all, I'm going to answer a couple of questions
because I was very anxious to talk a little bit about those issues
that were discussed. As far as retention is concerned, right now
we have a 42% retention rate for our engineers and that's not
good. We should have at least 60 percent in order to keep our
heads above water and the situation, General Marsh, is getting
worse, not better. It's been getting worse for the past several
years. After we stopped the bonuses, it's been on a downturn.
And of course, the Air Force is in a considerable area of concern
with pilots, and the pilot retention rate is about 51 percent. So
it's much better than engineers. We do have a very serious
problem and we're trying to determine what we should do about
that.
Sam Phillips mentioned competition. I think the Competi
tion in Contracting Act is very good. It's one area on which
we've worked hard to implement properly. One of the things
that we've done is to mandate 120-day source selection cycle.
And, by the way, that's working. It's the sort of thing that
allows us to get through the competition period rapidly. We have
restricted the number of pages that the contractors can give us
in response to an RFP, and that does allow us to get through the
process a bit more rapidly. Now, the area where we're hurting
in that process is the one that we've been talking about this
afternoon and that is in the small S&T projects. That is a down
side to the Competition in Contracting Act. We've been trying
to do exactly what Tom said: to make that fact known to the
folks on the Hill and see if we can get some flexibility in the
Competition in Contracting Act to make it work better for us.
But on balance it has been probably one of the more positive
pieces of legislation enacted over the past few years.
You've left it up to me to talk about the AFSC challenges
of the future. Sometime ago, Abraham Lincoln said we live in
the midst of alarms. Anxiety beclouds the future, we expect
some new disaster with each newspaper we read. And that's the
way it is right now. In fact, one of the things I'll have to say,
Tom, that the only thing that's falling faster than the Defense
budget is the stock market and the Supreme Court nominees.
The Defense budget has gone down about 4 percent and we're
going to be hit pretty hard in 1988. We expect $92 billion and
that's only if the negotiators reach an agreement this week. If
89
Gramm-Rudman comes in, then we're really going to be in deep
trouble. Unfortunately, it's going to affect everybody and I
think the negotiators recognize that.
Let's talk a little bit about some challenges. We still have
some huge problems in the software business. It continues to
haunt me on every system that we've got. And I think the
nation has just got to come to grips with that. I know we've
tried everything, and part of it by the way is bureaucratic. It's
the way we do our business. But I'm convinced that we're simply
going to have to address software in a business sense, in a
manner that's different from the way we do the normal kinds of
hardware activities.
A more specific challenge is the business of electronic
warfare. There was a question about the changing threat. The
fact of the matter is that in electronic warfare the threat is
indeed changing, is more complex, and that's what the Soviets
are doing. They're making the challenges a lot more complex on
a regular basis and we just simply cannot keep up. We are con
stantly two yards behind all of the action.
The real challenge that we face is congressional micro-
management. Do you realize that we have not had an appropria
tions bill passed on time since 1977? That's 10 years. In the
bill that passed in 1985 1,800 separate line items were changed,
and the Congress asked for four hundred different studies. Now
if that's not micromanagement I don't know what is; and some of
those studies were real barnburners, things like lamb products in
the commissaries, raising retirement benefits for Philippine
scouts, and things like that, which is a gigantic waste of time.
But the fact of the matter is, I think micromanagement by
Congress is indeed a serious problem. We are going to have to
work with the Congress, it is not going to go away, but I just
believe that together - we, the Congress and the Defense Depart
ment - have got to come to grips with that.
Take a look at the Packard commission. We've imple
mented many of Packard's recommendations, not all by a long
shot. But the things that the Packard commission said about the
Congress - zero implementation. Absolutely nothing. I think
that's something we've got to work on.
Of course the problems that we have right now are not
new. As Tom mentioned, they're not going to go away. Legis
90
lative micromanagement seems to increase as the news coverage
of the problems increases. Clearly there is a causal effect there.
The only problem that I'm not sure of is what's the cause and
what's the effect. I think it's a classic example of the second
law of thermodynamics - constantly increasing entropy. By the
way, Tom, we do not have a problem with the guidance system
on the Peacekeeper. The problem is not with the guidance sys
tem, the problem is with the production capacity and the ability
to produce on schedule. The guidance system works extremely
well.
On the business of the threat, I believe the threat is
getting worse all the time; it is changing rapidly. Right now,
just to stay even, NATO must have a three to one advantage in
the exchange ratio with our fighters. That's just to stay even.
The Soviet tactical air forces over the past decade have grown
about 10 percent. Based on projections, by the time we get the
ATF fielded, we're going to need a ten to one advantage just to
stay even in working against the air threat. On the ground it's
just as bad if not worse. If every NATO antitank weapon
worked perfectly and every NATO tank got a Warsaw Pact or
Soviet tank there'd still be 5,000 Soviet tanks left, so you're
talking about some massive numbers. Only in surface combatants
are we anywhere close, and of course, John Leyman pushed that
very hard. And we outbuild them by about six or seven ships.
Of course, these numbers are hard to keep track of. They
remind me of the story Lincoln used to tell: somebody asked him
how many Confederate soldiers there were and he said there are
12 hundred thousand. And the guy was incredulous. He said 12
hundred thousand? That's amazing! How can that be? Lincoln
says, well we have 400 thousand on our side, and every time one
of our generals gets beaten, he says the reason he was beaten is
because the Confederates had a three to one advantage, so I
multiplied three times four and I got twelve.
Sometimes I wonder whether our intelligence is any more
accurate than that. But the numbers are staggering and I don't
believe that we've really come to grips with them. We don't
really appreciate their significance. We've forgotten that Lenin
always said that quantity has a quality all its own. After a
while when you take a look at those numbers, because they're so
unbelievable and so far-fetched, we just sink into shock. We
91
disregard the numbers and just hope that we're capable of
overcoming whatever they can throw at us.
The technology has indeed been eroding and I gather from
the discussions that we've had this afternoon you've been talking
about that today. There have been some 5,000 (according to our
count) Soviet R&D programs that have benefited from the tech
nology transfer that we talked about: our technology transferred
to them. So they're not too proud to use our technology. They
use it all the time and Toshiba just happens to be one of the
most infamous incidents. It is in fact a rather widespread prac
tice. And I don't think it's ever going to stop. That's the
nature of our society and we're not interested in paying the
price to stop the technology transfer. So I do think, Jerry, that
the right answer is to use the technology that's available.
I am concerned about the NIH (not invented here) syn
drome. We've got to make good use of whatever technology is
available. We have the problem internal to the Air Force as well
as within the industry. There's a tendency for one lab not to
want to use the inventions of the other one.
Now, what are we doing at Systems Command to face those
challenges?
First of all, / set three goals when I started, and these
goals are very simple, but the idea behind the goals was to try
to emphasize where the Command should go. There's nothing
revolutionary about them, not something that we haven't done in
the past. When I said I'm doing these things, it is not meant to
be critical of anybody in the past, it's simply saying that we
ought to focus our attention on these things.
The first one was to recognize that we exist for the using
commands. We're there to support them. The using commands
know that, we know that, everybody knows that, but every once
in a while we've got to say it. We've got to say it over and
over again. I want to say that often because in recent years I
have noticed that the using commands are developing an attitude
that Systems Command is not supportive enough. I happen to
believe that's not true, nonetheless, those attitudes appear to be
developing. So to stave that off and make sure that everybody
understands that we know we're there to support those using
commands, we have emphasized that and emphasized it very
strongly. I want those program directors to be in frequent,
92
direct, close contact with their user organizations; I insist on it.
When the program directors come to brief I ask them: Have you
been talking to the using commands and have you worked those
problems directly with the using commands?
The second thing is acquisition excellence. We are pushing
training and education. Right now 70 percent of the young
majors just up for promotion have Masters degrees, but inade
quate training and education in the area of acquisition. So I
doubled the acquisition staff at the systems acquisition school at
Brooks AFB and emphasized more training. I've asked the staff
folks to go out to the various product divisions and do some of
the training out there, not just wait for the students to come to
Brooks. The result is that last year we had some 1,700 people
complete the short courses. This year we will more than double
the number who will go through those short courses, which are
in the process of developing and improving the acquisition
expertise that our people have. I believe this is important not
simply to make sure that our people are well trained, but to
make sure they develop the necessary understanding of the
problem and the interest levels that I believe helps improve our
retention rates.
Third: emphasis on technology. It is very difficult to set
the Air Force to increase technology funding. Nobody is against
technology, but when it comes to putting money where the mouth
is, it is tough. Very recently we've been able to get the Air
Force to accept the fact that technology should be a corporate
investment and should be managed as such. Our goal is to get
the S&T budget (6.1, 6.2, and 6.3) up to about 2 percent of the
Air Force budget. We are at 1.5 percent now, but we're contin
uing to push that. The Chief of Staff of the Air Force has
accepted that and that is now part of the Air Force's policy. As
the budgets begin to tighten, our salvation is going to be in
maintaining that strong S&T base. That's absolutely essential.
It's the cornerstone of our defense posture and we simply cannot
deviate from it.
A discussion I had with one of the junior officers in the
headquarters illustrates part of our problem. She told me she
was worried about a proposed international cooperative develop
ment effort. She was worried not that we might eventually give
the technology to the Soviets, but that our Allies might produce
93
the same technology better and more cost effectively than we
could. That's a worrisome thing when some of our people begin
to think like that, because, as Chekhov said, man is what he
believes. I was very disturbed to find out that she was thinking
that way. And she's not alone. But as Vince Lombardi said,
football is blocking and tackling, and everything else is bunk. At
Systems Command the basics that we're concerned with are the
user followed by the user followed by the user and that's exactly
what we're going to continue to emphasize. It is in the user's
interest and to his direct benefit to worry about S&T.
We have a one star as the program executive officer for
the Systems Command S&T area. There are 13 technical areas
and 44 S&T program elements. We've institutionalized Project
Forecast. Today about 10 percent of our S&T budget is in the
technologies of Project Forecast II and by 1992 that number
could increase to as much as 5O percent and we're going to
continue to push that. We believe we've created some foun
dations in the Command; we hope we are following properly in
the footsteps of Generals Schriever, Phillips, Marsh and Skantze
in trying to keep Systems Command an active and viable com
mand, one that is very much interested in the S&T business. I
think we've got a very strong program and I agree with Tom
Cooper, the future is bright. It's not going to be easy, but if it
were easy, then why would they need us? Thank you very much.
Discussion
Hansen: Randy, I really applaud your emphasis on improving the
link between R&D and the users. Is anyone responsible to coor
dinate participation in operational exercises by the R&D people,
joint activities in the test beds, and assignment of user people to
the laboratories?
Randolph: To strengthen that tie we have combined future plans
and the technology organization under one deputate, headed by a
general officer. We did that to strengthen that link between
what the user thinks he needs for the future and what he's
94
asking for. That's really what our planners work on, and the
technology that's available to solve those problems.
Your second point: how can we get our users more
conversant with what we're doing and vice versa. To make that
happen we have two programs to send our young people out to
the user organizations. First, we send a limited number for a
three- year tour with the using organization so that they can get
some operational experience. Second, we send them on a short
visit, for a week or so, to an operational organization (not a
headquarters, I mean a place where people are getting their
hands dirty and spend some time with the operational organiza
tion).
In addition to that, we have the operators come and join
our program offices, not as liaison officers but as people who
roll up their sleeves and work. We have several fighter pilots in
the ATF SPO who are part of the work force, not a liaison
force, and we're trying to increase this movement back and
forth. Getting people into the operational commands for a three
year tour and then back to Systems Command is difficult to
implement because of the clamp down on PCS funds, nonetheless
we're continuing that. Although today the numbers are small
we're going to continue to press that program because I think
that has great benefits to both the user and to us in Systems
Command.
Fink: Randy, you talked positively about competition. I don't
want to speak against competition but I do think the costs are
horrendous and getting worse. B&P (Bid and Proposal) is
squeezing out IR&D, it's taking a lot of the best talent, it's
almost an industry unto itself. You mentioned that you're
cutting the time down to 120 days. Are there some other things
in process which could help that situation of competitive costs?
