Because everything is being imported from China.
And everyone, in both parties, is 100% on board with the mess.
Over thirty years in the defense industry I read many contracts from front to back. They are stuffed with requirements dictated by Congress that do nothing for the hardware except make it more expensive. Requirements to set aside significant parts for generally unqualified small businesses, requirements not to use cadmium or chromium or even forbidding using products from companies that use those materials in products you aren’t buying(FCS), requirements for diversity training...the list goes on and on. I made estimates, which was my job, that up to half the cost of any contract I dealt with was for items that did not go into the hardware or software. On FCS, I estimated that for every dollar the government spent only about twenty cents went into actual end product. In general, the larger and more important the program the worse the waste.
Wow! Winning. I know Griffin. This is an excellent choice. One of Griffin’s early actions as NASA director was to fire the heads of the NASA centers when they decided that they could operate independently, each pursuing his own agenda, that they need not support a coherent mission, and that Congress would protect them. Well, Congress didn’t, couldn’t and actually did not care when he did.
It was an obvious necessary reform that just took the guts to do it.
I like what I’m hearing.
Old book that’s still applicable today, written by some Cold Warriors. It used to be a textbook at all three service academies and was used at the war colleges. Full text online.
THE STRATEGY OF TECHNOLOGY
https://www.jerrypournelle.com/jerrypournelle.c/sot/sot_intro.htm
“we spend more money trying to prevent a mistake than the cost of the mistake”
Tranlation: Over engineered - with “trying to prevent mistakes” and so many bells and whistles (often by Congressional demands in favor contractors in their district), and collectively it makes systems more vulnerable to minor problems leading to major failures due to the highly sophisticated integration of systems. The more complex does not spell safer or “better”, it spells tons of extras to keep the complexity working in sync - without fail.
There are many things wrong with our procurement system for weapon systems.
The F-35 is a classic example of politics intruding into a design, and making it a Trillion dollar lemon.
We write our specfications with so many requirements that it takes Billions and years to adhere to them.
Also, this doesn't help. Every contract has to have some sort of women and minority pay off in the shake down.
NASA is much worse at requirements definition and non-value added oversight than DOD has ever been.