back to indexKeoki Jackson: Lockheed Martin | Lex Fridman Podcast #33
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The following is a conversation with Keoki Jackson.
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He's the CTO of Lockheed Martin,
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a company that through his long history
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has created some of the most incredible engineering
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marvels human beings have ever built,
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including planes that fly fast and undetected,
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defense systems that intersect nuclear threats that
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can take the lives of millions, and systems that venture out
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into space, the moon, Mars, and beyond.
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And these days, more and more, artificial intelligence
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has an assistive role to play in these systems.
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I've read several books in preparation
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for this conversation.
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It is a difficult one, because in part,
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Lockheed Martin builds military systems
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that operate in a complicated world that often does not
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have easy solutions in the gray area between good and evil.
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I hope one day this world will rid itself of war
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But the path to achieving that in a world that
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does have evil is not obvious.
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What is obvious is good engineering
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and artificial intelligence research
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has a role to play on the side of good.
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Lockheed Martin and the rest of our community
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are hard at work at exactly this task.
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We talk about these and other important topics
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in this conversation.
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Also, most certainly, both Kiyoki and I have a passion for space,
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us humans venturing out toward the stars.
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We talk about this exciting future as well.
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This is the artificial intelligence podcast.
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If you enjoy it, subscribe on YouTube,
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give it five stars on iTunes, support it on Patreon,
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or simply connect with me on Twitter
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at Lex Freedman, spelled F R I D M A N.
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And now, here's my conversation with Kiyoki Jackson.
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I read several books on Lockheed Martin recently.
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My favorite, in particular, is by Ben Rich,
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called Skonkork's personal memoir.
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It gets a little edgy at times.
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But from that, I was reminded that the engineers of Lockheed
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Martin have created some of the most incredible engineering
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marvels human beings have ever built throughout the 20th century
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Do you remember a particular project or system at Lockheed
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or before that at the Space Shuttle Columbia
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that you were just in awe at the fact
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that us humans could create something like this?
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That's a great question.
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There's a lot of things that I could draw on there.
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When you look at the Skonkorks and Ben Rich's book,
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in particular, of course, it starts off
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with basically the start of the jet age and the P80.
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I had the opportunity to sit next to one of the Apollo
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astronauts, Charlie Duke, recently at dinner.
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And I said, hey, what's your favorite aircraft?
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And he said, well, it was by far the F104 Starfighter, which
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was another aircraft that came out of Lockheed there.
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It was the first Mach 2 jet fighter aircraft.
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They called it the missile with a man in it.
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And so those are the kinds of things
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I grew up hearing stories about.
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Of course, the SR 71 is incomparable
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as kind of the epitome of speed, altitude, and just
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the coolest looking aircraft ever.
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So there's a reconnaissance that's
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a plane that's a intelligence surveillance
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and reconnaissance aircraft that was designed
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to be able to outrun, basically go faster
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than any air defense system.
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But I'll tell you, I'm a space junkie.
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That's why I came to MIT.
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That's really what took me, ultimately, to Lockheed Martin.
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And I grew up, and so Lockheed Martin, for example,
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has been essentially at the heart of every planetary mission,
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like all the Mars missions we've had a part in.
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And we've talked a lot about the 50th anniversary of Apollo
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here in the last couple of weeks, right?
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But remember, 1976, July 20, again, the National Space
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Day, so the landing of the Viking lander on the surface
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of Mars, just a huge accomplishment.
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And when I was a young engineer at Lockheed Martin,
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I got to meet engineers who had designed various pieces
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of that mission as well.
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So that's what I grew up on is these planetary missions,
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the start of the space shuttle era,
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and ultimately had the opportunity
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to see Lockheed Martin's part in what
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we can maybe talk about some of these here,
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but Lockheed Martin's part in all of these space journeys
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Do you dream, and I apologize for getting philosophical at times,
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or sentimental, I do romanticize the notion
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of space exploration.
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So do you dream of the day when us humans colonize
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another planet, like Mars, or a man, a woman, a human being,
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And that's a personal dream of mine.
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I haven't given up yet on my own opportunity
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to fly into space, but from the Lockheed Martin perspective,
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this is something that we're working towards every day.
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And of course, we're building the Orion spacecraft, which
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is the most sophisticated human rated spacecraft ever built.
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And it's really designed for these deep space journeys,
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starting with the moon, but ultimately going to Mars.
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And being the platform from a design perspective,
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we call the Mars Base Camp to be able to take humans
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to the surface, and then after a mission of a couple of weeks,
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bring them back up safely.
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And so that is something I want to see happen during my time
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at Lockheed Martin.
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So I'm pretty excited about that.
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And I think once we prove that's possible,
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colonization might be a little bit further out,
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but it's something that I'd hope to see.
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So maybe you can give a little bit
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of an overview of, so Lockheed Martin
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has partnered with a few years ago with Boeing
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to work with the DoD and NASA to build launch systems
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and rockets with the ULA.
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What's beyond that?
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What's Lockheed's mission, timeline, and long term
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dream in terms of space?
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You mentioned the moon.
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I've heard you talk about asteroids as Mars.
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What's the timeline?
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What's the engineering challenges?
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And what's the dream long term?
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Yeah, I think the dream long term is
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to have a permanent presence in space beyond low Earth
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orbit, ultimately with a long term presence on the moon
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and then to the planets to Mars.
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And it's very interrupting that.
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So long term presence means sustained and sustainable
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presence in an economy, a space economy,
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that really goes alongside that.
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With human beings and being able to launch perhaps
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from those, so like hop.
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You know, there's a lot of energy
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that goes in those hops, right?
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So I think the first step is being
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able to get there and to be able to establish sustained basis,
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right, and build from there.
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And a lot of that means getting, as you know,
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things like the cost of launch down.
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And you mentioned United Launch Alliance.
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And so I don't want to speak for ULA,
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but obviously they're working really hard
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to, on their next generation of launch vehicles,
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to maintain that incredible mission success record
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that ULA has, but ultimately continue
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to drive down the cost and make the flexibility, the speed,
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and the access ever greater.
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So what's the missions that are in the horizon
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that you could talk to?
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Is there a hope to get to the moon?
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Absolutely, absolutely.
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I mean, I think you know this, or you
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may know this, there's a lot of ways
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to accomplish some of these goals.
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And so that's a lot of what's in discussion today.
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But ultimately, the goal is to be
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able to establish a base, essentially
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in CIS lunar space that would allow for ready transfer
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from orbit to the lunar surface and back again.
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And so that's sort of that near term,
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I say near term in the next decade or so vision,
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starting off with a stated objective
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by this administration to get back to the moon in the 2024,
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2025 time frame, which is right around the corner here.
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How big of an engineering challenge is that?
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I think the big challenge is not so much to go, but to stay.
