I think the best hope is for DoD weapon systems to piggy-back on commercial ventures in which companies will be willing to invest scarce IRAD bucks.
The only reason commercial companies have IRAD going is to preserve their monopolies (cf. Microsoft and Qualcomm; both essentially bought up all the university researchers in their respective fields.) Commercial-company management has decided that it's cheaper (and therefore better) to let someone else do the research than to do one's own.
The academic/industry disconnect has gotten even worse over the last decade, if that's possible, which doesn't help.
Ironically, a lot of techies want to get into DoD work because they think it's safer than commercial, where they will likely be replaced by Cheapistani drones at a tenth of the wage (and probably double the total cost.) Having been there and done that, I know how boom-and-bust it can be. Whenever the next Democrat is elected president, it'll probably dry up to fund graffiti artists or something.
The company I work for, SAIC, now has one of the largest and most diverse R&D programs in the United States.
Mike, how's SAIC to work for? There are branches near where I live, and I've been thinking about dropping them a resume.
- NF
