[Mr. K]

The design and deployment cycle is much longer than the time that technological advances are being made in the computer age.

Some of this cant be avoided- there is a saying: "In the life of every product there comes a time when you have to shoot the engineers and begin production..."

but we need to move faster

[Sodbuster]

"Some of this cant be avoided- there is a saying: "In the life of every product there comes a time when you have to shoot the engineers and begin production..." "

I agree. Think of the advances in microprocessors during the time the shuttle went through the design, procurement, and construction cycle. If you had waited for the 'best and fastest' microprocessor, you would still be waiting and nothing would have been built. This is the most obvious example since the PC boom was happening in the 80's and 90's, right when the shuttle came on-line.