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And so we demonstrated in the 60s
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that you could send somebody up, do a couple of days of mission,
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and bring them home again successfully.
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Now we're talking about doing that,
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I'd say more to, I don't want to say an industrial scale,
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but a sustained scale.
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So permanent habitation, regular reuse of vehicles,
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the infrastructure to get things like fuel, air, consumables,
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replacement parts, all the things that you need to sustain
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that kind of infrastructure.
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So those are certainly engineering challenges.
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There are budgetary challenges.
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And those are all things that we're
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going to have to work through.
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The other thing, and I shouldn't,
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I don't want to minimize this.
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I mean, I'm excited about human exploration,
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but the reality is our technology
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and where we've come over the last 40 years, essentially,
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has changed what we can do with robotic exploration as well.
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And to me, it's incredibly thrilling.
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This seems like old news now, but the fact
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that we have rovers driving around the surface of Mars
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and sending back data is just incredible.
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The fact that we have satellites in orbit around Mars
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that are collecting weather, they're
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looking at the terrain, they're mapping,
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all these kinds of things on a continuous basis,
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that's incredible.
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And the fact that you got the time lag,
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of course, going to the planets, but you can effectively
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have virtual human presence there in a way
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that we have never been able to do before.
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And now, with the advent of even greater processing power,
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better AI systems, better cognitive systems
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and decision systems, you put that together
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with the human piece, and we really
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opened up the solar system in a whole different way.
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And I'll give you an example.
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We've got Osiris Rex, which is a mission to the asteroid Benus.
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So the spacecraft is out there right now on basically a year
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mapping activity to map the entire surface of that asteroid
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in great detail, all autonomously piloted, right?
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But the idea then that, and this is not too far away,
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it's going to go in.
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It's got a sort of fancy vacuum cleaner with a bucket.
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It's going to collect the sample off the asteroid
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and then send it back here to Earth.
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And so we have gone from sort of those tentative steps
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in the 70s, early landings, video of the solar system
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to now we've sent spacecraft to Pluto.
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We have gone to comets and brought and intercepted comets.
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We've brought stardust, material back.
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So we've gone far, and there's incredible opportunity
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to go even farther.
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So it seems quite crazy that this is even possible,
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that can you talk a little bit about what
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it means to orbit an asteroid with a bucket to try
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to pick up some soil samples?
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So part of it is just kind of the,
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these are the same kinds of techniques
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we use here on Earth for high speed, high accuracy imagery,
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stitching these scenes together, and creating essentially
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high accuracy world maps.
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And so that's what we're doing, obviously,
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on a much smaller scale with an asteroid.
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But the other thing that's really interesting,
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you put together sort of that neat control and data
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and imagery problem.
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But the stories around how we design the collection,
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I mean, as essentially, this is the sort of the human
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ingenuity element, right?
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That essentially had an engineer who had one day he's like,
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well, starts messing around with parts, vacuum cleaner,
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bucket, maybe we could do something like this.
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And that was what led to what we call the Pogo stick
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collection, right?
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Where basically, I think comes down,
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it's only there for seconds does that collection,
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grabs the, essentially blows the regolith material
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into the collection hopper and off it goes.
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It doesn't really land almost.
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It's a very short landing.
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Wow, that's incredible.
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So what is in those, we talk a little bit more about space.
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What's the role of the human in all of this?
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What are the challenges?
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What are the opportunities for humans
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as they pilot these vehicles in space
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and for humans that may step foot on either the moon or Mars?
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Yeah, it's a great question because I just
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have been extolling the virtues of robotic and rovers,
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autonomous systems, and those absolutely have a role.
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I think the thing that we don't know how to replace today
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is the ability to adapt on the fly to new information.
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And I believe that will come, but we're not there yet.
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There's a ways to go.
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And so you think back to Apollo 13
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and the ingenuity of the folks on the ground and on the spacecraft
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essentially cobbled together a way
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to get the carbon dioxide scrubbers to work.
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Those are the kinds of things that ultimately,
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and I'd say not just from dealing with anomalies,
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but dealing with new information.
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You see something, and rather than waiting 20 minutes
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or half an hour an hour to try to get information back
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and forth, but be able to essentially
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revect around the fly, collect different samples,
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take a different approach, choose different areas to explore.
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Those are the kinds of things that that human presence enables
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that still weighs ahead of us on the AI side.
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Yeah, there's some interesting stuff we'll talk about
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on the teaming side here on Earth.
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That's pretty cool to explore.
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And in space, let's not leave the space piece out.
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So what is teaming?
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What does AI and humans working together in space look like?
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Yeah, one of the things we're working on
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is a system called Maya, which is, think of it,
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so it's an AI assistant.
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And in space, exactly.
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And think of it as the Alexa in space, right?
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But this goes hand in hand with a lot of other developments.
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And so today's world, everything is essentially model based,
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model based systems engineering to the actual digital tapestry
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that goes through the design, the build, the manufacture,
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the testing, and ultimately the sustainment of these systems.
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And so our vision is really that when our astronauts
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are there around Mars, you're going
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to have that entire digital library of the spacecraft,
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of its operations, all the test data, all the test data
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and flight data from previous missions
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to be able to look and see if there are anomalous conditions
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until the humans, and potentially deal with that
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before it becomes a bad situation and help
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the astronauts work through those kinds of things.
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And it's not just dealing with problems as they come up,
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but also offering up opportunities
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for additional exploration capability, for example.
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So that's the vision is that these
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are going to take the best of the human to respond
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to changing circumstances and rely on the best AI
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capabilities to monitor this almost infinite number
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of data points and correlations of data points
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that humans, frankly, aren't that good at.
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So how do you develop systems in space like this,
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whether it's a Alexa in space or, in general, any kind
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of control systems, any kind of intelligent systems,
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when you can't really test stuff too much out in space,
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it's very expensive to test stuff.
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So how do you develop such systems?
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Yeah, that's the beauty of this digital twin, if you will.
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And of course, with Lockheed Martin,
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we've over the past five plus decades
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been refining our knowledge of the space environment,
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of how materials behave, dynamics, the controls,
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the radiation environments, all of these kinds of things.
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So we're able to create very sophisticated models.
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They're not perfect, but they're very good.
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And so you can actually do a lot.
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I spent part of my career simulating communication
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spacecraft, missile warning spacecraft, GPS spacecraft,
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in all kinds of scenarios and all kinds of environments.
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So this is really just taking that to the next level.
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The interesting thing is that now you're
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bringing into that loop a system, depending on how it's
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developed, that may be non deterministic,
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it may be learning as it goes.
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In fact, we anticipate that it will be learning as it goes.
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And so that brings a whole new level of interest, I guess,
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into how do you do verification and validation
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of these non deterministic learning systems
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in scenarios that may go out of the bounds or the envelope
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that you have initially designed them to.
