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Keoki Jackson: Lockheed Martin | Lex Fridman Podcast #33

Lex Fridman and Keoki Jackson on lockheed CTO on AI, hypersonics, and humanity’s future in space.

Lex FridmanhostKeoki Jacksonguest
Aug 19, 20191h 13mWatch on YouTube ↗

EVERY SPOKEN WORD

  1. 0:00 – 4:44

    Engineering awe: Skunk Works aircraft and early space milestones

    1. LF

      The following is a conversation with Keoke Jackson. He's the CTO of Lockheed Martin, a company that through its long history has created some of the most incredible engineering marvels human beings have ever built, including planes that fly fast and undetected, defense systems that intercept nuclear threats that can take the lives of millions, and systems that venture out into space, the moon, Mars and beyond. In these days, more and more, artificial intelligence has an assistive role to play in these systems. I've read several books in preparation for this conversation. It is a difficult one, because in part, Lockheed Martin builds military systems that operate in a complicated world that often does not have easy solutions, in the gray area between good and evil. I hope one day this world will rid itself of war in all its forms. But the path to achieving that in a world that does have evil is not obvious. What is obvious is good engineering and artificial intelligence research has a role to play on the side of good. Lockheed Martin and the rest of our community are hard at work at exactly this task. We talk about these and other important topics in this conversation. Also, most certainly, both Keoke and I have a passion for space, us humans venturing out toward the stars. We talk about this exciting future as well. This is the Artificial Intelligence podcast. If you enjoy it, subscribe on YouTube, give it five stars on iTunes, support it on Patreon, or simply connect with me on Twitter @lexfridman, spelled F-R-I-D-M-A-N. And now, here's my conversation with Keoke Jackson. I read several books on Lockheed Martin recently. My favorite in particular is by, uh, Ben Rich, called Skunk Works, personal memoir. It gets a little edgy at times. But from that, I was reminded, uh, that the engineers at Lockheed Martin have created some of the most incredible engineering marvels human beings have ever built throughout the cen- throughout the 20th century and the 21st. Do you remember a particular project or system at Lockheed, or before that, at the Space Shuttle Columbia that you were just in awe at the fact that us humans could create something like this?

    2. KJ

      You know, that's a, that's a great question. There's a lot of, uh, things that I could draw on there. When you look at the Skunk Works and Ben Rich's book in particular, of course it starts off with basically the start of the jet age, uh, and the P-80. I had the opportunity to sit next to one of the, uh, Apollo astronauts, uh, Charlie Duke, recently at dinner, and, uh, I said, "Hey, what's your favorite aircraft?" And he said, "Well, it was by far the F-104 Star Fighter," which was another, uh, aircraft that came out of Lockheed there.

    3. LF

      What, what, what kind of-

    4. KJ

      It was, it was the first Mach 2, uh, um, uh, jet fighter aircraft. They called it the missile with a man in it. And so those are the kinds of things I grew up hearing stories about. You know, of course, the SR-71 is incomparable as, uh, you know, kind of the epitome of speed, altitude, and just the coolest looking aircraft ever. So, uh, so there's-

    5. LF

      And that's a recognis- that's the plane that-

    6. KJ

      That's a, yeah, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance aircraft that was designed to be able to outrun, uh, basically go faster than any, uh, air defense system. But, uh, I, you know, I'll tell you, I'm a space junkin- uh, junkie, uh, that's why I came to MIT. That's really what took me, uh, ultimately to Lockheed Martin. And I grew up... And so Lockheed Martin, for example, has been, um, essentially at the heart of every planetary mission, uh, like all the Mars missions we've had a pla- a part in. And we've talked a lot about the 50th anniversary of Apollo here, uh, in the last couple of weeks, right? But, uh, remember 1976, uh, July 20th again, uh, National Space Day, so the landing of the Viking, uh, the Viking lander on m- on the surface of Mars. Just a huge accomplishment. And, uh, when I was a young engineer at Lockheed Martin, I got to meet engineers who had designed, you know, various pieces of that mission as well. So that's what I grew up on is these planetary missions, the start of the space shuttle era and, uh, and ultimately had the opportunity, uh, to see, uh, Lockheed Martin's part. And we can maybe talk about some of these, uh, here, but Lockheed Martin's part in all of these space journeys over the years.

