A clean-sheet approach to Space Force acquisition with Cynthia Cook and William Shelton

RAND researchers Cynthia Cook and William Shelton joined me on the Acquisition Talk podcast to discuss their new paper which takes a fresh look at the space acquisition enterprise. Not only is the US Space Force much smaller than its sister services (just 16,000 compared more than 10x that number in the Marines), it is also much more reliant on technology. They argue that the nation's newest military service has a huge opportunity to shape a more agile process and flatter organization. This includes: - Creating a culture of "warrior engineers" - Embracing funding flexibility and portfolio management - Empowering a single space acquisition decisionmaker - Coordinating enterprise architectures and capability roadmaps - Increasing cross-pollination between government and industry In the episode, Cynthia and Bill emphasize the need for the Space Force to think differently about program management. Often, managers are incentivized to deliver on their baseline program instead of taking responsibility for broader integration issues. For example, the GPS capability set was broken out into separate programs for space vehicle, ground, user equipment, and launch, causing synchronization issues. Bill explained how "As a program manager, I had the iron triangle. Don't mess with my cost-schedule-performance. Anybody comes with a new idea, if it's going to make me slip or cost money, thanks for your interest in national defense but I'm going to do what I got to do to meet my APB." Changing this system of incentives requires a different personnel structure, system of promotion, dedicated contracting officers, and methods of accountability. This is particularly true as space systems rely more on commercial, proliferation, and "good enough" solutions rather than exquisite systems that take more than a decade to field. This podcast was produced by Eric Lofgren. You can follow us on Twitter @AcqTalk and find more information at https://AcquisitionTalk.com