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So this system in its intelligence has the same complexity,
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some of the same complexity a human does.
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And it learns over time, it's unpredictable
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in certain kinds of ways.
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So you also have to model that when you're thinking about it.
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So in your thoughts, it's possible
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to model the majority of situations,
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the important aspects of situations here on Earth
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and in space, enough to test stuff.
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Yeah, this is really an active area of research.
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And we're actually funding university research
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in a variety of places, including MIT.
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This is in the realm of trust and verification
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and validation of, I'd say, autonomous systems in general.
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And then as a subset of that, autonomous systems
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that incorporate artificial intelligence capabilities.
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And this is not an easy problem.
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We're working with startup companies.
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We've got internal R&D, but our conviction
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is that autonomy and more and more AI enabled autonomy
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is going to be in everything that Lockheed Martin develops
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And autonomy and AI are going to be
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retrofit into existing systems.
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They're going to be part of the design
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for all of our future systems.
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And so maybe I should take a step back and say,
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the way we define autonomy.
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So we talk about autonomy, essentially,
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a system that composes, selects, and then executes decisions
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with varying levels of human intervention.
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And so you could think of no autonomy.
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So this is essentially a human doing the task.
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You can think of, effectively, partial autonomy
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where the human is in the loop.
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So making decisions in every case
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about what the autonomous system can do.
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Either in the cockpit or remotely.
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Or remotely, exactly, but still in that control loop.
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And then there's what you'd call supervisory autonomy.
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So the autonomous system is doing most of the work.
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The human can intervene to stop it or to change the direction.
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And then ultimately, full autonomy
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where the human is off the loop altogether.
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And for different types of missions,
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want to have different levels of autonomy.
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So now take that spectrum and this conviction
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that autonomy and more and more AI
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are in everything that we develop.
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The kinds of things that Lockheed Martin does a lot of times
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are safety of life critical kinds of missions.
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Think about aircraft, for example.
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And so we require, and our customers require,
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an extremely high level of confidence.
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One, that we're going to protect life.
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Two, that we're going to, that these systems will behave
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in ways that their operators can understand.
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And so this gets into that whole field.
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Again, being able to verify and validate
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that the systems have been, that they will operate
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the way they're designed and the way they're expected.
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And furthermore, that they will do that
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in ways that can be explained and understood.
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And that is an extremely difficult challenge.
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Yeah, so here's a difficult question.
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I don't mean to bring this up,
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but I think it's a good case study
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that people are familiar with.
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Boeing 737 MAX commercial airplane
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has had two recent crashes
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where their flight control software system failed.
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And it's software, so I don't mean to speak about Boeing,
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but broadly speaking, we have this
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in the autonomous vehicle space too, semi autonomous.
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When you have millions of lines of code software
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making decisions, there is a little bit of a clash
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of cultures because software engineers
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don't have the same culture of safety often.
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That people who build systems like at Lockheed Martin
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do where it has to be exceptionally safe,
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you have to test this on.
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So how do we get this right
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when software is making so many decisions?
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Yeah, and there's a lot of things that have to happen.
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And by and large, I think it starts with the culture,
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which is not necessarily something
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that A is taught in school,
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or B is something that would come,
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depending on what kind of software you're developing,
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it may not be relevant if you're targeting ads
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or something like that.
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So, and by and large, I'd say not just Lockheed Martin,
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but certainly the aerospace industry as a whole
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has developed a culture that does focus on safety,
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safety of life, operational safety, mission success.
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But as you know, these systems
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have gotten incredibly complex.
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And so they're to the point where it's almost impossible,
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state spaces become so huge that it's impossible to,
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or very difficult to do a systematic verification
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across the entire set of potential ways
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that an aircraft could be flown,
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all the conditions that could happen,
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all the potential failure scenarios.
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Now, maybe that's soluble one day,
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maybe when we have our quantum computers
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that our fingertips will be able to actually simulate
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across an entire almost infinite state space.
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But today, there's a lot of work
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to really try to bound the system,
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to make sure that it behaves in predictable ways,
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and then have this culture of continuous inquiry
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and skepticism and questioning to say,
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did we really consider the right realm of possibilities,
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have we done the right range of testing?
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Do we really understand, in this case,
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human and machine interactions,
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the human decision process
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alongside the machine processes?
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And so that's that culture,
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we call it the culture of mission success
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at Lockheed Martin,
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that really needs to be established.
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And it's not something,
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it's something that people learn by living in it.
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And it's something that has to be promulgated,
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and it's done from the highest level.
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So I had a company of Lockheed Martin, like Lockheed Martin.
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Yeah, and the same as being faced
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at certain autonomous vehicle companies
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where that culture is not there
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because it started mostly by software engineers,
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so that's what they're struggling with.
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Is there lessons that you think we should learn
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as an industry and a society
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from the Boeing 737 MAX crashes?
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These crashes, obviously, are either tremendous tragedies,
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they're tragedies for all of the people,
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the crew, the families, the passengers,
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the people on the ground involved.
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And it's also a huge business and economic setback as well.
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I mean, we've seen that it's impacting, essentially,
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the trade balance of the US.
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So these are important questions.
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And these are the kinds of,
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we've seen similar kinds of questioning at times.
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We go back to the Challenger accident.
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And it is, I think, always important to remind ourselves
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that humans are fallible,
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that the systems we create,
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as perfect as we strive to make them,
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we can always make them better.
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And so another element of that culture of mission success
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is really that commitment to continuous improvement.
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If there's something that goes wrong,
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a real commitment to root cause
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and true root cause understanding,
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to taking the corrective actions
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and to making the future systems better.
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And certainly, we strive for no accidents.
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And if you look at the record
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of the commercial airline industry as a whole
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and the commercial aircraft industry as a whole,
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there's a very nice decaying exponential
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to years now where we have no commercial aircraft accidents
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at all, our fatal accidents at all.
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So that didn't happen by accident.
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It was through the regulatory agencies, FAA,
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the airframe manufacturers,
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really working on a system to identify root causes
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and drive them out.
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So maybe we can take a step back
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and many people are familiar,
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but Lockheed Martin broadly,
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what kind of categories of systems
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are you involved in building?
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You know, Lockheed Martin, we think of ourselves
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as a company that solves hard mission problems.
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And the output of that might be an airplane
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or a spacecraft or a helicopter or radar
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or something like that.
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But ultimately we're driven by these,
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you know, like what is our customer?
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What is that mission that they need to achieve?
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And so that's what drove the SR 71, right?
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How do you get pictures of a place
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where you've got sophisticated air defense systems
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that are capable of handling any aircraft
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that was out there at the time, right?