Randolph: Well, the point you made about B&P is indeed valid,
but that's a bureaucratic thing that I have constantly talked
about to the people on the Hill. Tying down the B&P and IR&D
levels so tightly contributes to that problem and that's totally
unnecessary. Congress should not get all wrapped up in it and
should not try to control it. On the other hand, I've seen some
positive aspects. For example, we were talking about the man
95
ufacturing business. There is lots of innovation that may allow
us to better control costs. That's a big plus. You're right, it's
not all plus as I had said, but I think on balance it's a plus. I
agree with you that we've got to do something about the B&P.
We've got to make sure that we don't overspecify. We are in
fact moving more toward functional RFPs as opposed to these
detailed specs. That's a culture all unto itself and it's not easy
to change that, as you know firsthand.
Korkegi: About the retention rate among engineering people in
the Air Force: I think Tom Marsh touched on the gap between
the young people coming in and the old timers. What does it
take to retain people? Clearly it takes a certain environment.
The Air Force clearly needs program managers. It's difficult to
convince a young PhD in aeronautics to go into program manage
ment and to stay there.
Could a program be formed whereby the people coming in
spend time as program managers then spend some time at the
bench, some kind of a rotation? Or are there other solutions
that are likely to entice the right kind of person to come in
because that person is truly important to the Air Force? These
are the people who assess systems that the Air Force buys. Of
course I applaud your desire to double the S&T activity. I think
that this is all part of it.
Randolph: The point you're making is very good. And we've
been trying to find things that will help us retain the engineers.
The engineers that we've talked with tell me they get out for
several reasons, and money is not one of them. Clearly money is
a player, but it's not up there at the top. They want respon
sibility. They want to make sure that there is a future in the
business. They want to make sure that they are recognized as
doing things that are meaningful. So you're correct. The
environment is the key. Some people will always get out because
they can make more money outside, but on balance that's not the
overriding issue.
To cope with that we have been working on creating a
more attractive environment. We have a gate system that's very
similar to the pilot gate system. It's called the acquisition
managers list and the senior acquisition managers list. We have
96
identified things that the officers should do in a professional
development. This is how one develops as a professional in this
business. And we would hope that engineers and scientists can
go to the laboratory, get their hands dirty working on things,
get out and use that experience in the acquisition management.
When you add all those years together, it turns out that you can
reach the point where you're ready to run a program at about
the 15-year point (which is not bad) if you're not a flyer. If
you're a test pilot it takes you 21 years to do that. If you
happen to be a fighter pilot who goes through all the schools
that the fighter pilots go through and you go through the rating
gates and the acquisition gates, it takes 24 years to reach the
point where you can run a program. That's a serious problem.
Ours is a flying Air Force and we need some rated people
in this business. Right now the rated work force at Systems
Command is down to 6 percent of the acquisition work force.
That's too small. We need to increase the numbers above that,
and we're trying to work that problem with the Air Force per
sonnel right now. In addition, we have taken steps to enhance
the stature of our program directors to the point that they can
recognize that they can get promoted to more senior ranks while
they are program directors. For example, they do not have to
relinquish the job of program director to become commander of
the 4950th in order to get promoted. We hope you'll see the
results of that shortly. Program directors can get promoted right
where they are because that's the bread and butter of this
organization. That not only enhances the environment, but
attracts the best people because they obviously are interested in
advancing for the future, and I believe this type of environment
enhancement will improve our retention. However, having said
all that I'm looking for any good ideas I can get. If you have
any good ideas, let me know.
Weeks: General Randolph, the Soviets have flown Energia. It's
quite a capable machine apparently. The morning paper says that
Secretary Weinberger says they now have four million pounds per
year capability. Would you mind telling us what you believe is
the proper counter to the Soviet Energia?
97
Randolph: I'm not sure "counter" is the right term, but the
booster that we're working on is the advanced launch system
(ALS), and hopefully we can get our good colleagues from NASA
to work that with us. Clearly I believe that's the right way to
go, for two reasons: first, the primary objective of the ALS is
to routinize launch, to make launch more a checklist item, and
make sure we can do it in a less costly way. The goal is to
reduce the cost per pound to orbit by an order of magnitude.
I'm not so sure we'll reach that but I don't think that's the
overriding objective. The objective should be to launch quickly
and reliably, because reliable launch is the key to the future, and
in fact it's absolutely essential to SDI. If we fail to have that
reliable launch capability SDI will never succeed, so we must
have that. But it's not only for SDI, it's the sort of thing that
I think we need for the space program in general.
Lehmann: You put a lot of emphasis on the user. Sometimes the
users are dumb or blind or short-sighted. This morning we were
talking about laser guided bombs, which is one of the big success
stories among our weapons systems. How do you as Commander
of Systems Command advocate to the user things they ought to
advocate to the Air Force?
Randolph: I would never call the user dumb or short-sighted. I
would say that the user needs education and it's our job to
provide that education. I tell our people, "make sure the user
really understands what he's asking for and what opportunities
are available." And if you're working with the user, it's amazing
how he'll listen to you. But if you're working against him, it
gets to be a manhood issue. Nobody will listen and then you
begin to just argue with each other. Having said that, I recog
nize that's not easy, nonetheless that's the objective that we've
set for ourselves.
Dinneen: Randy, could you say something about your thoughts on
joint development programs with the other services or with NATO
allies?
Randolph: Joint development programs have the strength of get
ting different views and different ideas into the system. They
98
have the weakness of the bureaucracies that come with any joint
program. We're in the midst right now of the Modular standoff
weapon and you just cannot believe the level of mail that I'm
getting on the source selection authority. Not because anyone is
against it - everybody's in favor of it - but because each
bureaucracy must be properly satisfied. I believe that it's the
way we must continue to do things in the future. We're going to
have to simply come to grips with those bureaucracies and recog
nize that they exist and that we're going to have to work within
them. We have had some good success in working joint programs
with the Army. The Navy has a different set of rules and that
makes cooperation a bit more difficult. We're trying to work
JTIDS right now with the Navy and hopefully, we're going to
succeed. But I think joint programs are here to stay.
John E. Short: General Randolph, I'm a retired PO 313 out of
Wright- Pat. For many years I made program management my
profession. Hearing Al Flax talk about the ones that were good
and the further conversations on some that were bad, I had a
fair sample of both. At the time of my retirement I was the
Senior Program Manager at ASD. As I've listened to the dis
cussions today about the impact of efficient, effective profes
sional program management on the final successful execution of a
program, it occurred to me that perhaps we can help relieve, not
solve the situation, but relieve it on selected programs to allow
the SES (Senior Executive Service) group of civilians to assume
program management responsibilities. Would you comment on that
for me, please?
Randolph: I agree with you. I put Bart Barthelmy in charge of
the National Aerospace Plane for that very reason, and those of
you who know Bart know that he's an SESer and I intend to do
that with a couple of other programs. The SES resource is valu
able. The civilian population is half of Systems Command,
obviously a critical part of the Command, and should be treated
accordingly. I intend to make better use of the civil service
resources in running the programs, and Bart is the first of
several that I intend to appoint.
99
Mathis: Randy, you were just talking about the civil service.
Jack Short mentioned having civil service program managers, SES
and so forth, and I was wondering whether you had any problems
obtaining civil service program managers, drawing them. We talk
about the fact that you're retaining 40 percent of the young
officer engineers and that money isn't a big factor there. But
the Washington Post pointed out here in the last week that the
military had very high pay compared to the civil service. I guess
I was just curious to hear your thoughts on the subject of the
pay differential between the two and how you're doing with the
civilians in attracting the right ones.
Randolph: Evidently the GAO did that study, and I looked at the
numbers and I find them very difficult to believe. I've asked my
people to analyze those numbers and give me some better appre
ciation, but I don't think that they're correct. Having said that,
we have a mixed bag on retention of civil servants. At Wright-
Patterson, for example, our retention rates are excellent, and we
get top notch people. In the Boston area, it's darn near impos
sible to keep people on board. At Space Division it is impossible.
We just can't keep them, not so much because they're not inter
ested in working for the government, but because the cost of
living is so high that they can't afford it. So in those places
money does make a difference. In fact, in Long Island, we have
to use military people to stabilize the work force. The civil
service folks just will not stay. It's an impossible situation for
them. So I do recognize that is part of the problem. To answer
the question, we are working the issue of education and training
and retention for civil service people just as much as we are for
the military side of the house.
Craigie: Randy, 40 years ago, when I had the engineering div
ision, which was the forerunner of ASD, I had a real problem
dealing with the user in that the user gets two different pictures
of the state of the art, one from the contractor who is hungry
for a contract, and another from the scientific community. It
was a real problem then and you must have some aspect of that
problem today, do you not?
100
Randolph: Yes, in fact, it's a very difficult problem. There are
those folks who always say that we can do it instantly and it
doesn't cost anything and it's going to work perfectly the first
time. This kind of propaganda does indeed confuse the user and
when we say no you can't get it instantly, and it isn't going to
work perfectly all the time, and it's going to cost you some
money, then they get a little angry at us because we're talking
reality. However, I believe that those people who are responsible
in the industry and who recognize that indeed they have to
answer for those things in the future are the folks that we
should and do work with and we try to explain to our users that
there is no magic in this business. It's tough and it's going to
continue to be tough. But it's a continuing problem and it's one
that we've got to deal with.
Craigie: Right. Now, I don't go back quite as far as Brian
O'Brien does because I'm only approaching my 86th birthday in
January. But as I listened to a lot of the things that have been
said today, I couldn't help but think back to how different they
were forty or fifty years ago. For example, on this business of
whether a program manager should be a colonel or a general: as
a captain at Wright field in 1935 I was the SPO not only for a
transport and a trainer, I was the SPO for all trainers and
transports. Things were a lot different in those days, of course.
The dollars were far fewer and industry was as small as we were.
As late as 1937, the aircraft industry had about 3,000 employees,
about half of whom worked for Douglas. Industry grew up as we
did in the Army Air Corps, and it really wasn't too strange that
as a captain I would be the point of contact with industry on all
matters dealing with transports and trainers.
On the business of prototype competition, again things
were much much simpler back in the '30s. We put out a circular
proposal with the desired specifications and a method of evalua
tion which indicated the relative value we put on various per
formance points, and in about a year the bids would be opened.
In the meantime, the contractor had to build an airplane. He
provided what was known as the physical article, along with his
bid. In the late 1930s airplanes began to get too expensive so
that was changed; but things were a little different then, a little
simpler. We had the competition and we awarded a contract to
101
the winner. Then the competitive prototype system developed.
When General Brown was Commander of AFSC, I called on him
one day (he'd been there about a year then) and the subject
came up. He said that he'd had a small group study all of the
contracts that had been let over the last two or three years.
Every single one of them was let for a price lower than the
Systems Command's "should cost" estimate, and I think there's
something wrong with that. The industry isn't going broke, but
I've never felt happy about that feature of the competitive
prototype system where the government, trying to get more for
the taxpayer's dollar, pits one contractor against the other in
what is sometimes a very unethical manner. The government
forces a concession from a contractor, and the contractor knows
it can't possibly comply. Well, they try to do it, because their
competitor has already agreed to.
Cooper: I just wanted to make a comment on Bob Mathis' ques
tion. I think Bob asked a very profound question about the
civilians and, Randy, I think you gave a good answer as far as
the Command is concerned. The Packard commission report
would place civilians more in the day-to-day management role of
DoD acquisitions. With pay caps where they are and the legis
lation that we have making government service a disincentive,
we're not going to get the middle management talent that we
need to carry this off as Packard intended. I am not talking
about the assistant secretaries or the Secretary of the Air Force.
We can get people like that to come in. But we can't get the
people below that level who are supposed to replace the generals
and colonels now on the Air Staff and who occupy those day-to
day management positions in the Pentagon. There is also the
legal specter hanging over people's heads that if they come in
and work in the government for a year, in fact for a day, they
might not be able to go back to the industry from which they
came. Ladies and gentlemen, that is a real problem, and not
withstanding what I said earlier about having to work our way
through this complex maze, we must do something about it.
