Telstar I – Perspective, Thinking and Innovation
Once upon a time the government had a monopoly on outer space. Whether it was the Soviet government, or the U.S. government, space launches and satellites were strictly a matter of government innovation, funding, policy and control. How could it be otherwise? That changed in July 1962. Telstar I was the first privately owned, privately developed satellite. It was also the world’s first active communications satellite, leading to a whole new way of viewing world events.
What does this ancient history have to do with today? There are still industry and government leaders and policy makers who ignore lessons from the past that point the way to doing things in entirely new ways. Several years ago a revered government advocate of “business as usual” grew tired of hearing those who advocated “thinking outside the box” and exclaimed they (the procurement workforce) should concentrate on learning what is inside the box. The “box” was the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR). The procurement workforce, only a few of whom were seeking to think, generally followed his lead. This same “leader” has recently been brought back from retirement to apply his business-as-usual expertise to a difficult DOD contract negotiation. The opposite of innovation.
In 1972 the Commission on Government Procurement found a “mass and maze of regulation”. After many trials we received a renamed mass and maze, known as the FAR. In 1986 the Packard Commission found that a critical component of the “cost too much, takes too long” acquisition system was a workforce neutered and in fear due to overregulation, bureaucracy and constrained thinking. Despite decades of so-called “acquisition reform” in 2018 the Congressionally mandated section 809 Panel members testified things were getting worse, not better! The PPBE Commission has recently tried to guide the way to reforming the budget and planning disaster inherited from Cold War processes.
What is missing are teams of critical thinkers – involving budget, needs assessment, and the nitty gritty of contracting. They need to find ways and means of defining and accomplishing mission goals – goals to which the warfighter or user has input. Their thinking and deliberations need to be informed by the latest insights from technology leaders – not the heads of major defense contractors but real thought leaders.
So…what does this have to do with a nearly sixty-year-old satellite program? Telstar shows things can be done differently than government “business-as-usual” and have profound results. Many folks who consider themselves experts in government acquisition have little or no knowledge of how things have been done differently in the past. More importantly, they are not really thinking about how things could be done differently or better in the future, or how they could be a part of seeking the better, faster, less expensive solution: a solution not always based on a buyer/seller relationship.
Linked find (1) a short video on Telstar and (2) an essay on ‘Uses of Other Transactions‘. Both are proffered in the hope of stimulating an appreciation of history and visions of a brighter future…
written by Richard L. Dunn