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So that, you know, that's what you'll do to an SR 71.
link |
Build a nice flying camera.
link |
Exactly, and make sure it gets out and it gets back, right?
link |
And that led ultimately to really the start
link |
of the space program in the US as well.
link |
So now take a step back to Lockheed Martin of today.
link |
And we are, you know, on the order of 105 years old now,
link |
between Lockheed and Martin, the two big heritage companies.
link |
Of course, we're made up of a whole bunch of other companies
link |
that came in as well.
link |
General Dynamics, you know, kind of go down the list.
link |
Today we're, you can think of us
link |
in this space of solving mission problems.
link |
So obviously on the aircraft side,
link |
tactical aircraft, building the most advanced fighter aircraft
link |
that the world has ever seen, you know,
link |
we're up to now several hundred of those delivered,
link |
building almost a hundred a year.
link |
And of course, working on the things that come after that.
link |
On the space side, we are engaged in pretty much
link |
every venue of space utilization and exploration
link |
So I mentioned things like navigation timing, GPS,
link |
communication satellites, missile warning satellites.
link |
We've built commercial surveillance satellites.
link |
We've built commercial communication satellites.
link |
We do civil space.
link |
So everything from human exploration
link |
to the robotic exploration of the outer planets.
link |
And keep going on the space front.
link |
But I don't, you know, a couple of other areas
link |
I'd like to put out, we're heavily engaged
link |
in building critical defensive systems.
link |
And so a couple that I'll mention, the Aegis Combat System,
link |
this is basically the integrated air and missile defense system
link |
for the US and allied fleets.
link |
And so protects, you know, carrier strike groups,
link |
for example, from incoming ballistic missile threats,
link |
aircraft threats, cruise missile threats,
link |
and kind of go down the list.
link |
So the carriers, the fleet itself
link |
is the thing that is being protected.
link |
The carriers aren't serving as a protection
link |
for something else.
link |
Well, that's a little bit of a different application.
link |
We've actually built the version called Aegis Assure,
link |
which is now deployed in a couple of places around the world.
link |
So that same technology, I mean, basically,
link |
can be used to protect either an ocean going fleet
link |
or a land based activity.
link |
Another one, the THAAD program.
link |
So THAAD, this is the Theater High Altitude Area Defense.
link |
This is to protect, you know, relatively broad areas
link |
against sophisticated ballistic missile threats.
link |
And so now, you know, it's deployed
link |
with a lot of US capabilities.
link |
And now we have international customers
link |
that are looking to buy that capability as well.
link |
And so these are systems that defend,
link |
not just defend militaries and military capabilities,
link |
but defend population areas.
link |
And we saw, you know, maybe the first public use of these
link |
back in the first Gulf War with the Patriot systems.
link |
And these are the kinds of things
link |
that Lockheed Martin delivers.
link |
And there's a lot of stuff that goes with it.
link |
So think about the radar systems and the sensing systems
link |
that cue these, the command and control systems
link |
that decide how you pair a weapon against an incoming threat.
link |
And then all the human and machine interfaces
link |
to make sure that they can be operated successfully
link |
in very strenuous environments.
link |
Yeah, there's some incredible engineering
link |
that I'd ever find, like you said.
link |
So maybe if we just take a look at Lockheed history broadly,
link |
maybe even looking at Skunk Works.
link |
What are the biggest, most impressive,
link |
biggest, most impressive milestones of innovation?
link |
So if you look at stealth,
link |
I would have called you crazy if you said
link |
that's possible at the time.
link |
And supersonic and hypersonic.
link |
So traveling at, first of all,
link |
traveling at the speed of sound is pretty damn fast.
link |
And supersonic and hypersonic,
link |
three, four, five times the speed of sound,
link |
that seems, I would also call you crazy
link |
if you say you can do that.
link |
So can you tell me how it's possible
link |
to do these kinds of things?
link |
And is there other milestones
link |
and innovation that's going on that you can talk about?
link |
Yeah, well, let me start on the Skunk Works saga.
link |
And you kind of alluded to it in the beginning.
link |
I mean, Skunk Works is as much an idea as a place.
link |
And so it's driven really by Kelly Johnson's 14 principles.
link |
And I'm not gonna list all 14 of them off,
link |
but the idea, and this I'm sure will resonate
link |
with any engineer who's worked
link |
on a highly motivated small team before.
link |
The idea that if you can essentially have a small team
link |
of very capable people who wanna work
link |
on really hard problems, you can do almost anything.
link |
Especially if you kind of shield them
link |
from bureaucratic influences,
link |
if you create very tight relationships with your customer
link |
so that you have that team and shared vision
link |
with the customer, those are the kinds of things
link |
that enable the Skunk Works to do these incredible things.
link |
And we listed off a number that you brought up stealth.
link |
And I mean, this whole, I wish I could have seen Ben Rich
link |
with a ball bearing rolling across the desk
link |
to a general officer and saying,
link |
would you like to have an aircraft
link |
that has the radar cross section of this ball bearing?
link |
Probably one of the least expensive
link |
and most effective marketing campaigns
link |
in the history of the industry.
link |
So just for people not familiar,
link |
I mean, the way you detect aircraft,
link |
so I mean, I'm sure there's a lot of ways,
link |
but radar for the longest time,
link |
there's a big blob that appears in the radar.
link |
How do you make a plane disappear
link |
so it looks as big as a ball bearing?
link |
What's involved in technology wise there?
link |
What's broadly sort of the stuff you can speak about?
link |
I'll stick to what's in Ben Rich's book,
link |
but obviously the geometry of how radar gets reflected
link |
and the kinds of materials that either reflect or absorb
link |
are kind of the couple of the critical elements there.
link |
I mean, it's a cat and mouse game, right?
link |
I mean, radars get better, stealth capabilities get better.
link |
And so it's a really game of continuous improvement
link |
and innovation there.
link |
I'll leave it at that.
link |
Yeah, so the idea that something is essentially invisible
link |
is quite fascinating.
link |
But the other one is flying fast.
link |
So speed of sound is 750, 60 miles an hour.
link |
So supersonic is three, Mach three,
link |
something like that.
link |
Yeah, we talk about the supersonic obviously
link |
and we kind of talk about that as that realm
link |
from Mach one up through about Mach five.
link |
And then hypersonic, so high supersonic speeds
link |
would be past Mach five.
link |
And you got to remember Lockheed, Martin,
link |
and actually other companies have been involved
link |
in hypersonic development since the late 60s.
link |
You think of everything from the X 15
link |
to the space shuttle as examples of that.
link |
I think the difference now is if you look around the world,
link |
particularly the threat environment that we're in today,
link |
you're starting to see publicly folks like the Russians
link |
and the Chinese saying they have hypersonic weapons
link |
capability that could threaten US and allied capabilities.
link |
And also basically the claims are these could get around
link |
defensive systems that are out there today.
link |
And so there's a real sense of urgency.