Whether you like Packard or not, it's not an issue of whether
it's right or wrong, it is. And I don't see the Hill changing that
legislation. I can tell you we completely changed deck chairs on
the ship over the last six or eight months. It was painful to me.
102
It was painful to General Randolph. It was painful to General
Skantze. But it's there and if we're going to make it work, not
only do we have to get the qualified military, but we must
attract qualified civilians. I think Randy, you and the others, in
the blue suit have done a magnificent job, and I don't say that
lightly, in managing the military work force and in fact the
civilian work force in the field. But I think it's bordering on a
crisis where we are right now. To get that 35-40 year-old
middle manager out of industry that's had a train wreck or two
and can recognize a train wreck when he sees it coming, to come
into the Pentagon and help us manage this business that we have
is tough. We need that talent and I don't think we're able to
get the talent in the numbers we need today. That is something
we really have to work if we're going to maintain this mag
nificent Air Force.
McLucas: Thank you. Well as we're coming to the end of this
day I'm impressed with the amount of talent we have in terms of
experience in Air Force R&D and I'm reminded of a comment
that was made when Isaac Newton was asked, "How could you
accomplish so much in one lifetime?" He said, "I stood on the
shoulders of giants." I think we're in this position right now.
We have a good man in charge of the Systems Command and he's
going to be able to stand on the shoulders of those here today.
I estimate there's about 3,000 man-years of talent right here in
this room, and I know he's got a lot of other talent that he can
draw on. As head of the Studies Board, I'm looking forward to
General Randolph's tour at the Systems Command. And I hope
that we can be useful to him as he carries this off.
103
Dinner
Presentation of Medals
To General Bernard A. Schriever:
McLucas: Ladies and Gentlemen, since Bennie has already
received every possible medal from the military side, we thought
it would be appropriate to give him the seal of the National
Academy of Sciences, properly inscribed. So that's what I have
here. On the back it says: "Presented to Bernard A. Schriever
for Extraordinary Leadership in the Advancement of Science for
National Defense, 1962-1987." Congratulations, Bennie.
Schriever: I accept this with humility. And I have only one
thing to say. I'm very happy that this thing that we started
very small has grown and has become the important element in
maintaining the kind of scientific and military relationships that
General Hap Arnold and General Eisenhower envisioned after
World War II. I think we have carried on the tradition of main
taining that close relationship with the scientific community
which started in World War II. Thank you very much.
To Dr. Brian O'Brien, Sr.:
McLucas: Now if Brian O'Brien, Jr. would come forward. Since
Brian, Sr. isn't with us, his son will accept on his behalf. This
medal is inscribed as follows: "Presented to Brian O'Brien,
founder and leader, Air Force Studies Board, 1962-1987."
Brian O'Brien, Jr.: On behalf of my father I wish to thank you
very much. I know he will be surprised and greatly pleased by
this. I also know that he will wish to share the honor with all
of you who have worked so hard to make this important enter
prise the success that it has been. Thank you again.
104
Dinner Address
Dr. John J. Welch, Jr.,
Assistant Secretary of the Air Force, Acquisitions
McLucas: To celebrate the founding of the Air Force Studies
Board, I think we have a very appropriate speaker. We've had a
full day of appropriate speakers, and so tonight we would like to
present something unique, namely the first speech that this man
has given since he took office. Jack Welch is the new Assistant
Secretary of the Air Force for Acquisitions. It used to be called
R&D and things like that, but presumably acquisitions includes all
that in the new formulation. He started his duties here just last
month. In addition to being the Assistant Secretary for Acquis
itions, he's chairman of the F-16 Multinational Fighter Program
steering committee, and senior delegate to the NATO Advisory
Group for Aerospace R&D.
Jack has had a long and successful career. He started at
MIT. I won't say how long ago because he looks much younger.
He joined Chance Vought in Dallas and he was on various air
craft and missile programs. He worked in flight tests, missile
operations, ASW, and development. In 1965 he became an LTV
vice president, in charge of all space defense programs. So, in
1969 he came for a tour as Air Force chief scientist. After that
tour he went back to LTV and continued to do well in that
organization. He served on the Defense Science Board, the Army
Science Board, the Naval Studies Board, the SAB, and the DAGs.
So we have here one more guy who's very well-qualified to serve
the Air Force in his new capacity, and I'm very happy and
pleased and proud to introduce Jack Welch.
The Honorable John J. Welch: It really is a pleasure to be here
tonight. This is a good opportunity to congratulate the people
who have been involved over the 25 years that this organization
has made a significant contribution. It's appropriate to talk
about some of the changes that we see happening, about some of
the challenges that appear from a couple of weeks' perspective
on this job, and also to sincerely ask the people who have par
ticipated so meaningfully, and in a rather dedicated fashion, in
105
the Air Force Studies Board over the years, for your ideas as we
head into the future. Many of you are as close to the changes
as we who are trying to look at it on a full-time basis. I would
encourage the people here to share some of their experience.
People say that what goes around comes around. Thus, I can't
imagine we're going to invent something that hasn't been tried
before, but hopefully we'll approach it a bit more positively.
That's a sincere request, and I would appreciate very much
hearing how we might provide some of the focus, because we're
going to see a period of decreasing budgets. That's not new, and
we've faced up to that in the past. However, times have
changed. We can talk a little bit about the merits of legislation
and regulation. We can also talk about the ability to try to
make a contribution in government and then try to go out and
make an honest living. But this opportunity is no longer open to
many people, and this policy makes it very difficult to attract
competent people.
These things come at a time of great change in attitudes
toward defense, great change in the technical community and in
the academic community. All the people that I have seen during
the short time that I have been in the Pentagon have impressed
me by what they value. The relationship of science and technol
ogy to the present and future of the Air Force is alive and well.
It's been husbanded over the last 40 years of the Air Force. The
foundations are there and they need to be not only protected,
but emphasized more strongly. Hopefully, as we put some of the
organizational changes in place we want to recognize science and
technology as an equal participant with the mission, to give it
the attention that it deserves.
General Randolph, in one of his first announcements after
taking over Systems Command, emphasized that the future of the
Air Force lies in science and technology. One could spend a
long time debating whether we needed legislation or not, but we
have it. And it has changed many things not only operationally,
but culturally. Where almost everybody in this room knew a DCS
R&D, there is no more DCS R&D; but there is an opportunity to
have one community working together to support the kinds of
things that one needs to prepare for and to actually perform in
the acquisition area. And perhaps that's a plus. We can get
everybody in one place working together to one focus.
106
The Air Force recognized early that acquisition is a career
field, both military and civilian, and that those folks need to be
recognized. We must preserve that acquisition career field and
its ability to carry on into the future, and to provide the career
path right to the very top of the Air Force. Perhaps that is
what sets it aside from the other two military services - the
recognition of excellence in acquisition and all the things that
used to be research, development, and logistics.
It's terribly important to preserve, and we're trying to be
very careful not just to preserve that but to encourage it. As
younger people come into the system, there is a middle man
agement gap. That gap is not much different in industry. In
some instances, there have been few opportunities for younger
people to train and to get some of the experiences that others
had before. That must now be augmented and I think the value
of formal acquisition training is becoming recognized.
But we do have a challenge! Is the management of science
and technology meant to be centralized? Can it even be central
ized in order to bring the right kind of activity, the right kind
of product, the right kind of support systems into place? You
know, I really don't think so. I don't think people meant it to
be that way. We see emphasis on the word management rather
than oversight and support and participation.
Here's another opportunity for a challenge. The programs
that have been put in place since the 1960s have created prod
ucts with very long lives. It's easier to talk about the airplanes,
but it's applicable to some other things too: long life airframes,
that are going to be around for a while; the opportunity to grow
engines; the opportunity to substitute systems. We must find
better ways to insert those kinds of technologies and those kinds
of performances into the newer systems. We are finding the
front-end process is not only expensive but time consuming. We
must assure that opportunity is there.
In a conversation at the dinner table tonight, the word
micromanage came up. Perhaps one shouldn't use that word. It
suggests some kind of management, and it really isn't. Defense
appropriations legislation is becoming a growth industry with
probably more potential impact, both short and long term, by
short words and phrases that are inserted in terms that become
direction. This is not to suggest that the contribution by many
107
of the study groups isn't a positive one, but it seems very
strange to see Congress sit there and decide which group ought
to do a study. Should the Defense Science Board do a study,
should the SAB do a study? You know, pretty soon we can look
forward to line items for each of those groups. I don't think
that's wise. I think it is dangerous because it takes away some
of the resources that have been so significant, such as this group
- the ability to ask some people to share their experiences as
plans are put together and to contribute to plans and put them
into place. We must husband those resources because the past
tells us that they're terribly valuable. The connection in the
academic community has grown since even before the Air Force
in name today was born, and it served everybody well.
With the new legislation, General Monahan and I are now
roommates, so to speak, and I think there's a very great plus
there. If we tap civilians and officers responsible for Air Force
R&D, we can communicate better, and use all the various
resources that were somewhat separate. Then I think we can
take from the major commanders their inputs in the form of
their needs, and convert them much more specifically into
characteristics and tasks to be done. Those tasks can in turn be
examined by the Systems Command for the development and
application of technologies to potential operational capabilities.
The coming of some of the more automated systems, such
as CAD/CAM, provides a data base that can carry through from
day one of design, out into the logistics community. This is a
very great challenge, the results of which we'll see in the early
part of the 1990s in an automated logistics system. The logistics
management system is very real, very necessary, and is being
well supported. It closes that loop between putting out a prod
uct and supporting it. Automated training approaches, some of
the technology items that came out of the Forecast studies, are
real and are being considered.
There is another arena of challenges and that is with our
emphasis on the word joint. Anybody in this room who's partici
pated in a joint program recognizes that it provides a few addi
tional challenges and opportunities. In today's environment, the
international coupling is very real, not that it was absent in the
past. If you look at the policy statements and some of the
implementations of the policy statements, it's almost like a
108
preflight checklist. You've got to dutifully check off each of
these things, and it's putting a heavy load on the front end of
the process.
In the past year the ability to couple the acquisition
community with the PPBS process and the Defense Resources
Board has been sorted out some, but again, the acquisition
community is feeling its way at that process. You can't have
two boards of directors. This government doesn't have a shadow
cabinet ability and doesn't need it. I think that how well we
solve those things as they come to bear will be a measure of
how we have taken advantage of the pluses that have been given
to us.
You know, to come back to the Pentagon after having been
out for quite some period of time, it's rather exciting to see
what people have taken a hold of and how they have applied
them. Whether you're talking about the basic phenomenology
where there's much more attention or whether it be applied in
the lethality or the survivability area, the foundations in the
laboratories that have served people well over the years are
picking up their focus and continuing that kind of activity.
Some of the things that didn't quite make it over the hurdles are
still waiting. But again, people can focus. For example, a lot of
people in this room have talked about a desire to have an oppor
tunity to start R&D in hypervelocity technology. I can't believe
you all went through the day without talking about NASP at
some point. It's a program to be supported. It's important and
it does in fact offer a potential leap ahead. It also offers a very
big gathering point for recognizing that if you don't pay atten
tion pretty soon you're behind in facilities, you're behind in tech
base, and you're behind in all the methodologies where you want
to apply these talents; and it's very expensive to catch up. But
catch up the plan is to be and it will be supported assuming
again that we can sort out all these activities.
That's a rather rambling kind of description of the situ
ation, but I thought it was perhaps a better closing to point out
all of the things that are left to be done. I think sometimes in
these meetings people have a tendency to feature (and rightly so)
the good things that have been done, particularly by a group like
the Air Force Studies Board here. But as you go around to the
universities and talk to the graduate students, they always have
109
this fear that everything's been invented, everything's been
applied, that the materials guys are all dried up, there's no more
room for the chemists, and all that. I'd like to assure people
that there is more than sufficient room for those folks to get in
and stay in an active program. We would look forward sincerely
to hearing about those things that might have failed in the past.
But again we wish to look more to those things that in fact
worked for each of you here when you served in the government.
