Cool, so what is the 1 million contract for? Just co-developing VTOLs so both pa...

1369ic · on May 17, 2018

Yes, it's just about working with people who are doing things of interest to the Army. Army leaders have been saying for a while that, without partnerships, there are areas in which the Army can't keep up with the pace of technological change, the spread of new technologies, and what people who haven't historically had access to military R&D can do with those technologies. For example, mines used to be limited to a relatively few armies. Then somebody figured out how to set off stacks of stolen explosives with a cell phone and we had to deal with IEDs.

Also, my command executes about 75% of the Army's R&D budget and does a fair amount of engineering for Army and other federal organizations. All that totals up to about $6 - 6.5 billion a year. That's a lot of money, but not enough to keep up with everybody everywhere in every field of interest to the Army. So we partner.

As far as exclusive vs non-exclusive, there has long been a segment of the military industrial complex that takes Army research and builds things to sell to the Army (and we have programs to help them do that), or to turn the research into civilian products. It goes project by project, so I don't make blanket statements. That said, the open campus idea that was pitched to by the lab to our commander is pretty much exactly what it says in their press releases. My general understanding is that people like military contracts, but if you restrict them to a military contract then the people with some of the best ideas lose interest. Again, that's just my understanding because I'm sometimes in the room for various discussions. If this were an official query I'd have to check with several people to give an official, informed reply.

criticalpotato · on May 17, 2018

Don't wanna comment on the general US army and partnering businesses - this happens in all countries and all levels and that's that. Think we can fairly assess that warfare is huge economic influence and by this point in human history I don't really think we have to discuss it's advantages and/or disadvantages anymore.

For the mines, well they were part of warfare for some 600-800 years before Ottawa Treaty banning them in 1999, conveniently a treaty that wasn't signed by US. IEDs would've came no matter what and saying that's anything to do with the subject or army research is like saying that Molotov cocktails were supposed to be used to fire up the BBQ.

Valley isn't really known to be supporting war nor armies and there's been some backlashes for the companies involved with military equipment and/or technology development.

Uber has already killed a civilian and that was with their so-called technology development on US soil so I guess that goes with their general agenda. And albeit this is a grim way to put it, the fact is that for a company which is known to be shady at best a collaboration with one of the most prominent modern day civilian bombing military forces, well, I could see that go wrong. Of course now days US army keeps better track of their drones and where those missiles hit with better technology, so there's hopefully better direction on these technological advances. And thankfully if Uber's civilian casualties rise the same rate that the number of civilian casualties by drone strikes it'll take at least a decade before they reach significant numbers. Let's hope it's not gonna be the case and they're just doing publicity stunt to save the ship to which I say - let it sink.

For a country which has never been invaded nor attacked directly on land by another nation (besides conflicts prior to 1900s) while at the same time currently being active on multiple war zones around the world (some of the conflicts which it's started itself), well, the word defense gets a new meaning I guess.