link |
You hear it from folks like the undersecretary of defense
link |
for research and engineering, Dr. Mike Griffin
link |
and others in the Department of Defense
link |
that hypersonics is something that's really important
link |
to the nation in terms of both parity
link |
but also defensive capabilities.
link |
And so that's something that we're pleased.
link |
It's something Lockheed, Martin's had a heritage in.
link |
We've invested R&D dollars on our side for many years.
link |
And we have a number of things going on
link |
with various US government customers in that field today
link |
that we're very excited about.
link |
So I would anticipate we'll be hearing more about that
link |
in the future from our customers.
link |
And I've actually haven't read much about this.
link |
Probably you can't talk about much of it at all,
link |
but on the defensive side,
link |
it's a fascinating problem of perception
link |
of trying to detect things that are really hard to see.
link |
Can you comment on how hard that problem is
link |
and how hard is it to stay ahead,
link |
even if we're going back a few decades,
link |
stay ahead of the competition?
link |
Well, maybe I, again, you gotta think of these
link |
as ongoing capability development.
link |
And so think back to the early phase of missile defense.
link |
So this would be in the 80s, the SDI program.
link |
And in that timeframe, we proved,
link |
and Lockheed Martin proved that you could hit a bullet
link |
with a bullet, essentially,
link |
and which is something that had never been done before
link |
to take out an incoming ballistic missile.
link |
And so that's led to these incredible
link |
hit to kill kinds of capabilities, PAC 3.
link |
That's the Patriot Advanced Capability Model 3
link |
that Lockheed Martin builds,
link |
the THAAD system that I talked about.
link |
So now hypersonics,
link |
you know, they're different from ballistic systems.
link |
And so we gotta take the next step
link |
in defensive capability.
link |
I can, I'll leave that there, but I can only imagine.
link |
Now, let me just comment, sort of as an engineer,
link |
it's sad to know that so much that Lockheed has done
link |
in the past is classified,
link |
or today, you know, and it's shrouded in secrecy.
link |
It has to be by the nature of the application.
link |
So like what I do, so what we do here at MIT,
link |
we'd like to inspire young engineers, young scientists,
link |
and yet in the Lockheed case,
link |
some of that engineer has to stay quiet.
link |
How do you think about that?
link |
How does that make you feel?
link |
Is there a future where more can be shown,
link |
or is it just the nature, the nature of this world
link |
that it has to remain secret?
link |
It's a good question.
link |
I think the public can see enough of,
link |
including students who may be in grade school,
link |
high school, college today,
link |
to understand the kinds of really hard problems
link |
And I mean, look at the F35, right?
link |
And obviously a lot of the detailed performance levels
link |
are sensitive and controlled.
link |
But we can talk about what an incredible aircraft this is.
link |
It's a supersonic, super cruise kind of a fighter,
link |
a stealth capabilities.
link |
It's a flying information system in the sky
link |
with data fusion, sensor fusion capabilities
link |
that have never been seen before.
link |
So these are the kinds of things that I believe,
link |
these are the kinds of things that got me excited
link |
when I was a student.
link |
I think these still inspire students today.
link |
And the other thing, I mean, people are inspired by space.
link |
People are inspired by aircraft.
link |
Our employees are also inspired by that sense of mission.
link |
And I'll just give you an example.
link |
I had the privilege to work and lead our GPS programs
link |
And that was a case where I actually
link |
worked on a program that touches billions of people
link |
And so when I said I worked on GPS,
link |
everybody knew what I was talking about,
link |
even though they didn't maybe appreciate the technical
link |
challenges that went into that.
link |
But I'll tell you, I got a briefing one time
link |
from a major in the Air Force.
link |
And he said, I go by call sign GIMP.
link |
GPS is my passion.
link |
And he was involved in the operational test of the system.
link |
He said, I was out in Iraq.
link |
And I was on a helicopter, Black Hawk helicopter.
link |
And I was bringing back a sergeant and a handful of troops
link |
from a deployed location.
link |
And he said, my job is GPS.
link |
So I asked that sergeant.
link |
And he's beaten down and half asleep.
link |
And I said, what do you think about GPS?
link |
And he brightened up.
link |
And he said, well, GPS, that brings me and my troops home
link |
And that's the kind of story where it's like, OK,
link |
I'm really making a difference here in the kind of work.
link |
So that mission piece is really important.
link |
The last thing I'll say is, and this
link |
gets to some of these questions around advanced
link |
technologies, they're not just airplanes and spacecraft
link |
For people who are excited about advanced software
link |
capabilities, about AI, about bringing machine learning,
link |
these are the things that we're doing to exponentially
link |
increase the mission capabilities that
link |
go on those platforms.
link |
And those are the kinds of things I think
link |
are more and more visible to the public.
link |
Yeah, I think autonomy, especially in flight,
link |
is super exciting.
link |
Do you see a day, here we go, back into philosophy,
link |
a future when most fighter jets will be highly autonomous
link |
to a degree where a human doesn't need
link |
to be in the cockpit in almost all cases?
link |
Well, I mean, that's a world that to a certain extent,
link |
Now, these are remotely piloted aircraft, to be sure.
link |
But we have hundreds of thousands of flight hours a year now
link |
in remotely piloted aircraft.
link |
And then if you take the F 35, I mean,
link |
there are huge layers, I guess, in levels of autonomy
link |
built into that aircraft so that the pilot is essentially
link |
more of a mission manager rather than doing
link |
the data, the second to second elements of flying
link |
So in some ways, it's the easiest aircraft in the world
link |
I'm kind of a funny story on that.
link |
So I don't know if you know how aircraft carrier landings work.
link |
But basically, there's what's called a tail hook,
link |
and it catches wires on the deck of the carrier.
link |
And that's what brings the aircraft to a screeching halt.
link |
And there's typically three of these wires.
link |
So if you miss the first, the second one,
link |
you catch the next one, right?
link |
And we got a little criticism.
link |
I don't know how true this story is,
link |
but we got a little criticism.
link |
The F 35 is so perfect, it always gets the second wires.
link |
We're wearing out the wire because it always hits that one.
link |
But that's the kind of autonomy that just makes these,
link |
essentially up levels what the human is doing
link |
to more of that mission manager.
link |
So much of that landing by the F 35 is autonomous.
link |
Well, it's just the control systems
link |
are such that you really have dialed out the variability
link |
that comes with all the environmental conditions.
link |
You're wearing it out.
link |
So my point is, to a certain extent,
link |
that world is here today.
link |
Do I think that we're going to see a day anytime soon
link |
when there are no humans in the cockpit?
link |
I don't believe that.
link |
But I do think we're going to see much more human machine
link |
teaming, and we're going to see that much more
link |
at the tactical edge.
link |
And we did a demo.
link |
You asked about what the Skunkworks is doing these days.