The likelihood is that we can put those in place very quickly and
understand them. It's not necessarily that we want to do some
thing different, but rather just to make it right. We'd like to
see if we can continue to save those things that were important
and work with the new things that give us an opportunity.
Again, congratulations on your day here and your 25 years
of great service. Thank you.
Closing Remarks
McLucas: Thank you Jack, we hope you have another good tour
with the Air Force. I said earlier today that many of us were
fortunate to be able to stand on the shoulders of giants.
Certainly your predecessors in that job are men who have
achieved a high degree of respect because of their talent and
accomplishments, so you are following in a good tradition.
The Air Force is 40 years old. We're a young service, but
during that time we have accumulated many proud traditions. I'd
like to see this symposium every 25 years as another tradition.
Well, we've had many good presentations and a good
audience. I think we've had a good celebration. I'd like to
close with this thought.
One of my favorite Bible passages is: Without vision the
people perish. Many of you remember a young boy growing up in
Massachusetts. He climbed the cherry tree in his back yard and
the other kids in the neighborhood climbed up their trees, but all
they saw was a cherry tree and a small distance out from their
homes. Robert Goddard climbed that tree and he said, "you know
110
if I could just get off up into space, what a wonderful view of
the world I would get."
There was a man with vision, and he converted that vision
into a new method of locomotion. And we went into space
because of his vision. That's what we need and we're counting
on the people in this room to help us achieve that kind of
vision. Our day is over. Thank you all for coming.
1ll
NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES
NATIONAL RESEARCH COUNCIL
COMMISSION ON ENGINEERING AND TECHNICAL SYSTEMS
Air Force Studies Board
Symposium on Air Force Research & Development
16 November 1987
1000
Agenda
Welcome
1005 Opening Remarks
1020 Reflections of the
Original Chairman
1030 AFSC, A Historical
Perspective
1100 Discussion
1115 Break
1130 The Ones That Didn't Fly
1200 Discussion
1215 Break
1230 Lunch
Dr. Frank Press
President, NAS
Dr. John McLucas
Chairman, AFSB
Dr. Brian O'Brien
General Schriever,
USAF Ret.
Chairman
Moderator
McLucas,
Dr. Al Flax,
Home Secretary, NAE
Chairman McLucas
1330 The Winners and Why General Marsh,
USAF Retired
112
1400 Discussion
1415 Forecast I & II
1500 Discussion
1515 Break
1530 The Future of Air Force R&D
1700 Meeting the Challenge
1730 Discussion/Closing Remarks
1800 Social Period
1900 Dinner
1945 Dinner Address
Chairman McLucas
General Skantze
Chairman McLucas
Panel of Three:
General Phillips,
USAF Retired,
Former AFSC
Commander
Dr. Gerald P. Dinneen,
VP Science and
Technology, Honeywell
Mr. Daniel J. Fink
President,
D. J. Fink Associates
General Randolph,
Commander, AFSC
Chairman McLucas
Hon. John J. Welch, Jr.
Assistant Secretary of
the Air Force
(Acquisitions)
113
Board and Committee Members/Liaisons
1962-1987
Major General Jesse M. Allen (USAF Retired)
JMA Associates, 11826 Blue Spruce Drive, Reston, VA 22091
Committee on Tactical Battle Management
Dr. John L. Allen
President, John L. Allen Associates, 1901 N. Fort Myer Drive,
Suite 1120, Arlington, VA 22209
Board Member; Committee on Aircraft and Engine Development
Testing
Dr. Carroll Alley
University of Maryland, Physics Department, Room 2121,
College Park, MD 20742
Optical Masers Panel
Dr. Sigmund J. Amster
AT&T Bell Laboratories, Crawfords Corner Road, Room 2 K 502,
Holmdel, NJ 07733
Panel on Fuel Control Systems
Mr. John Atwood
Perkin Elmer Corporation, 761 Main Avenue, Norwalk, CT
06859-0072
Subpanel on Optics
Dr. Peter L. Auer
Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, 224
Upson Hall, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY 14853
Plasma Physics Panel
Mr. David K. Barton
180 Prospect Hill Road, Harvard, MA 01451
Panel on Electromagnetic Propagation
114
Mr. Gordon Bate
Optimization Technology, Inc., 175 East Magnolia Avenue,
Auburn, AL 36830
Committee on Fault Isolation
Dr. Richard H. Battin
Charles Stark Draper Laboratory, Mail Stop 4A, 555 Technology
Square, Cambridge, MA 02139
Board Member
Dr. Everet H. Beckner
Sandia National Laboratories, Division 5000, P. O. Box 5800,
Albuquerque, NM 87185
Board Member
Dr. George A. Bekey
Professor and Chairman, Computer Science Department,
University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA 90089-0782
Committee on Advanced Robotics
Dr. Arden L. Bement, Jr.
Vice President of Technical Resources, TRW, Inc., 1900
Richmond Road, 4-W, Cleveland, OH 44124
Committee on Net Shape Technology
Mr. John Berbert
Code 634, NASA - Goddard, Greenbelt, MD 20771
Panel on Electromagnetic Propagation
Dr. Herbert L. Berk
Institute of Fusion, The University of Texas at Austin, Robert
Lee Moore Hall, Austin, TX 78712-1081
Committee on Advanced Fusion Power
Dr. Charles A. Berry
10777 Westheimer Road, Suite 935, Houston, TX 77042
Board Member
115
Dr. Robert F. Bestgen
Director, Aerospace Technology, Battelle Columbus Laboratory,
505 King Avenue, Columbus, OH 43201-2693
Committee on Hypersonic Technology
Mr. Richard A. Billings
SC/CNSI, Los Angeles Air Force Station, P. O. Box 92960, Los
Angeles, CA 90009
Committee on Optical Data Collection
Dr. David Bixler
Department of Energy, Office of Fusion Energy, DP-231, C-407,
GTN, Washington, DC 20545
Committee on Advanced Fusion Power
Mr. Barry W. Boehm
TRW, R2, Room 2086, One Space Park, Redondo Beach, CA
90275
Committee on Methods for Improving Software Quality
Mr. Seymour M. Bogdonoff
Professor, Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineer
ing, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08540
Committee on Hypersonic Technology
Mr. David A. Bonyun
Manager, Research and Development, I. P. Sharp Associates,
Limited, 265 Carling Avenue, Suite 600, Ottawa, Ontario,
Canada K1S2E1
Committee on Multilevel Data Management Security
Professor Henry G. Booker
Department of Applied Physics and Information Science, C-104,
University of California - San Diego, La Jolla, CA 92093
Engineering Panel on the PAVE PAWS Radar System
Mr. Francis Boulger
1816 Harwitch Road, Columbus, OH 43221
Committee on Net Shape Technology
116
Professor H. Kent Bowen
Ford Professor of Engineering, Building 12-011, Massachusetts
Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02139
Committee on Net Shape Technology
Mr. Martin Burg
Composite Market Reports, Inc., 7670 Opportunity Road, Suite
250, San Diego, CA 92111-2222
Panel on Future Composite Manufacturing Technology
Dr. Ronald D. Butler
AFWAL/POSH, Wright-Patterson AFB, OH 45433
Committee on Fault Isolation
Mr. John Buzawa
Trapel Incorporated, 60 O'Connor Avenue, Fairport, NY 14450
Subpanel on Optics
Mr. Dan L. Cain
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, 301-360, 4800 Oak Grove, Pasadena,
CA 91109
Panel on Tracking Data Analysis
Dr. Ali B. Cambel
CMEE Department, 801 22nd Street, N. W., Suite T-703,
Washington, DC 20052
Panel on Magnetohydrodynamics
Mr. Norman Caplan
National Science Foundation, 1800 G Street, NW, Room 1238-A,
Washington, DC 20550
Committee on Advanced Robotics
Dr. David C. Cartwright
E-527, Los Alamos National Laboratory, P. O. Box 1663, Los
Alamos, NM 87545
Committee on Advanced Fusion Power
117
Mr. Richard P. Case
IBM Research Center, 500 Columbus Avenue - 2B35, Thornwood,
NY 10594
Committee on Operational Software Management and Develop
ment
Dr. Dean R. Chapman
Professor, Departments of Aeronautics/Astronautics, and
Mechanical Engineering, Durand Building, Stanford University,
Stanford, CA 94305
Committee on Hypersonic Technology
Dr. Randall A. Chapman
Department of Nuclear Engineering, University of Illinois, 214
Nuclear Engineering Laboratory, 103 South Goodwin Avenue,
Urbana, IL 61801-2984
Committee on Advanced Fusion Power
Captain Brian E. Chappel
BMO/MYEP, Norton AFB, CA 92409-6468
Committee on Optical Data Collection
Dr. Robert F. Christy
Professor of Physics, California Institute of Technology,
Pasadena, CA 91125
Committee on Advanced Fusion Power
Dr. Marvin S. Cohen
Decision Science Consortium, 7700 Leesburg Pike, Suite 421,
Falls Church, VA 22043
Committee on Tactical Battle Management
Mr. John Coleman
3010 N. Florida Street, Arlington, VA 22205
Co-Founder
Mr. John Cornell
WSMC/ENI, Vandenberg AFB, CA 93437-6021
Committee on Optical Data Collection
118
Dr. James Cornie
Department of Metallurgy, Room 8-401, Massachusetts Institute
of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02139
Panel on Future Composite Manufacturing Technology
Mr. Eugene G. Crossland
Manager, Plans & Modernization, Materials & Manufacturing
Technology, Boeing Advanced Systems Company, Mail Stop 3305,
P. O. Box 3707, Seattle, WA 98124-2207
Panel on Future Composite Manufacturing Technology
Dr. Frank Crossman
Manager, Materials Engineering, Lockheed Missiles & Space
Company, Palo Alto Research Labs, Dept. 930-30, Bldg. 204,
3251 Hanover Street, Palo Alto, CA 94304
Panel on Future Composite Manufacturing Technology
Professor C. C. Cutler
Stanford University, Ginzton Laboratory, Stanford, CA 94305
Engineering Panel on the PAVE PAWS Radar System
Mr. Gary J. Dau
3412 Hillview Avenue, Palo Alto, CA 94304
Panel on Nondestructive Inspection
Mr. Julian Davidson
Vice President, Booz, Allen and Hamilton, Inc., 4330 East-West
Highway, Bethesda, MD 20814
Chairman Emeritus
Dr. Donald E. Davis
350 Siesta Avenue, Thousand Oaks, CA 11360
Committee on Advanced Robotics
Dr. John W. Davis
Vice President and General Manager AEDC Division, Calspan,
Arnold Air Force Base, Tullahoma, TN 37388
Committee on Aircraft and Engine Development Testing
119
Dr. Josephine D. Davis
Dean, Graduate School, Albany State College, P. O. Box 3,
Albany, GA 31705
Board Member; Committee on Tactical Battle Management
Dr. Stephen Dean
Fusion Power Associates, 2 Professional Drive, Suite 249,
Gaithersburg, MD 20879
Committee on Advanced Fusion Power
Mr. William P. Delaney
MIT Lincoln Laboratory, Room A 175, P. O. Box 73, Lexington,
MA 02173-0073
Board Member
Professor Dorothy C. Denning
Computer Science Laboratory, SRI International, 333 Ravens-
wood Avenue, Menlo Park, CA 94025
Committee on Multilevel Data Management Security
Mr. Dennis D. Doe
Vice President, Software Products Transfer, 1880 Campus
Commons Drive, Reston, VA 22091
Board Member
Mr. Paul R. Drouilhet
Assistant Director, MIT Lincoln Laboratory, P. O. Box 73,
Lexington, MA 02173
Board Member; Committee on Tactical Battle Management
Dr. Lee C. Eagleton
445 Crickewood Drive, State College, PA 16801
Board Member
Dr. Margaret A. Eastwood
Vice President and General Manager, Cimcorp Inc., 615 N.