  2. 4:44 – 6:00

    Humanity to Mars: Orion, deep-space travel, and “Mars Base Camp”

    1. LF

      Do you dream... And I apologize for getting philosophical at times or sentimental. I do re- romanticize the notion of space exploration. So, do you dream of the day when us humans colonize another planet like Mars or a man, a woman, a human being steps on, on Mars?

    2. KJ

      Absolutely. And, uh, that's a personal dream of mine. Uh, I haven't given up yet on my own, uh, opportunity to fly into space but...

    3. LF

      (laughs)

    4. KJ

      But as, you know, from the Lockheed Martin perspective, this is something that we're working towards every day. And, uh, of course, you know, we're, we're building the Orion spacecraft, which is the most sophisticated, uh, human-rated spacecraft ever built. And it's really designed for these deep space journeys, you know, starting with the moon, but ultimately going to Mars and, uh, being the platform, uh, you know, from a design perspective, uh, what we call the, the Mars base camp, to be able to take humans to the surface, and then after a mission of a couple of weeks, bring them back up safely. And so that is something I want to see happen during my time at Lockheed Martin. So I'm, uh, I'm pretty excited about that. And I think, uh, you know, once we prove that's possible, uh, you know, c- colonization might be, you know, a little bit further out, but it's something that, uh, I'd hope to see.

  3. 6:00 – 9:40

    Sustained presence and a space economy: Moon base, cislunar infrastructure, and launch costs

    1. LF

      So maybe you can give a, a little bit of an overview of... So Lockheed Martin is partner with, uh...... a few years ago with Boeing to work with the DOD and NASA to build launch systems and rockets with ULA. Uh, what's beyond that? What's Lockheed's mission timeline long-term dream in terms of space? You mentioned, uh, the moon. I've heard you talk about asteroids, as Mars... What's the timeline, what's the engineering challenges, and what's the dream, long-term?

    2. KJ

      Yeah. I think the dream long-term is to have a permanent presence in space beyond low earth orbit, ultimately with a, a long-term presence on the moon, and then to the planets, to Mars. And, uh-

    3. LF

      Sorry to interrupt on that.

    4. KJ

      Yeah.

    5. LF

      So long-term presence means-

    6. KJ

      Sustained and sustainable presence, and an economy, a space economy that really goes alongside that.

    7. LF

      With human beings being ... and being able to launch perhaps from those ... So like hop? (laughs)

    8. KJ

      Uh, you know, it's a-

    9. LF

      Is that a-

    10. KJ

      There's a lot of energy, uh, that goes in those hops, right?

    11. LF

      Right.

    12. KJ

      So, uh, I think the first step is being able to get there and to be able to establish sustained bases, right? And, uh, and build from there. And a lot of that means getting, as you know, things like the cost of a launch down, and, uh, you mentioned United Launch Alliance, and, uh, so I, I don't want to speak for ULA, but obviously they're, uh, they're working really hard to, uh, on their next generation of space, or of launch vehicles, uh, to, you know, maintain that incredible mission success record that ULA has, but ultimately continue to drive down the cost and make the flexibility, the speed, and the, uh, access, uh, ever greater.

    13. LF

      So what's the missions that are in the horizon that you could talk to?

    14. KJ

      No, I-

    15. LF

      Is there a hope to get to the moon

    16. NA

      Yeah, the-

    17. KJ

      Absolutely, absolutely. I mean, and it's-

    18. LF

      Uh-huh.

    19. KJ

      I think you know this, uh, or you may know this, you know, there's a lot of ways to accomplish some of these goals. And so, uh, that's a lot of what's in discussion today. But ultimately, the, the goal is to be able to establish a base, um, essentially in cislunar space that would allow for ready, uh, transfer, uh, from orbit to the lunar surface and back again. And so that's sort of that near-term, and when I say near-term, in the next decade or so vision, starting off with a, you know, a stated objective by this administration to get back to the moon in the 19- or the 2024 or 2025 timeframe, which is, uh, is right around the corner here. So, uh-

    20. LF

      How big of an engineering challenge is that?

