The Fox and the Hen House

How would you like to be overseeing your competitor’s development project? It’s a sweet job if you can get it. But that’s what is now happening with many Pentagon contracts. For example, Northrop Grumman, one of the few remaining monolithic defense contractors, was assigned the task of overseeing the efforts of Space Exploration Technologies to develop a new rocket. Of course, Northrop did not cease working on its own rocket projects.

Yes, Northrop is a huge company that operates in many areas. And, it’s possible that they would have assigned members of their non-rocket operations to this project. Such an assignment would have at least two problems: would the Northrop people know enough to oversee the project; whether they did or not would they have been tempted to pass information back to Northrop’s rocketeers.

But, that is not what Northrop did. They assigned people from their rocket and non-rocket operations to monitor Space Exploration’s activities.

In all fairness, the Pentagon is in a bind as the many mergers in the defense industry have narrowed their options. Plus, a large portion of the defense budget is not going to increasing the number of civilian scientists at the Pentagon. They are aware of the problem and are trying to resolve it. In the meantime, be happy that you’re not in the defense business.