Enterprise Street, Aurora, IL 60507-2032
Committee on Advanced Robotics
120
Dr. Seymour Edelberg
MIT Lincoln Laboratory - KB 200, P. O. Box 73, Lexington, MA
02173-0073
Committee on Optical Data Collection
Professor Ward D. Edwards
Social Sciences Research Institute, University of Southern
California, University Park, Los Angeles, CA 90089-1111
Committee on Tactical Battle Management
Mr. Joseph F. Engelberger
Chairman, Transitions Research Corporation, 15 Durant Avenue,
Bethel, CT 06801
Committee on Advanced Robotics
Mr. Gordon R. England
VP Research & Engineering, Mail Zone 424-01-07, General
Dynamics Corporation, Land Systems Division, P. O. Box 1901,
Warren, MI 48090
Committee on Fault Isolation
Dr. John M. Evans
President, Transitions Research Corporation, 15 Durant Avenue,
Bethel CT 06801
Committee on Advanced Robotics
General William J. Evans (USAF Retired)
Vice President, United Technologies Corporation, United
Technologies Building, Hartford, CT 06101
Committee on Tactical Battle Management
Mr. Robert R. Everett
President, The MITRE Corporation, Burlington Road, Bedford,
MA 01730
CETS Liaison
Dr. Charles F. Fanning
197 Park Avenue, Bridgewater, MA 02324
Committee on Fault Isolation
121
Craig L. Fischer, M.D.
47-001 Monroe Street, Suite 104, Indio, CA 92201
Board Member
Dr. Richard G. Folsom
585 Oakville Crossroad, Napa, CA 94558
Board Member; Panel on Laser Mirror Reliability
Mr. T. K. Fowler
Lawrence Radiation Laboratory, L-640, P. O. Box 808, Liver-
more, CA 94550
Plasma Physics Panel
Mr. Robert P. Frankenthal
AT&T Bell Laboratories, Room 1D352, 600 Mountain Avenue,
Murray Hill, NJ 07974
Panel on Laser Mirror Reliability
Dr. Donald C. Fraser
Vice President, Technical Operations, Charles Stark Draper
Laboratory, MS 02, 555 Technology Square, Cambridge, MA
02139
Committee on Hypersonic Technology
Dr. William Frederick
OSD/SDIO/SN, Assistant Director, Sensor Technology, The
Pentagon, Room 1E 168, Washington, DC 20301-7100
Committee on Optical Data Collection
Dr. Allen Fuhs
25932 Carmel Knolls Drive, Carmel, CA 93921
Propulsion Panel
Dr. John K. Gait
Bell Telephone Laboratories, Mountain Avenue, Murray Hill, NJ
07974
Plume Emissions Panel
122
Dr. Om P. Gandhi
Department of Electrical and Bioengineering, University of
Utah, Salt Lake City, UT 84112
Engineering Panel on the PAVE PAWS Radar System
Dr. Lester A. Gerhardt
Chairman, Electrical, Computer, and Systems Engineering
Department, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, NY 12180
Committee on Advanced Robotics
Dr. M. Gottlieb
14 Mershon Drive, Princeton, NJ 08540
Plasma Physics Panel
Dr. R. Earl Good
Director, Optical Physics Division, AFGL/OP, Hanscom AFB, MA
01731
Committee on Optical Data Collection
Dr. Roy Gould
Department of Engineering 128-95, California Institute of
Technology, Pasadena, CA 91125
Plasma Physics Panel
Mr. Gary M. Grann
Technical Director, ESD/XR, Hanscom Air Force Base, MA 01731
Committee on Tactical Battle Management
Dr. Nicholas J. Grant
Professor, Department of Materials Science and Engineering,
Room 8-407, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge,
MA 02139
Committee on Hypersonic Technology
Dr. C. Cordell Green
Director, Kestrel Institute, 1801 Page Mill Road, Palo Alto, CA
94304
Board Member
123
Captain Kirk E. Hackett
AFWL/AWPP, Kirtland AFB, NM 87117-6008
Committee on Advanced Fusion Power
Mr. Richard Hadcock
Director of Advanced Development, Grumman Aerospace
Corporation, Mail Stop B 28/25, Bethpage, NY 11714
Panel on Future Composite Manufacturing Technology
Mr. Ronald D. Haggarty
Chief Engineer, MITRE Corporation, Mail Stop A 235, Burling
ton Road, Bedford, MA 01730
Committee on Fault Isolation
Dr. John C. Hancock
Executive Vice President, Corporation of Development and
Technology, United Telecommunications Inc., Box 11315, Kansas
City, MO 64112
Committee on Multilevel Data Management Security
Mr. Dean K. Hanink
145 Maple Crest Drive, Carmel, IN 46032
Committee on Net Shape Technology
Dr. Grant L. Hansen
10737 Fuerte Drive, La Mesa, CA 92041
Board Member; Committee on Tactical Battle Management; Panel
on Strategic Mobile Target Detection
Dr. Donald W. Hanson
RADC/OCSP, Griffiss AFB, NY 13441-5700
Committee on Optical Data Collection
Dr. William J. Harris, Jr.
Department of Civil Engineering, Texas A & M University, 517
D, Blocker Building, College Station, TX 77843
Panel on Nondestructive Inspection
124
Dr. Fred Hawthorne
Department of Chemistry, UCLA, Los Angeles, CA 90024
Plume Emissions Panel
LtGen Richard C. Henry (USAF Retired)
81 Angelo Walk, Long Beach, CA 90803
Committee on Hypersonic Technology
Dr. Philip D. Henshaw
Division Manager, Sensor Technology Division, SPARTA, Inc., 21
Worthen Road, Lexington, MA 02173
Committee on Optical Data Collection
Mr. William C. Hittinger
149 Bellevue Avenue, Summit, NJ 07901
Board Member
Dr. Nathan J. Hoffman
Rockwell International, ETEC, P. O. Box 1449, Canoga Park, CA
91304
Committee on Advanced Fusion Power
Dr. Robert E. Hopkins
49 Reservoir Avenue, Rochester, NY 14620
Panel on Cloudcroft Surveillance Site and Optical Science
Laboratory
Mr. Richard E. Horner
1581 Via Entrada Del Lago, Lake San Marcos, CA 92069-5262
Board Member
Mr. Dean Howard
Code 5330, Naval Research Laboratory, Washington, DC 20375
Panel on Electromagnetic Propagation
Mr. Benjamin Huberman
Vice President, The Consultants International Group, 1616 H
Street, N. W., Suite 400, Washington, D. C. 20006
Board Member; Committee on Optical Data Collection; Commit
tee on Technology Assessment
125
Dr. Erich P. Ippen
Professor of Electrical Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of
Technology, Cambridge, MA 02139
Board Member, Committee on Optical Data Collection
Dr. Ira David Jacobson
Director, Center for Computer Aided Engineering, Department
of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, University of
Virginia, Charlottesville, VA 22901
Committee on Advanced Robotics
Dr. Robert I. Jaffee
Electric Power Research Institute, 3412 Nillview Avenue, P. O.
Box 10412, Palo Alto, CA 94304
Panel on Magnetohydrodynamics
Mr. Robert L. Johnson
5304 West 62d Street, Edina, MN 55436
Panel on Fuel Control Systems
Dr. William Johnson
Search Technology, Inc., 5550A Peachtree Parkway, Suite 500,
Technology Park/Summit, Norcross, GA 30092
Committee on Fault Isolation
Mr. Joseph Kaplan
Physics Department, University of California, Los Angeles, CA
90032
Committee on Atmospheric Sciences
Mr. Richard W. Karman
RADC/OCSP, Griffiss AFB, NY 13441
Committee on Optical Data Collection
Ms. Iris M. Kameny
The Rand Corporation, 1700 Main Street, P. O. Box 2138, Santa
Monica, CA 90406-2138
Committees on Tactical Battle Management, Technology
Assessment
126
Dr. Jack L. Kerrebrock
Associate Dean of Engineering, Room 1-206, Massachusetts
Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02139
Committees on Hypersonic Technology, Aircraft and Engine
Development Testing
Mr. Frank Stevens Kirkham
Mail Stop 411, NASA/Langley Research Center, Hampton, VA
23665
Committee on Aircraft and Engine Development Testing
Dr. Kenneth E. Kissell
Physical and Astronomy Department, University of Maryland,
College Park, MD 20742
Committee on Optical Data Collection
Dr. Robert H. Korkegi
Aeronautics and Space Engineering Board, National Research
Council, 2101 Constitution Avenue, N.W., Washington, DC 20418
Committee on Hypersonic Technology
Dr. Lorenz A. Kull
Chief Operating Officer, Executive Vice President, Science
Applications International Corporation, 10260 Campus Point
Drive, San Diego, CA 92121
Board Member; Committee on Advanced Fusion Power
Dr. Russell M. Kulsrud
Princeton University, Plasma Physics Laboratory, P. O. Box 451,
Princeton, NJ 08544
Committee on Advanced Fusion Power
Mr. Edward L. Lafferty
Technical Director, MITRE Corporation, Burlington Road, Mail
Stop A-350, Bedford, MA 01730
Committee on Methods for Improving Software Quality
127
Mr. Keith Lampson
Chief Metallurgist, Marquardt Company, 16555 Saticoy Street,
P.O. Box 9104, Van Ni y*, CA 91409-9104
Committee on Net Shape Technology
Dr. John K. Lauber
National Transportation Safety Board, 800 Independence Avenue,
S. W., Washington, D C. 20594
Board Member
LtGen Howard W. Leaf (USAF Retired)
The BDM Corporation, 7915 Jones Branch Drive, McLean, VA
22102
Committees on Advanced Robotics, Tactical Battle Management
Mr. Sylvester Lee
AFWAL/MLTM, Wright Patterson AFB, OH 45433
Committee on Advanced Robotics
Dr. Jurn-Sun Leung
General Research Corporation, 240 N. Nash Street, El Segundo,
CA 90245
Committee on Accuracy of Time Transfer in Satellite Systems
Mr. George J. Levenbach
229 Union Avenue, New Providence, NJ 07974
Committee on Mechanical Reliability
Mr. Courtland S. Lewis
485 1-B South 28th Street, Arlington, VA 22206
Committee on Tactical Battle Management
Dr. Frederick F. Ling
William Howard Hart Professor and Chairman, Department of
Mechanical Engineering, Aeronautical Engineering and Mechan
ics, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, NY 12181
Panel on Fuel Control Systems
128
Captain Mary E. Livingston
HQ, AFSC/DLXP, Andrews Air Force Base, MD 20334-5000
Committee on Tactical Battle Management
Mr. Hylan B. Lyon
North Texas Commission, P.O. Box 610246, Dallas-Ft. Worth
Airport, Texas 75261
Committee on Fault Isolation
Dr. Artur Mager
1353 Woodruff Avenue, Los Angeles, CA 90024
Committee on Hypersonic Technology
Captain Bettina Males
HQ, TAC USAF, JSG/XP, Langley Air Force Base, VA 23665
Committee on Tactical Battle Management
Mr. Thomas Malone
Travelers Insurance Company Annuity Services - 5 NB, Tower
Square, Hartford, CT 06183
Committee on Atmospheric Sciences
Dr. James W. Mar
Hunsaker Professor of Aerospace Education, Department of
Aeronautics and Astronautics, Massachusetts Institute of
Technology, Cambridge, MA 02139
Board Member; Committee on Hypersonic Technology
Dr. Frank E. Marble
Richard L. Hayman and Dorothy M. Hayman Professor of
Mechanical Engineering and Professor of Jet Propulsion, MS
205-45, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA 91125
Committee on Hypersonic Technology
Dr. William Markowitz
2800 East Sun Rise, Fort Lauderdale, FL 33304
Panel on Basic Measurements
129
Dr. John J. Martin
7818 Fulbright Court, Bethesda, MD 20817
Board Member; Committees on Fault Isolation, Tactical Battle
Management, Optical Data Collection; Panel on Electronic
Warfare
Dr. Gary D. Mather
President, Applied Sciences Center, Booz, Allen & Hamilton,
Inc., 4330 East-West Highway, Suite 800, Bethesda, MD 20814
Board Member
General Robert C. Mathis (USAF Retired)
515 Shaw Road, Sterling, VA 22170-9402
Board Member; Committee on Fault Isolation; Panels on
Strategic Mobile Targets, Electronic Warfare
Mr. Kenneth S. McAlpine
5115 Fifteenth Street, N, Arlington, VA 22205
Director Emeritus
Mr. Richard D. McLain
Section Chief, Small Engine Controls, Allison Gas Turbine, P.O.
