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Comment by snarkerson | Hacker News Reader

Paying DoD prices for a civilian program never made sense.

Add in constant program stretching due to a limited budget, I don't doubt NASA will look bad by comparison.

As a taxpayer, paying DoD prices for a military program also doesn't make sense (aside from the question of whether we even need most military programs).

I've worked at BAE Systems, Inc. and Raytheon and there is so much extra bullshit it will make your head spin. I'm a veteran and I left the industry in disgust. I will never consider defense software again unless there are some drastic changes.

I've always said that the US Govt pays $10 for $1 worth of work.

https://media.defense.gov/2019/May/01/2002126691/-1/-1/0/SWA...

> The current approach to software development is a leading source of risk to DoD: it takes too long, is too expensive, and exposes warfighters to unacceptable risk.

> Nothing is changing: most of this has been said before and the 1987 DSB report on military software pretty much says it all. What is it going to take to actually do something?

Thanks for serving ... the rank and file of the military is truly dedicated in my experience and it would be great if a larger portion of the funding was spent on the human side of defense and if a larger portion of the decision making was left to the "normal people".

I've been there as well and agree. The defense world is a headache. Everything slows you down. Its like trying to swim through fruit cake.

Lockmart and Boeing are fortunate that SpaceX has no desire to get into the defense game beyond launching satellites for the Space Force. They wouldn't be as fast as their past work, half the friction in the defense world is imposed by the customer. But they would be faster than the incumbents.

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