Space Acquisition - Air Force Space Command

Space Acquisition
The Cyberspace-Development Dogfight:
Tightening the Acquisitions Turn Circle
Maj Matthew Larkowski, USAF
Tanker Air Refueling Planner
Master Air Attack Plan Center
603 Air and Space Operations Center,
Ramstein AB, Germany
Dr. Robert F. Mills
Associate Professor, Electrical Engineering
Air Force Institute of Technology
Wright-Patterson AFB, Ohio
Moore's Law
The number of transistors on a chip doubles annually
Rock's Law
The cost of semiconductor tools doubles every
four years
Machrone's Law The PC you want to buy will always be $5,000
Metcalfe's Law
A network's value grows proportionately to the
number of its users squared
Wirth's Law
Software is slowing faster than hardware is accelerating
Table 1. Five Truths of Cyberspace Development. 1
Dr. John M. Colombi
Assistant Professor, Systems Engineering
Air Force Institute of Technology
Wright-Patterson AFB, Ohio
DoD [Department of Defense] has been able to develop and
acquire the best weapons and support systems in the world.
DoD and contractor personnel accomplished this feat not because
of the system, but in spite of it. And they did so at a price
… the nation can no longer afford to pay.
~ Former Secretary of Defense William J. Perry
There’s a Hole In the Bucket, Dear Liza …
If we fail to keep up with the increasing rate of technological
change, we will have made a de facto decision to fall behind.
Moore’s Law describes the trend for doubling the density of
transistors in a microprocessor chip every two years, and it is
often used to describe information technology advancements
in general. Information technology will
likely continue to double in capability on
the order of months, not years. Similarly,
Rock’s Law describes how the cost of
being able to produce these technology
increases also doubles roughly every two
years. At some point, Rock’s Law dominates,
and the age-old balancing act between
resources and capabilities ensues.
In an article titled “5 Commandments.
The rules engineers live by weren’t always
set in stone,” Philip E. Ross adds
three more laws, (see table 1). Machrone’s
Law may be thought of as “conservation
of price,” while Metcalfe’s Law
tells us there is strength in numbers, and
Wirth’s Law is a sort of “conservation of
slowness” idea. While these ideas are
more observation than “law,” together
they help form our mindset about all of
Figure 1. Col John Boyd’s OODA Loop. 3
the competing forces within cyberspace technology, so they are
included here for completeness.
John Boyd’s observe, orient, decide, act (OODA) model is
often used to describe process cycles, yet he would be the first
to say that we should not limit our focus only to the OODA
parts. Boyd would often preach “People, ideas, hardware—in
that order,” and “machines don’t fight wars, people do, and they
use their minds.” 2 The mindset of the OODA loop is similar to
the energy-maneuverability concept familiar to any fighter pilot,
since Boyd helped develop both concepts. If you use your
energy to fly smarter, turn tighter, and get inside the enemy’s
turn-circle, you can win any dogfight. Similarly, the cyberdevelopment
OODA loop can be thought of as a “resource-maneuverability”
relationship—if our “resource energy” is limited,
we must outmaneuver our adversary using increased agility.
Limited resources are often an economic reality, but we are
more limited by how we use our resources, not just the amount
of our resources. We also tend to overlook how people fit into
High Frontier 44