Box 420, Speed Code T-12, Indianapolis, IN 46206-0420
Panel on Fuel Control Systems
Dr. John L. McLucas
Chairman, QuesTech Incorporated, 6858 Old Dominion Drive,
McLean, VA 22101
Chairman
Dr. Brockway McMillan
P.O. Box 27, Sedgwick, ME 04676
Chairman Emeritus; Committee on Accuracy of Time Transfer in
Satellite Systems; Engineering Panel on PAVE PAWS Radar
System
Mr. Duane T. McRuer
President, Systems Technologies, Inc., 13766 S. Hawthorne
Blvd., Hawthorne, CA 90250
Committee on Hypersonic Technology
130
Mr. Franklin B. Mead, Jr.
AFAL/LKC, Edwards AFB, CA 93523-5000
Committee on Advanced Fusion Power
Dr. Robert Mehrabian
Dean College of Engineering, Engineering One Building, Room
1016, University of California, Santa Barbara, CA 93106
Committee on Net Shape Technology
Dr. A. B. Meinel
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, 4800 Oak Grove Drive, 186-134,
Pasadena, CA 91109
Subpanel on Optics
Dr. George H. Miley
University of Illinois, 103 South Goodwin Street, Mail Stop 214,
Urbana, IL 61801
Committee on Advanced Fusion Power
Mr. Chester W. Miller
11215 Caravel Circle, SW, Ft. Myers, FL 33908
Committee on Aircraft and Engine Development Testing
Mr. Edward F. Miller, Jr.
Software Research, Incorporated, 625 3rd Street, San Francisco,
CA 94107
Committee on Methods for Improving Software Quality
Mr. Hugh Miller
4109 Great Oak Road, Rockville, MD 20853
Board Member
Mr. Elmer Mitchell
U. S. Army Strategic Defense Command, DASD-H-YD, P. O. Box
1500, Huntsville, AL 35801-3801
Committee on Optical Data Collection
131
Mr. John H. Monahan
Vice President for Operations, The MITRE Corporation,
Burlington Road, Bedford, MA 01730
Committee on Tactical Battle Management
Dr. Melvin D. Montemerlo
NASA Headquarters, Code RC, Washington, DC 20546
Committee on Advanced Robotics
Dr. Donald W. Moon
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, P. O. Box 5508, Mail
Stop L-482, University of California, Livermore, CA 94550
Panel on Laser Mirror Reliability
Mr. Robert Morris
EMSP Control and Diagnostic Software Group, Bell Telephone
Laboratories, Inc., 1 Whippany Road, Whipany, NJ 07981
Committee on Multilevel Data Management Security
Dr. Walter E. Morrow, Jr.
MIT Lincoln Laboratory, 244 Wood Street, Lexington, MA 02173
Board Member; Committee on Technology Assessment
Dr. George E. Mueller
President and CEO, George E. Mueller Corporation, P. O. Box
5856, Santa Barbara, CA 93108
Board Member
Mr. John B. Munson
UNISYS, 600 Gemini, Huston, TX 77058-2777
Committee on Operational Software Management and Develop
ment
Dr. Roger N. Nagel
Lehigh University, Harold S. Mohler Laboratory #200, Beth
lehem, PA 18015
Committee on Advanced Robotics
132
Dr. F. Robert Naka
Vice President, Engineering & Planning, GTE Government
Systems Corporation, 100 First Avenue, Waltham, MA 02254
Board Member
Mr. Robert G. Naum
Applied Resources, Incorporated, P. O. Box 241, Pittsford, NY
14534
Panel on Laser Mirror Reliability
Mrs. Hyla S. Napadensky
Napadensky Engineers, Inc., 650 Judson Avenue, Evanston, IL
60202-2551
Board Member; CETS Liaison
Mr. George W. Neumann
Vice President, Giordano Associates, Inc., Suite 1419, 2301
Jefferson Davis Highway, Arlington, VA 22202
Committee on Fault Isolation
Dr. Peter G. Neumann
Assistant Director, Computer Science Laboratory, SRI Inter
national - BN 168, 333 Ravenswood Avenue, Menlo Park, CA
94025
Committee on Multilevel Data Management Security
Mr. David Norris
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, 4800 Oak Grove Drive, MS 264-654,
Pasadena, CA 91109
Committee on Optical Data Collection
Dr. Brian O'Brien
P.O. Box 166, Woodstock, CT 06281
Founder; Chairman Emeritus; Optical Maser Panel
Mr. Brian O'Brien, Jr.
P. O. Box 12, Fabyan, CT 06245
Committee on Optical Data Collection
133
Dr. Frederic C. E. Oder
400 San Domingo Way, Los Altos, CA 94022
Board Member
Mr. Abe Offner
Perkin Elmer Corporation, 761 Main Avenue, Norwalk, CT
06859-0229
Subpanel on Optics
Mr. Richard P. Parten
Lockheed Engineering and Management Company, A-22, 2400
NASA Road -1, Huston, TX 77058
Committee on Operational Software Management and Develop
ment
Dr. Jennie R. Patrick
Rohm and Haas Company, Bristol Research Laboratories, P.O.
Box 219, Bristol, PA 19007
Board Member
Dr. Stuart L. Petrie
Sverdrup Technologies, 16530 Commerce Court, P. O. Box 30650
Midpark Branch, Middleburg Heights, OH 44130
Committee on Aircraft and Engine Development Testing
Dr. Henry Plotkin
Code 700, Assistant Director, Development Projects in Engi
neering Directorate, NASA/GSE, Greenbelt, MD 20771
Panel on Electromagnetic Propagation
Dr. Richard F. Post
University of California, L-644, Lawrence Radiation Laboratory,
P. O. Box 808, Livermore, CA 94551
Plasma Physics Panel
Mr. H. Postma
Oak Ridge National Laboratory, P. O. Box X, Oak Ridge, TN
37831-6255
Plasma Physics Panel
134
Dr. James R. Powell, Jr.
T-318, Department of Nuclear Energy, Bldg 701, Brookhaven
National Laboratory, Upton, NY 11973
Committee on Advanced Fusion Power
Mr. C. V. Ramamorrthy
1117 Sierra Vist Way, Lafayette, CA 94549
Committee on Methods for Improving Software Quality
Dr. W. Duncan Rannie
205-45, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA 91125
Propulsion Panel
LtCol Vincent L. Rausch
AFSC/NAI, Wright-Patterson AFB, OH 45433-6503
Committee on Hypersonic Technology
Dr. Robert Rosenfeld
DARPA, 1400 Wilson Blvd., Arlington, VA 22209-2308
Committee on Advanced Robotics
Dr. J. Reece Roth
Department of Electrical Engineering, Ferris Hall, University of
Tennessee, Knoxville, TN 37996-2100
Committee on Advanced Fusion Power
Dr. Albert C. Saxman
Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos, NM 87545
Panel on Laser Mirror Reliability
Mr. Marvin Schaefer
DOD Computer Security Center, 9800 Savage Road, Fort Meade,
MD 20755
Committee on Multilevel Data Management Security
Dr. A. Richard Seebass
Dean, College of Engineering and Applied Science, Campus Box
422, University of Colorado, Boulder, CO 80309
Board Member
135
Dr. Frederick Seitz
Rockefeller University, 1230 York Avenue, New York, NY 10021
Board Member
Dr. George K. Serovy
Department of Mechanical Engineering, Iowa State University,
Room 3038, Ames, IA 5001 1
Propulsion Panel
Professor Aly Shabaik
6531 Boelter Hall, School of Engineering, University of
California, Los Angeles, CA 90024
Committee on Net Shape Technology
Dr. Charles V. Shank
AT&T Bell Laboratories, Room 4E-436, Crawfords Corner Road,
Holmdel, NJ 07733
Board Member; Committees on Tactical Battle Management,
Aircraft and Engine Development Testing
Professor Robert R. Shannon
Optical Science Center, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ
85721
Panel on Laser Mirror Reliability
Mr. John E. Short
221 Stanford Place, Springfield, OH 45503
Committee on Mechanical Reliability
Dr. Frederick Simmons
The Aerospace Corporation, P. O. Box 92957, MI- 126, Los
Angeles, CA 90009
Plume Emissions Panel
Dr. Ronald Smelt
P. O. Box AG, Watsonville, CA 95077
Committee on Hypersonic Technology
136
Mr. Yale Smith
RADC/COAD, Griffiss Air Force Base, NY 13441-5700
Committee on Tactical Battle Management
Dr. L. D. Smoot
Clyde Building, Department of Chemical Engineering Science,
Brigham Young University, Provo, UT 84602
Plume Emissions Panel
Mr. Richard D. Somers
Senior Research Engineer, Automation and Data Systems,
Division 05, Southwest Research Institute, P. O. Drawer 28510,
6220 Culebra Road, San Antonio, TX 78284
Committee on Fault Isolation
Mr. Patrick Squires
National Center for Atmospheric Research, P. O. Box 3000,
Boulder, CO 80307
Committee on Atmospheric Sciences
Mr. William E. Stanton
Charles Stark Draper Laboratory, MS 06, 555 Technology
Square, Cambridge, MA 02139
Committee on Fault Isolation
Dr. Morris A. Steinberg
348 Homewood Road, Los Angeles, CA 90049
Committees on Hypersonic Technology, Net Shape Technology,
and Laser Mirror Reliability
Mr. Robertson Stevens
Section Chief, Communications Elements Research, 4800 Oak
Grove Drive, Mail Stop - 264/800, Pasadena, CA 91109
Panel on Electromagnetic Propagation
Dr. Philip M. Stone
Department of Energy, Office of Fusion Energy, ER-532,
Washington, DC 20545
Committee on Advanced Fusion Power
137
Mr. Greg Stottlemeyer
SDIO/S/ES, The Pentagon, Washington, DC 20301-7100
Committee on Net Shape Technology
Dr. A. W. Straiton
4212 Far West Boulevard, Austin, TX 78731
Panel on Electromagnetic Propagation
Dr. Allen R. Stubberud
Director, Division of Electrical, Communications & Systems,
National Science Foundation, 1800 G Street, NW, Room 1151,
Washington, D. C. 20550
Committee on Advanced Robotics
Dr. P. A. Sturrock
Astrophysics, ERL Building Room 306, Stanford University,
Stanford, CA 94305
Plasma Physics Panel
Dr. Paul A. Temple
Naval Weapons Center, Code 38104, China Lake, CA 93555
Committee on Optical Data Collection
Dr. Delbert Tesar
Department of Mechanical Engineering, ETCH 5.160, University
of Texas, Austin, TX 78712-1063
Committee on Advanced Robotics
Dr. Donald O. Thompson
Iowa State University, Ames Laboratory 231 Sedding, Ames, IA
50011
Panel on Nondestructive Inspection
Mr. Phillip Thompson
National Center for Atmospheric Research, P. O. Box 3000,
Boulder, CO 80307
Committee on Atmospheric Sciences
138
Dr. Joseph E. Urban
Chairman, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering,
University of Miami, P. O. Box 248294, Coral Gables, FL 33124
Board Member; Committee on Advanced Robotics
Dr. Charles R. Vick
P. O. Box 949, Auburn, AL 36831
Board Member
Dr. Oswald G. Villard, Jr.