link |
And so this is something I can talk about.
link |
But we did a demo with the Air Force Research Laboratory.
link |
We called it HAV Raider.
link |
And so using an F 16 as an autonomous wingman,
link |
and we demonstrated all kinds of maneuvers
link |
and various mission scenarios with the autonomous F 16
link |
being that so called loyal or trusted wingman.
link |
And so those are the kinds of things
link |
that we've shown what is possible now,
link |
given that you've upleveled that pilot to be a mission manager.
link |
Now they can control multiple other aircraft,
link |
they can almost as extensions of your own aircraft
link |
flying alongside with you.
link |
So that's another example of how this is really
link |
coming to fruition.
link |
And then I mentioned the landings,
link |
but think about just the implications
link |
for humans and flight safety.
link |
And this goes a little bit back to the discussion
link |
we were having about how do you continuously improve
link |
the level of safety through automation
link |
while working through the complexities that automation
link |
So one of the challenges that you have in high performance
link |
fighter aircraft is what's called Glock.
link |
So this is G induced loss of consciousness.
link |
So you pull 9Gs, you're wearing a pressure suit,
link |
that's not enough to keep the blood going to your brain,
link |
And of course, that's bad if you happen to be flying low,
link |
near the deck, and in an obstacle or terrain environment.
link |
And so we developed a system in our aeronautics division
link |
called Auto GCAS, so Autonomous Ground Collision Avoidance
link |
And we built that into the F16.
link |
It's actually saved seven aircraft, eight pilots already.
link |
And the relatively short time it's been deployed,
link |
it was so successful that the Air Force said,
link |
hey, we need to have this in the F35 right away.
link |
So we've actually done testing of that now in the F35.
link |
And we've also integrated an autonomous air collision
link |
So I think the air to air problem.
link |
So now it's the integrated collision avoidance system.
link |
But these are the kinds of capabilities.
link |
I wouldn't call them AI.
link |
I mean, they're very sophisticated models
link |
of the aircraft's dynamics coupled with the terrain models
link |
to be able to predict when essentially the pilot is
link |
doing something that is going to take the aircraft into,
link |
or the pilot's not doing something in this case.
link |
But it just gives you an example of how autonomy can be really
link |
a lifesaver in today's world.
link |
It's like an autonomous automated emergency
link |
But is there any exploration of perception of, for example,
link |
detecting a Glock that the pilot is out,
link |
so as opposed to perceiving the external environment
link |
to infer that the pilot is out, but actually perceiving
link |
the pilot directly?
link |
Yeah, this is one of those cases where
link |
you'd like to not take action if you think the pilot's there.
link |
And it's almost like systems that try
link |
to detect if a driver is falling asleep on the road,
link |
right, with limited success.
link |
So I mean, this is what I call the system of last resort,
link |
right, where if the aircraft has determined
link |
that it's going into the terrain, get it out of there.
link |
And this is not something that we're just
link |
doing in the aircraft world.
link |
And I wanted to highlight, we have a technology we call Matrix,
link |
but this is developed at Sikorsky Innovations.
link |
The whole idea there is what we call optimal piloting,
link |
so not optional piloting or unpiloted,
link |
but optimal piloting.
link |
So an FAA certified system, so you
link |
have a high degree of confidence.
link |
It's generally pretty deterministic,
link |
so we know that it'll do in different situations,
link |
but effectively be able to fly a mission with two pilots,
link |
one pilot, no pilots.
link |
And you can think of it almost as like a dial of the level
link |
of autonomy that you want, so it's
link |
running in the background at all times
link |
and able to pick up tasks, whether it's
link |
sort of autopilot kinds of tasks or more sophisticated path
link |
planning kinds of activities.
link |
To be able to do things like, for example, land on an oil
link |
rig in the North Sea in bad weather, zero, zero conditions.
link |
And you can imagine, of course, there's
link |
a lot of military utility to capability like that.
link |
You could have an aircraft that you
link |
want to send out for a crewed mission,
link |
but then at night, if you want to use it to deliver supplies
link |
in an unmanned mode, that could be done as well.
link |
And so there's clear advantages there.
link |
But think about on the commercial side,
link |
if you're an aircraft taken, you're
link |
going to fly out to this oil rig.
link |
If you get out there and you can't land,
link |
then you've got to bring all those people back, reschedule
link |
another flight, pay the overtime for the crew
link |
that you just brought back because they didn't get what
link |
they were going to pay for the overtime for the folks that
link |
are out there on the oil rig.
link |
This is real economic.
link |
These are dollars and cents kinds of advantages
link |
that we're bringing in the commercial world as well.
link |
So this is a difficult question from the AI space
link |
that I would love it if we were able to comment.
link |
So a lot of this autonomy in AI you've mentioned just now
link |
has this empowering effect.
link |
One is the last resort, it keeps you safe.
link |
The other is there's with the teaming and in general,
link |
And I think there's always a race.
link |
So the world is full of the world is complex.
link |
It's full of bad actors.
link |
So there's often a race to make sure
link |
that we keep this country safe.
link |
But with AI, there is a concern that it's
link |
a slightly different race.
link |
There's a lot of people in the AI space
link |
that are concerned about the AI arms race.
link |
That as opposed to the United States
link |
becoming having the best technology
link |
and therefore keeping us safe, even we lose ability
link |
to keep control of it.
link |
So the AI arms race getting away from all of us humans.
link |
So do you share this worry?
link |
Do you share this concern when we're
link |
talking about military applications
link |
that too much control and decision making
link |
capabilities giving to software or AI?
link |
Well, I don't see it happening today.
link |
And in fact, this is something from a policy perspective.
link |
It's obviously a very dynamic space.
link |
But the Department of Defense has put quite a bit of thought
link |
And maybe before talking about the policy,
link |
I'll just talk about some of the why.
link |
And you alluded to it being sort of a complicated and a little
link |
bit scary world out there.
link |
But there's some big things happening today.
link |
You hear a lot of talk now about a return to great powers
link |
competition, particularly around China and Russia with the US.
link |
But there are some other big players out there as well.
link |
And what we've seen is the deployment
link |
of some very, I'd say, concerning new weapons systems,
link |
particularly with Russia and breaching some of the IRBM,
link |
intermediate range ballistic missile
link |
treaties that's been in the news a lot.
link |
The building of islands, artificial islands in the South
link |
China Sea by the Chinese, and then arming those islands.
link |
The annexation of Crimea by Russia,
link |
the invasion of Ukraine.
link |
So there's some pretty scary things.
link |
And then you add on top of that, the North Korean threat has
link |
certainly not gone away.
link |
There's a lot going on in the Middle East with Iran in particular.
link |
And we see this global terrorism threat has not abated, right?
