Free Republic

Five aviation companies are under contract to develop armed, unmanned aircraft and control systems for use on the Navy’s fleet of 11 aircraft carriers, USNI News has learned.General Atomics, Boeing, Anduril and Northrop Grumman are on contract for the conceptual design of the so-called collaborative combat aircraft, or CCA, according to a Navy presentation reviewed by USNI News. Lockheed Martin is under contract to build the common control system.The Navy wants “uncrewed, modular, interoperable, interchangeable and versatile platforms” that it can field from an aircraft carrier, reads the slide from Naval Air Systems Command’s program executive office for unmanned aviation...

When tech luminaries talk about their Christian faith, people listen.Everything clicked when Peter Thiel gave the speech about God.The occasion was a 40th birthday party for Trae Stephens, who is Mr. Thiel’s venture capital partner as well as one of the founders of Anduril Industries, a maker of high-tech defense systems and weaponry. It was a multiday affair, held in 2023 at Mr. Stephens’s home in New Mexico. It began with an evening roasting the birthday boy, followed by another toasting him and then a brunch with caviar bumps, mimosas and breakfast pizza. At the brunch (the theme was the...

No joke: Wired wants you to believe this is a bad thing. The Young, Inexperienced Engineers Aiding Elon Musk’s Government Takeover Engineers between 19 and 24, most linked to Musk’s companies, are playing a key role as he seizes control of federal infrastructure. WWW.WIRED.COM https://www.wired.com/story/elon-musk-government-young-engineers/ "Elon Musk's Government Takeover" Gotta love the pea-sized brains over at Wired. Elon Musk's takeover of federal government infrastructure is ongoing, and at the center of things is a coterie of engineers who are barely out of — and in at least one case, purportedly still in — college. Elon isn't taking over anything. He's...

With Anduril, he’d port those innovations (from VR computer games) over into the defense sector, fusing affordable hardware and machine learning to create a border and battlefield surveillance suite that the federal government couldn’t resist... Luckey leaned into the #MAGA-friendly ideology—donating big money to pro-Trump outfits, and meeting with Trump cabinet officials, all while his company quietly picks up military contracts and expands its work with border patrol... In 2017, Luckey worked with Rep. Will Hurd (R-TX) on cost estimates for legislation to push a virtual border wall into consideration... (On Thursday, the 41-year-old tech-savvy Congressman announced that he would...