Professor, Electrical Engineering Department, Stanford Univer
sity, and Senior Scientific Advisor, SRI International, 333
Ravenswood Avenue, Menlo Park, CA 94025
Board Member
Dr. Starnes Walker
Phillips Petroleum Company, 116 AL, Phillips Research Center,
Bartlesville, OK 74004
Committee on Advanced Fusion Power
Major General Brien D. Ward (USAF Retired)
Boeing Airplane Company, P. O. Box 3707, MS 4R-36, Seattle,
WA 98124
Committee on Optical Data Collection
Dr. Willis Ware
The Rand Corporation, 1700 Main Street, Santa Monica, CA
90406
Board Member
Mr. Lawrence M. Weeks
NASA Headquarters, 600 Independence Ave., SW, Washington,
DC 20546
Committee on Hypersonic Technology
Mr. Clark Weissman
Deputy Division Manager and Chief Technologist, Research and
Development Division, System Development Corporation, 2400
Colorado Avenue, Santa Monica, CA 90406
Committee on Multilevel Data Management Security
139
Dr. Robert A. White
College of Engineeering, Department of Mech. and Industrial
Engineering, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, 144
Mechanical Engineering Bldg., 1206 West Green Street, Urbana,
IL 61801
Board Member; Committees on Aircraft and Engine Development
Testing, Hypersonic Technology
Dr. Eugene Wigner
Physics Department, Princeton University, P. O. Box 708,
Princeton, NJ 08544
Advisory Committee to the AFSC
Dr. Ben L. Williams
AFALC/ER, Building 15, Room 133, Wright-Patterson AFB, OH
45433
Committee on Advanced Robotics
Dr. Gemot M. R. Winkler
Director, Time Service Department, U. S. Naval Observatory,
34th and Massachusetts Ave., NW, Washington, DC 20392-5100
Committee on Accuracy of Time Transfer in Satellite Systems
Dr. Jack K. Wolf
Professor, Center for Magnetic Recording Research, University
of California at San Diego, Mail Stop R-001, La Jolla, CA 92093
Committee on Tactical Battle Management
Dr. Raymond T. Yeh
ISSI, 9420 Research Blvd., Suite 200, Austin, TX 78759-6539
Committee on Methods for Improving Software Quality
Dr. Laurence R. Young
Starlab, Durand Building, Room 202, Stanford University,
Stanford, CA 94305
Board Member
140
Mr. Thomas M. Zakrzewski
Vice President, Nichols Research Corporation, 8618 Westwood
Center Drive, Suite 200, Vienna, VA 22180-2222
Committee on Optical Data Collection
Air Force Studies Board Staff
Vernon H. Miles, Sr., Director
Donald L. Whittaker, Assistant to the Director/Editor
Katherine H. Atkins, Secretary
141
Reports by the Air Force Studies Board
1961-1987
1987 Advanced Fusion Power, October (U)
1986 Isolation of Faults in Air Force Weapons and Support
Systems, Vol. /, (U) April
Isolation of Faults in Air Force Weapons and Support
Systems, Vol. //, (U) July
Aircraft and Engine Development Testing, (U) September
Accuracy of Time Transfer in Satellite Systems, (U)
September
Net Shape Technology in Aerospace Structures, 4 vols, (U)
Nov-Dec.
1985 Methods for Improving Software Quality and Life Cycle
Cost, (U) January
Report of the Panel on Laser Mirror Reliability, (NFD)
August
1984 Advanced Airborne Surveillance Radar Report, (S) July
1983 Final Report on the Fuel Control System of the F100
Engine, (U) April
Multilevel Data Management Security, (U) 1982 Woods Hole
Summer Study, June
Final Report on the Effectiveness of the AF Nondestructive
Inspection Program, (U) October
142
1982 The Effectiveness of the Air Force Nondestructive Inspec
tion Management, (U) March
Automation in Combat Aircraft, (NFD) March
1981 Survivable Tactical and Strategic C3I Systems, (S) Woods
Hole 1979 Summer Study, March
Fuel Control System of the F100 Engine, Panel on Fuel
Control Systems, (U) July
1980 Detection and Tracking of Cruise Missiles, (S) Woods Hole
1978 Summer Study, April
Final Report of the Committee on E-3A Radar, (SNF)
March
1979 Radiation Intensity of the PAVE PAWS Radar System, (U)
April
Toward an Effective and Reliable ch System for the
USAF, (S) June
Pulsed Power Sources, (S) Summer Study, November
1978 Air Force Technological Tradeoffs Panel Report, Follow-up
to Reliability in Aeronautical Avionics Equipment (1975),
(U) October
1977 Operational Software Management and Development of
USAF Computer Systems, (U) Woods Hole Summer Study
1976, August
Data Link Technology Panel Report, Letter Report, (C)
December
1975 Reliability in Aeronautical Avionics Equipment, (U) Air
Force Technological Tradeoffs Panel, July
143
Transonic Axial-Flow Compressor Configurations for Air
craft Propulsion Systems, (C/NFD) Propulsion Panel,
September
1974 Report of the Propulsion Panel, (U) August
1973 Have Flood, Propulsion Panel, (C) March
Progress Report on the Range Measurements Laboratory,
(U) April
Final Report of the Systran Panel, (U) April
Report of the Plume Emissions Panel, (U) June
Report of the Propulsion Panel, (U) August
1972 Air Force Office of Scientific Research Workshop on
Environmental Quality Research, Letter Report, (U)
September
1971 Report of the Propulsion Panel on the Compressor Research
Facility, (U) February
Preliminary Report of the Systran Panel, (U) July
Final Report of the Recognition Panel, (S) November
Final Report of the Magnetic Materials Panel, (U) Decem
ber
1970 Report of the Academic Community Relationships Panel, (U)
January
Report of the Optical Maser Panel, (U) February
Final Report of the Magnetohydrodynamic Panel, (U)
September
144
Report of the Propulsion Panel on Jet Engines, (U)
November
1969 Reconnaissance in Limited War, (S) Limited War Panel,
March
Investigation of the Prediction Accuracy of Low Altitude
Passive Satellite Orbits by the Air Force Eastern Test
Range, (S) Final Report of the Satellite Tracking Accuracy
Panel, June
1968 Final Report Aspects of ABRES and NIKE-X Flight Test
Programs, (S) Re-Entry Physics Panel, January
Progress Report of the Satellite Tracking Accuracy Panel,
(U) February
Report on Programs at Aerojet-General, San Ramon
Research Operation, (U) Plasma Physics Panel, February
Limited War Operations, (S) Limited War Panel, March
Weapons Delivery, (S) Limited War Panel, June
Report on Beacons, (S) Limited War Panel, July
Comments on Plan for Mobilization of Drafted Scientists
and Engineers in AFSC, (U) July
Synthetic Aperture Optics, Vol. 1-2, (U) Woods Hole Summer
Study, August
Synthetic Aperture Optics, Supp. to Vol. 2, (S) October
1967 Review of Radar Discrimination and its Implications on
Minuteman III Penetration Concept, (S-RD) Re-Entry
Physics Panel, January
Avalanche Photodiodes as Optical Detectors, (U) June
145
Optical Instrumentation Panel Report, (U) June
Relations with the Scientific Community, (U) Academic
Community Relations Panel, June
Re-Entry Physics Panel Report, (S) July
Memo Report Concerning the Possibility of USAF Exploi
tation of the Automation Art, (U) July
Report by the Ad Hoc Panel Review on the Cloudcroft
Facility, (U) Ad Hoc Panel on Cloudcroft, October
Report of the Re-Entry Physics Panel, (S) November
Report by the Reconnaissance Panel, (S) November
1966 Recommendations Relative to Electro-Optical Surveillance
Research Facility at Cloudcroft, N.M., (U) Optical Maser
Panel, February
Summary Report, (S) Special Ad Hoc Panel, February
Incremental Flight Test Program Review, (U) Scramjet
Panel, March
Report to HELP Task Force, (U) Optical Maser Panel,
March
Special Memorandum Report, (U) Reconnaissance Panel,
June
Restoration of Atmospherically Degraded Images, Vol. 1-4,
(U) Woods Hole Summer Study, July
Partial Highlights: Re-Entry Physics Panel Report of
Summer Study Working Group, (S-RD) August
Special Memorandum Report, (S) Reconnaissance Panel,
August
146
Summary Report on Scramjet Panel Meeting of September
1966 (U)
Review of the AGN High Temperature Plasma Research Pro
gram, (U) Plasma Physics Panel, December
1965 An Evaluation of the TJ60 Program of the Wright Aero
nautical Division, (C) June
ABRES Developments to 25 June 1965, (S) Re-Entry Physics
Panel, July
Report of the Panel on Optical Instrumentation, (U) August
Report of the Optical Maser Panel, (U) August
Systems Analyses Associated with ABRES, (S-RD) Re-Entry
Physics Panel, September
Report of the Optical Maser Panel, (U) December
Progress Report of the Scramjet Panel, (U) December
1964 Final Report of the Panel on Tracking Data Analysis, (U)
June
Report of the Panel on Optical Instrumentation, (U) June
Report on Atmospheric Sciences for the AFSC, (U) Woods
Hole Summer Study, August
Project Sand Dollar (S)
1963 Report of the Panel on Optical Instrumentation, (U) Octo
ber
Some Initial Reactions to Projects PRESS and LORV in the
Light of REX-1 and REX-2, Re-Entry Physics Panel, (S-RD)
October)
147
1962 Report of the Ad Hoc Panel on Electromagnetic Propa
gation (U)
1961 Report of the Ad Hoc Panel on Basic Measurements, (U)
December
148
Biographies of the Speakers
Dr. Gerald P. Dinneen
Vice President, Science and Technology, Honeywell, Inc.
Born Elmhurst, New York, October 23, 1924; B.S., Queens
College, 1947; M.S., University of Wisconsin, 1948; PhD, math
ematics, 1952; teaching assistant, mathematics, University of
Wisconsin 1947-51; senior developing engineer, Goodyear Aircraft
Corporation, Ohio 1951-53; staff member, MIT Lincoln Laboratory,
1953-58, section leader data processing group, 1958, from
assistant leader to leader, 1958-60, associate head information
processing division 1960-63 and communications division, 1963-64,
head 1964-66, from assistant director to associate director, 1966-
70; professor of electrical engineering, MIT, 1971-77; assistant
secretary of defense for cVDepartment of Defense, 1977-81;
Corporate Vice President Science and Technology, Honeywell,
Inc., 1981- .
Consultant, Air Force Scientific Advisory Board, 1959-60,
member electronics panel, 1960-65 and chairman information
processing panel, 1963-65; member, Defense Intelligence Agency
Scientific Advisory Committee, 1965-66; vice chairman, 1966-73;
member Defense Scientific Board panels, 1966-67; chairman, Air
Force Scientific Advisory Board 1975-77. Member, board of
directors, Votan & Sci Mus Minn, Microelectronics & Computer
Technology Corporation, Honeywell Foundation.
Honors and Awards: Decoration Exceptional Civilian
Service, Air Force, 1966 and 1977. Member: National Academy of
Engineering; American Mathematics Society.
149
Daniel J. Fink
Daniel J. Fink Associates
Born Jersey City, New Jersey, December 13, 1926; ,B.S.,
aeronautical engineering, MIT, 1948, M.S., 1949; aeromechanics
engineer, Cornell Aeronautical Laboratory, Buffalo, New York,
1948; group leader, aircraft dynamics, Bell Aircraft Corporation,
1949-52; various positions to vice president, Allied Research
Associates, Inc., 1952-63; assistant director for defensive systems,
deputy director of defense research and engineering for strategic
and space systems, 1963-67; research and development, Space
Systems, Valley Forge Space Center, General Electric; general
manager, Space Systems Organization, GE, 1967-69; vice president
and general manager, Space Division, GE, 1969-77; vice president
and group executive, Aerospace Group, GE, 1977-79; senior vice
president, corporate planning and development, GE, 1979-82;
president, D. J. Fink Associates, Inc., 1982- .
Honors: Collier Trophy, 1974, Distinguished Public Service
Medal; Honorary Fellow, AIAA; Fellow, AAAS; MIT Aeronautics
Department Honors Group; Recipient of Goodyear Fellowship; Tau
Beta Pi, and Sigma Xi. Member, National Academy of Engineer
ing, president, AIAA; Defense Science Board, Army Scientific
Advisory Board. Corresponding member of the International
Academy of Astronautics of the International Astronautical
Federation, and chairman of the AIAA Committee on International
Cooperation in Space. Board of Governors of the National Space
Club. Member emeritus, AIAA Board of Directors.