link |
So there are a lot of reasons to look for technology
link |
to assist with those problems, whether it's
link |
AI or other technologies like hypersonage, which
link |
was which we discussed.
link |
So now, let me give just a couple of hypotheticals.
link |
So people react sort of in the second time frame, right?
link |
You're photon hitting your eye to a movement
link |
is on the order of a few tenths of a second
link |
kinds of processing times.
link |
Roughly speaking, computers are operating
link |
in the nanosecond time scale, right?
link |
So just to bring home what that means,
link |
a nanosecond to a second is like a second to 32 years.
link |
So seconds on the battlefield, in that sense,
link |
literally are lifetimes.
link |
And so if you can bring an autonomous or AI enabled
link |
capability that will enable the human to shrink,
link |
maybe you've heard the term the OODA loop.
link |
So this whole idea that a typical battlefield decision
link |
is characterized by observe.
link |
So information comes in, orient.
link |
What does that mean in the context?
link |
Decide, what do I do about it?
link |
And then act, take that action.
link |
If you can use these capabilities
link |
to compress that OODA loop to stay
link |
inside what your adversary is doing,
link |
that's an incredible, powerful force on the battlefield.
link |
That's a really nice way to put it,
link |
that the role of AI in computing in general
link |
has a lot to benefit from just decreasing from 32 years
link |
to one second, as opposed to on the scale of seconds
link |
and minutes and hours making decisions
link |
that humans are better at making.
link |
And it actually goes the other way, too.
link |
So that's on the short time scale.
link |
So humans kind of work in the one second, two seconds
link |
After eight hours, you get tired.
link |
You got to go to the bathroom, whatever the case might be.
link |
So there's this whole range of other things.
link |
Think about surveillance and guarding facilities.
link |
Think about moving material, logistics, sustainment.
link |
A lot of these what they call dull, dirty, and dangerous
link |
things that you need to have sustained activity,
link |
but it's sort of beyond the length of time
link |
that a human can practically do as well.
link |
So there's this range of things that
link |
are critical in military and defense applications
link |
that AI and autonomy are particularly well suited to.
link |
Now, the interesting question that you brought up
link |
is, OK, how do you make sure that stays within human control?
link |
So that was the context for the policy.
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And so there is a DOD directive called 3,000.09,
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because that's the way we name stuff in this world.
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And I'd say it's well worth reading.
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It's only a couple pages long, but it makes some key points.
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And it's really around making sure
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that there's human agency and control over use
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of semi autonomous and autonomous weapons systems,
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making sure that these systems are tested, verified,
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and evaluated in realistic, real world type scenarios,
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making sure that the people are actually
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trained on how to use them, making sure
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that the systems have human machine interfaces that
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can show what state they're in and what kinds of decisions
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they're making, making sure that you
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establish doctrine and tactics and techniques and procedures
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for the use of these kinds of systems.
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And so, and by the way, I mean, none of this is easy,
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but I'm just trying to lay kind of the picture of how
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the US has said, this is the way we're
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going to treat AI and autonomous systems,
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that it's not a free for all.
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And like there are rules of war and rules of engagement
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with other kinds of systems, think chemical weapons,
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biological weapons, we need to think
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about the same sorts of implications.
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And this is something that's really important for Lockheed
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Martin, I mean, obviously we are 100%
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complying with our customer and the policies and regulations.
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But I mean, AI is an incredible enabler, say,
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within the walls of Lockheed Martin
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in terms of improving production efficiency,
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helping engineers doing generative design,
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improving logistics, driving down energy costs.
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I mean, there's so many applications.
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But we're also very interested in some
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of the elements of ethical application
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within Lockheed Martin.
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So we need to make sure that things like privacy is taken care
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of, that we do everything we can to drive out
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bias in AI enabled kinds of systems,
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that we make sure that humans are involved in decisions
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that we're not just delegating accountability to algorithms.
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And so for us, I talked about culture before,
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and it comes back to sort of the Lockheed Martin culture
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and our core values.
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And so it's pretty simple for us to do what's right,
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respect others, perform with excellence.
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And now how do we tie that back to the ethical principles
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that will govern how AI is used within Lockheed Martin?
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And we actually have a world, so you might not know this,
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but they're actually awards for ethics programs.
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Lockheed Martin's had a recognized ethics program
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for many years, and this is one of the things
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that our ethics team is working with our engineering team on.
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One of the miracles to me, perhaps a layman,
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again, I was born in the Soviet Union,
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so I have echoes, at least in my family history of World War
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II and the Cold War, do you have a sense
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of why human civilization has not destroyed itself
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through nuclear war, so nuclear deterrence?
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And thinking about the future, this technology
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of our role to play here, and what
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is the long term future of nuclear deterrence look like?
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Yeah, this is one of those hard, hard questions.
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And I should note that Lockheed Martin is both proud
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and privileged to play a part in multiple legs
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of our nuclear and strategic deterrent systems
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like the Trident submarine launch ballistic missiles.
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You talk about, is there still a possibility
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that human race could destroy itself?
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I'd say that possibility is real, but interestingly,
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in some sense, I think the strategic deterrence
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have prevented the kinds of incredibly destructive world
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wars that we saw in the first half of the 20th century.
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Now, things have gotten more complicated since that time
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and since the Cold War.
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It is more of a multipolar, great powers world today.
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Just to give you an example, back then,
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there were in the Cold War timeframe
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just a handful of nations that had ballistic missile
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By last count, and this is a few years old,
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there's over 70 nations today that have that,
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similar kinds of numbers in terms of space based capabilities.
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So the world has gotten more complex and more challenging
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and the threats, I think, have proliferated in ways
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that we didn't expect.
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The nation today is in the middle
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of a recapitalization of our strategic deterrent.
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I look at that as one of the most important things
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that our nation can do.
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What is involved in deterrence?
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Is it being ready to attack?
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Or is it the defensive systems that catch attacks?
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A little bit of both, and so it's
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a complicated game theoretical kind of program.
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But ultimately, we are trying to prevent the use
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of any of these weapons.
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And the theory behind prevention is
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that even if an adversary uses a weapon against you,
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you have the capability to essentially strike back
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and do harm to them that's unacceptable.
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And so that will deter them from making use
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of these weapons systems.
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The deterrence calculus has changed, of course,
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with more nations now having these kinds of weapons.
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But I think from my perspective, it's
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very important to maintain a strategic deterrent.
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You have to have systems that you will know will work
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when they're required to work.
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And you know that they have to be
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adaptable to a variety of different scenarios
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And so that's what this recapitalization of systems
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that were built over previous decades,
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making sure that they are appropriate not just for today,
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but for the decades to come.
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So the other thing I'd really like to note
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is strategic deterrence has a very different character today.
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We used to think of weapons of mass destruction
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in terms of nuclear, chemical, biological.
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And today we have a cyber threat.
