
How a $2.7B air-defense system became a 'zombie' program - JumpCrisscross
http://graphics.latimes.com/missile-defense-jlens/??ftcamp=crm/email//nbe/FirstFTEurope/product#navtype=notification
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orf
> Raytheon mobilized its congressional lobbyists. Within the Pentagon, Marine
> Corps Gen. James E. “Hoss” Cartwright, then vice chairman of the Joint
> Chiefs of Staff, came to JLENS’ defense, arguing that it held promise for
> enhancing the nation’s air defenses.

> At Cartwright’s urging, money was found in 2011 for a trial run of the
> technology — officially, an “operational exercise” — in the skies above
> Washington, D.C.

> Cartwright retired the same year — and joined Raytheon’s board of directors
> five months later. As of the end of 2014, Raytheon had paid him more than
> $828,000 in cash and stock for serving as a director, Securities and
> Exchange Commission records show.

How is this level of blatant corruption/conflict of interest tolerated in the
USA?

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joering2
You obviously don't live here. That's a drop in the ocean of corruption and
scandals. That's peanuts!!

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eljimmy
I think it's fair to say that America has become a corporation.

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catshirt
yea, we call it the American Dream. maybe we'll wake up one day.

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Axsuul
I quit my job at Raytheon right after I was assigned to the JLENS program .
Every day there were meetings with f-bombs being exchanged between managers
and employees. The environment and culture became extremely toxic. Safe to say
I didn't want to have anything to do with the defense industry after that.

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snogglethorpe
Nathaniel Boronstein has interesting take on this. You might describe him as
an old-school left-winger, as anti-war as they get (ok, that's my description,
not sure if he'd agree!), but somehow he ended up consulting for NATO, right
smack in the middle of defense-contracting madness.

He found the experience rather surprising in many ways, and you might say his
viewpoint was a bit more nuanced afterwards....

[http://guppylake.com/~nsb/WarSpy/SpyInHouseOfWar.pdf](http://guppylake.com/~nsb/WarSpy/SpyInHouseOfWar.pdf)

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RyJones
That was a great read, thank you. His observation about the corrupting
influence of military money on researchers was interesting - it's obvious in
hindsight that the AI researchers were only interested in taking positions
that aligned with the "someday" goal of getting AI into combat, if only to
secure funding. That his harshest criticism is reserved for fellow academics
and the cadre of contractors wasn't what I expected to take away.

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tormeh
His description of the contractors was really scary.

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callmeed
$2.7B sounds like a rounding error somewhere in the Joint Strike Fighter
budget

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noir_lord
$2.7B here, $2.7B there, pretty soon you are talking real money /s

I'd be curious if the number of these projects in total exceeded the cost of
the big ticket items like the JSF.

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7952
I wonder if a better technical system would be to mount some sensors on top of
a mast. Use a gimballing camera to detect objects moving in a straight line
through the air. Use microphones to detect engine noise and trilaterate the
position. If the system detects something anomalous send a photo to a human to
verify.

If you placed a tower every half a mile along the eastern seaboard you would
need ~2500 towers. A $2.7 billion budget would allow $1 million per tower.

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coldcode
Using a fat stationary blimp target to defend against air attack is pretty
stupid. Even in WWI blimps were not exactly successful (though of course they
were filled with hydrogen). I'd rather have a fleet of smaller drones with
smaller radars flying around making a more redundant and flexible system. But
then again I am not a defense company raking in billions.

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tsotha
>Even if all those problems could be overcome, it would be prohibitively
expensive to deploy enough of the airships to protect the United States along
its borders and coasts.

Is this even a proposal? I thought they were mostly worried about protecting
their own butts in Washington.

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FrankenPC
So, when engineering crazy things, many valuable lessons are learned that
could help us all. Do we get any of that knowledge for this product WE paid
for?