150
Alexander H. Flax
Home Secretary, National Academy of Engineering
Born Brooklyn, January 18, 1921; B.S, aeronautical engin
eering, New York University, 1940; Ph.D., physics, University of
Buffalo, 1958; structure and vibration engineering, airplane
division, Curtiss-Wright Corporation, 1940-44; chief, aerodynamics
and structures, Piasecki Helicopter Corporation, 1944-46; assistant
head aeromechanics department Cornell Aeronautical Laboratory,
1946-49, head aerodynamics department, 1949-55, assistant
director, 1955-56, vice president, technical director, 1956-59, 61-
63; chief scientist, Air Force, 1959-61; assistant secretary Air
Force for R&D, 1963-69; vice presideent for research, Institute
for Defense Analyses, Arlington, Virginia, 1969, President, 1969- ;
Honors: Recipient Air Force Exceptional Civilian Service
awards, 1961, 1969; NASA Distinguished Service medal, 1968;
Civilian Service medal, Defense Intelligence Agency, 1974; Von
Karman medal NATO Advisory Group for Aerospace Research and
Development, 1978; Medal for Distinguished Public Service
Department of Defense, 1983. Member, committee aerodynamics
NACA, 1952-54, subcommittee highspeed aerodynamics, 1954-58;
advisory committee aircraft aerodynamics NASA, 1958-62; rep
resentative, SHAPE Tech. Center, The Hague, Netherlands, 1963-
69, Chairman 1965-67; U.S. delegate to advisory committee
aeronautical research and development, NATO, 1969- ; Board of
Directors, Von Karman Institute, Brussels, 1969- ; advisory
council, Stanford University School of Engineering, 1981- . Hon.
fellow AIAA (Lawrence Sperry award 1949, Wright Bros, lectr.
1959); fellow Royal Aeronautical Society (Wright Brothers
Memorial Lecturer, 1974); member National Academy of Engineer
ing.
151
Robert T. Marsh
Former Commander, Air Force Systems Command
Born Logansport, Indiana, January 3, 1925; student, Wabash
College, 1943; U.S. Army, 1943-45; B.S., U.S. Military Academy
1949; M.S. engineering, University of Michigan, 1956; postgrad
uate, Air Command and Staff College 1960, Air War College, 1965;
commissioned 2d liutenant, USAF, 1949, promoted to general,
1970; space systems project officer, HQ, Space Systems division,
Los Angeles Air Force Station, 1960-64; staff officer, Directorate
of Reconnaissance & Electronic Warfare, USAF; chief, Projects
Division, Directorate of Space, Office of Deputy Chief of Staff
for Research & Development, HQ USAF, Washington 1965-67;
executive officer staff, development plans, HQ, AFSC, Andrews
AFB, Maryland, 1973, deputy chief of staff, Systems 1973-75, vice
commander, 1975-77; commander, Electronic Systems Division,
Hanscom AFB, Massachusetts, 1977-81, Air Force Systems
Command, 1977-81.
Honors: Legion of Merit, Distinguished Service Medal with
oak leaf cluster.
152
Dr. Brian O'Brien
Founder and Former Chairman
Air Force Studies Board
Born, January 2, 1898; Ph.D., electrical engineering, Yale,
1918; Ph.D. Yale, Physics, 1922; Research Engineer, Westinghouse
Electric and Manufacturing Company, 1922-23; Research Physicist,
Buffalo Tuberculosis Association, 1923-27; Physicist and Director
Medical Research, J. N. Adam Memorial, 1927-30; Professor,
Physiological Optics, University of Rochester, 1930-46; Director,
Institute of Optics, 1938-53, Research Professor, Physics and
Optics, 1946-53; Vice President, Trustee and Director, Ameerican
Optical Company, 1953-58; Consulting Physicist, 1958- .
Honors and Awards: Emeritus Member, Air Force Scientific
Advisory Board; Chairman, Space Program Advisory Council,
NASA: Presidential Medal for Merit, 1948; Fellow AAAS; American
Physical Society; Optical Society of America; American Geo
physical Union; Society of Motion Picture and TV Engineers;
American Academy of Arts and Sciences; Member, American
Philosophical Society; National Academy of Sciences; National
Academy of Engineering.
General Samuel C. Phillips
Former Commander, Air Force Systems Command
Born 1921; B.S. electrical engineering, University of
Wyoming, 1942; M.S. electrical engineering, University of Michi
gan, 1950; director of operations, 1st AACS Wing, Langley AFB,
Virginia, 1947-48; director of operations, Armament Lab, B-52
project officer, director of guided missile projects, Wright-
Patterson AFB, Ohio, 1950-56; chief of logistics and director of
material, 7th Air Division, SAC, England, 1956-59; director
Minuteman Intercontinental Ballistic Missile Program, 1959-63;
vice commander, Ballistic Systems Division, Norton AFB,
California; 1963-64; deputy program director, Apollo Program,
NASA, 1964; director, Apollo Manned Lunar Landing Program,
NASA, 1964-69; commander, Space and Missile Organization
(SAMSO), AFSC, Los Angeles, California, 1969-72; director,
153
National Security Agency, Chief Central Security Service, Fort
Meade, 1972-73; commander, AFSC, Andrews AFB, Maryland,
1973-75; vice president and general manager, Energy Systems
Management Division, TRW Systems and Energy, 1975-76; vice
president and general manager, TRW Energy Products Group,
1976-83; vice president, TRW Defense Systems Group, 1984-86;
consultant, 1986-present.
Honors and Awards: Honorary Doctor of Laws Degree, U.
of Wyoming; Distinguished Service Medal, NASA (twice);
Distinguished Service Medal, USAF, 1 Oak Leaf Cluster; Legion of
Merit; Distinguished Flying Cross, 1 Oak Leaf Cluster; Air Medal,
U.S. Air Force, 7 Oak Leaf Clusters; Army Commendation Medal;
World War II Victory Medal; IEEE Fellow; AIAA Fellow; Member,
National Academy of Engineering.
154
Dr. Frank Press
President, National Academy of Sciences
Born in Brooklyn, New York in 1924. B.S. physics, City
College of New York, 1946; geophysics, Columbia University, 1949;
associate professor of geophysics and oceanography, Columbia
faculty, 1952; professor of geophysics, California Institute of
Technology, 1955; director of CIT Seismological Laboratory, 1957;
department head, Geology and Geophysics at MIT, 1965 (renamed
the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences); presidential
science adviser and director of Office of Science and Technology
Policy, 1977; Institute Professor, MIT, 1981; President, National
Academy of Sciences, July 1981; re-elected in 1987.
Member: Seismological Society of America, American
Geophysical Union; NAS; AAAS; American Philosophical Society;
foreign member of the French Academy of Sciences; Board of
Trustees of Sloan Foundation and Rockefeller University; Corpor
ation of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology; foreign
member of the Royal Society; National Academy of Public
Administration. Honors: Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical
Society; Arthur L. Day Medal of the Geophysical Union; Maurice
Ewing Medal of the Society of Exploratory Geophysicists;
Department of the Interior's Public Service Award; Distinguished
Public Service Medal (NASA).
155
General Bernard P. Randolph
Commander, Air Force Systems Command
Born July 10, 1933, New Orleans; B.S. Chemistry, Xavier
University, 1954; instructor and member of select crew on KC-97
and B-47s, Strategic Air Command, 1956-62; Squadron Officer
School, 1959; chief, on-orbit operations, Space Systems Division,
1965; B.S. (magna cum laude), 1964, M.S., E.E., University of
North Dakota, 1965; distinguished graduate, Air Command and
Staff College, 1969; MBA, Auburn University, 1969, distinguished
graduate, Air War College, 1974; awarded commission and wings
through the Aviation Cadet Program; airlift operations officer,
Chu Lai, Vietnam; 1970; chief of command plans in test evalua
tion, executive officer to deputy chief of staff for operations,
1970-1793; Air War College, 1973-74; director, space systems
planning, Space and Missile Systems Organization, Los Angeles
AFS, 1974-75; deputy program director, program director, Air
Force Satellite Communications System, 1975-78; vice commander,
Warner Robins ALC, Robins AFB, Georgia, 1980-81; director of
space systems and C^, Office of Deputy Chief of Staff, RD&A,
HQ USAF, Washington, D.C., 1981-83; vice commander and deputy
commander for space systems acquisition for Space Division,
1983-84; vice commander, AFSC, 1984-85; deputy chief of staff
for RD&A, 1985-87; commander, AFSC, August 1987- .
Awards: Distinguished Service Medal; Legion of Merit with
one oak leaf cluster; Bronze Star Medal; Meritorious Service
Medal; Air Force Commendation Medal; Presidential Unit Citation.
156
Bernard A. Schriever
Born Bremen, Germany, September 14, 1910; came to U.S.,
1917, naturalized, 1923; B.S., Texas A&M University, 1931; M.S.,
mechanical engineering, Stanford University, 1942; D.Sc. (honors),
Creighton University, 1958; Rider College, 1958; Adelphia College
1959; Rollins College, 1959; D. Aeronautical Science, University of
Michigan, 1961; D. English, Brooklyn Polytechnic Institute, 1961;
LL.D., Loyola University, Los Angeles, 1960; commissioned 2d
lieutenant U.S. Army Air Force, 1938; advanced through grades to
General U.S. Air Force, 1961; commander, ICBM program, 1954-59,
1959-66, retired, 1966; Chairman Board Schriever & McKee,
Washington, 1971- .
Director: American Med. International, Control Data
Corporation, Eastern Air Lines, Emerson Electric Company.
Wackenhut Corporation.
Honors: Distinguished Service Medal; Distinguished Service
Medal with oak leaf cluster; Legion of Merit; Air Medal; Purple
Heart; Fellow AIAA. Member, National Academy of Engineering;
American Astronomical Society; Air Force Association.
157
Lawrence A. Skantze
Former Commander, Air Force Systems Command
Born Bronx, New York, June 24, 1928; B.S., U.S. Naval
Academy, 1952; M.S., Air Force Institute of Technology, 1959;
U.S. Navy, 1946-52; commissioned 2d lieutenant, USAF, 1952;
advanced through grades to General 1983; bomber pilot, Korea,
1954; various assignments in engineering, 1955-69; director of
personnel, Air Force Systems Command, 1969-71; program manager
Short Range Attack Missile, 1971-73, program manager, Airborne
Warning and Control System, 1973-77; deputy chief of staff for
Systems Development HQ, AFSC, Andrews AFB, Maryland, 1977-
79; commander, Aeronautical Systems Division, AFSC, Wright-
Patterson AFB, Ohio, 1979-82; deputy chief of staff for Research,
Development and Acquisitions, HQ USAF, Washington, D.C., 1982-
83; vice chief of staff, 1983-85; commander, AFSC, 1985-86.
Author and lecturer, Air Force Management Techniques.
Honors: Distinguished Service Medal; Legion of Merit; Merit
orious Service Medal; Commendation Medal. Member, Air Force
Association (Outstanding Program Manager award 1973, Theodore
Von Karman award 1975), American Nuclear Society.
158
John J. Welch, Jr.
Assistant Secretary of the Air Force, Acquisitions
Born, Cambridge, Massachusetts, August 23, 1930; B.S.,
engineering, MIT, 1951; junior engineer, aircraft and missile
systems, Chance Vought Corporation; variety of engineering and
program management positions in flight test, missile operations,
anti-submarine warfare, advanced programs, and aircraft and
missile product development; vice president, space defense
systems, Ling-Temco-Vought, 1965; vice president and manager,
Missiles and Space Division; chief scientist, Air Force, 1969; vice
president, programs, LTV Aerospace; corporation vice president,
LTV, 1974; senior vice president, LTV, 1975; assistant secretary
of the Air Force for Acquisition, Washington, D.C., 1987
Honors: Exceptional Civilian Service Award for his work as
Chief Scientist. Member (emeritus), Defense Science Board, Army
Science Board, NAS Naval Studies Board, AF SAB, and AFSC
Division Advisory Groups; chairman of the F-16 Multinational
Fighter Program Steering Committee and senior U.S. delegate to
NATO Advisory Group for Aerospace R&D.