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We've seen examples of the use of cyber weaponry.
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And if you think about the possibilities
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of using cyber capabilities or an adversary attacking the US
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to take out things like critical infrastructure,
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electrical grids, water systems, those
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are scenarios that are strategic in nature
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to the survival of a nation as well.
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So that is the kind of world that we live in today.
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And part of my hope on this is one
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that we can also develop technological systems,
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perhaps enabled by AI and autonomy,
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that will allow us to contain and to fight back
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against these kinds of new threats that were not
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conceived when we first developed our strategic deterrence.
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Yeah, I know that Lockheed is involved in cyber.
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So I saw that you mentioned that.
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It's an incredibly change.
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Nuclear almost seems easier than cyber,
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because there's so many attack.
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There's so many ways that cyber can evolve
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in such an uncertain future.
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But talking about engineering with a mission,
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I mean, in this case, your engineering systems
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that basically save the world.
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Well, like I said, we're privileged to work
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on some very challenging problems
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for very critical customers here in the US
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and with our allies abroad as well.
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Lockheed builds both military and nonmilitary systems.
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And perhaps the future of Lockheed
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may be more in nonmilitary applications
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if you talk about space and beyond.
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I say that as a preface to a difficult question.
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So President Eisenhower in 1961 in his farewell address
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talked about the military industrial complex
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and that it shouldn't grow beyond what is needed.
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So what are your thoughts on those words
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on the military industrial complex,
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on the concern of growth of their developments
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beyond what may be needed?
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That what may be needed is a critical phrase, of course.
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And I think it is worth pointing out, as you noted,
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that Lockheed Martin, we're in a number of commercial businesses
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from energy to space to commercial aircraft.
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And so I wouldn't neglect the importance
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of those parts of our business as well.
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I think the world is dynamic.
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And there was a time, it doesn't seem that long ago to me,
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was I was a graduate student here at MIT
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and we were talking about the peace
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dividend at the end of the Cold War.
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If you look at expenditure on military systems
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as a fraction of GDP, we're far below peak levels of the past.
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And to me, at least, it looks like a time
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where you're seeing global threats changing in a way that
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would warrant relevant investments
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in defensive capabilities.
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The other thing I'd note, for military and defensive systems,
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it's not quite a free market, right?
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We don't sell to people on the street.
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And that warrants a very close partnership
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between, I'd say, the customers and the people that design,
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build, and maintain these systems because
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of the very unique nature, the very difficult requirements,
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the very great importance on safety
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and on operating the way they're intended every time.
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And so that does create, and it's frankly
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one of Lockheed Martin's great strengths
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is that we have this expertise built up
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over many years in partnership with our customers
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to be able to design and build these systems that
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meet these very unique mission needs.
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Yeah, because building those systems very costly,
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there's very little room for mistake.
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I mean, it's just Ben Rich's book and so on
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just tells the story.
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It's nowhere I can just reading it.
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If you're an engineer, it reads like a thriller.
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OK, let's go back to space for a second.
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I'm always happy to go back to space.
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So a few quick, maybe out there, maybe fun questions,
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maybe a little provocative.
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What are your thoughts on the efforts of the new folks,
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SpaceX and Elon Musk?
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What are your thoughts about what Elon is doing?
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Do you see him as competition, do you enjoy competition?
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What are your thoughts?
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First of all, certainly Elon, I'd
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say SpaceX and some of his other ventures
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are definitely a competitive force in the space industry.
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And do we like competition?
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And we think we're very strong competitors.
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I think competition is what the US is founded on
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in a lot of ways and always coming up with a better way.
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And I think it's really important to continue
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to have fresh eyes coming in, new innovation.
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I do think it's important to have level playing fields.
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And so you want to make sure that you're not
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giving different requirements to different players.
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But I tell people, I spent a lot of time at places like MIT.
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I'm going to be at the MIT Beaver Works Summer Institute
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over the weekend here.
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And I tell people, this is the most exciting time
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to be in the space business in my entire life.
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And it is this explosion of new capabilities
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that have been driven by things like the massive increase
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in computing power, things like the massive increase
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in comms capabilities, advanced and additive manufacturing,
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are really bringing down the barriers to entry
link |
in this field and it's driving just incredible innovation.
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It's happening at startups, but it's also
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happening at Lockheed Martin.
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I did not realize this, but Lockheed Martin, working
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with Stanford, actually built the first cubes that
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was launched here out of the US that was called Quakesat.
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And we did that with Stellar Solutions.
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This was right around just after 2000, I guess.
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And so we've been in that from the very beginning.
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And I talked about some of these like Maya and Orion,
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but we're in the middle of what we call smartsats and software
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to find satellites that can essentially restructure and remap
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their purpose, their mission on orbit
link |
to give you almost unlimited flexibility for these satellites
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over their lifetimes.
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So those are just a couple of examples,
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but yeah, this is a great time to be in space.
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So Wright Brothers flew for the first time 116 years ago.
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So now we have supersonic stealth planes
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and all the technology we've talked about.
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What innovations, obviously you can't predict the future,
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but do you see Lockheed in the next 100 years?
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If you take that same leap, how will the world of technology
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and engineering change?
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I know it's an impossible question,
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but nobody could have predicted that we could even
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fly 120 years ago.
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So what do you think is the edge of possibility
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that we're going to be exploring in the next 100 years?
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I don't know that there is an edge.
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We've been around for almost that entire time, right?
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The Lockheed Brothers and Glenn L. Martin
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starting their companies in the basement of a church
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and an old service station.
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We're very different companies today
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than we were back then, right?
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And that's because we've continuously
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reinvented ourselves over all of those decades.
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I think it's fair to say, I know this for sure,
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the world of the future, it's going to move faster,
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it's going to be more connected,
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it's going to be more autonomous,
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and it's going to be more complex than it is today.
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And so this is the world as a CTO of Lockheed Martin
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that I think about, what are the technologies
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that we have to invest in?
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Whether it's things like AI and autonomy,
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you can think about quantum computing,
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which is an area that we've invested in
link |
to try to stay ahead of these technological changes
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and frankly, some of the threats that are out there.
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And I believe that we're going to be out there
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in the solar system, that we're going to be defending
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and defending well against probably military threats
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that nobody has even thought about today.
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We are going to be, we're going to use these capabilities
link |
to have far greater knowledge of our own planet,
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the depths of the oceans, all the way to the upper reaches
link |
of the atmosphere and everything out to the sun
link |
and to the edge of the solar system.
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So that's what I look forward to.
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And I'm excited, I mean, just looking ahead
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in the next decade or so to the steps
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that I see ahead of us in that time.
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I don't think there's a better place to end.
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Okay, thank you so much.
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Lex, it's been a real pleasure and sorry,
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it took so long to get up here,
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but glad we were able to make it happen.