    21. KJ

      Uh, (sighs) I think the big challenge is not so much to go but to stay, right? And so we demonstrated in the '60s that you could send somebody up, do a couple of days of a mission, and bring them home again successfully. Uh, now we're talking about doing that, I'd say more to, I don't want to say an industrial scale, but a sustained scale, right? So permanent habitation, uh, you know, regular reuse of, um, of vehicles, uh, the infrastructure to get things like fuel, air, um, uh, consumables, replacement parts, all the things that you need to sustain that kind of infrastructure. So those are certainly engineering challenges. There are budgetary challenges. Uh, and, uh, those are all things that we're going to have to work through. You know, the other thing, and I, I shouldn't ... I don't want to minimize this. I mean, I'm excited about human exploration, but the reality is, our technology

  4. 9:40 – 13:13

    Robotic exploration at scale: OSIRIS‑REx and sampling an asteroid

    1. KJ

      and where we've come over the last, you know, 40 years essentially, has changed what we can do with robotic exploration as well.

    2. LF

      (laughs)

    3. KJ

      And, uh, you know, to me, it's incredibly thrill- ... And this seems like old news now, but the fact that we have rovers driving around the surface of Mars and sending back data is just incredible. The fact that we have satellites in orbit around Mars that are collecting weather, you know, they're looking at the terrain, they're mapping, all of these kinds of things, on a continuous basis, that's incredible. And the fact that, you know, it, it's ... You got the time lag, of course, going to the, uh, going to the planets-

    4. LF

      Mm-hmm.

    5. KJ

      ... but you can effectively have virtual human presence there, uh, in a way that we have never been able to do before. And now, with the advent of even greater processing power, better AI systems, uh, better cognitive systems and decision systems, um, you know, you put that together with the human piece, and we really opened up the solar system in a whole different way. And I'll give you an example. Um, we've got OSIRIS-REx, which is a mission to the asteroid Bennu. So the, the spacecraft is out there right now on basically a year mapping activity, to map the entire surface of that asteroid in great detail.

    6. LF

      (laughs)

    7. KJ

      You know, all a- autonomously piloted, right? With the idea then that ... And, and this is not too far away. It's going to go in. It's got a, sort of a fancy vacuum cleaner with a bucket.

    8. LF

      Mm-hmm.

    9. KJ

      It's going to collect a sample off the (laughs) asteroid and then send it back here to Earth. And so, you know, we have gone from sort of those tentative steps in the '70s, uh, you know, early landings, video of the solar system, to now. We've sent (laughs) a spacecraft to Pluto. We have gone to comets and brought ... and, and intercepted comets. We've brought stardust, uh, da- you know, you know, uh, uh, material back. Uh, so that's, uh ... We've, we've gone, uh, uh, far, and there's incredible opportunity to go even farther.

    10. LF

      So it seems quite crazy that this is even possible that ... Can you talk a little bit about what it means to orbit an asteroid and, with a bucket to try to g- pick up some soil samples?

    11. KJ

      Yeah. I mean, it, so part of it is just kind of the, uh, you know, these are the ki- same kinds of techniques we use here on Earth for, um, high-speed, uh, you know, high-speed, high-accuracy imagery, stitching these scenes together and creating essentially high-accuracy, uh, world maps, right? And so, that's what we're doing, uh, obviously on a much smaller scale with an asteroid. Uh, but the other thing that's really interesting, you put together sort of that-... neat control and, you know, data and imagery problem. Uh, but the stories around how we design the collection, I mean, is essentially, you know, this is the, sort of the human ingenuity element, right? That, you know, essentially, uh, you know, had an engineer who had a, you know, one day is like, "Oh," starts messing around with parts, vacuum cleaner, bucket, you know.

    12. LF

      (laughs)

    13. KJ

      "Maybe we could do something like this." And that was what led to what we call the, the pogo stick collection, right? Where basically a thing comes down, (laughs) it's only there for seconds, does that collection, grabs the, uh, you know, essentially blows the m- the regolith material into the collection hopper and off it goes.

    14. LF

      So it doesn't really land almost. It's just-

    15. KJ

      It's a, it's a very short landing. (laughs)

  5. 13:13 – 15:08

    Why humans still matter in space: adaptation, anomalies, and real-time decision making

    1. LF

      Wow. That's, that's incredible. So, uh, what is, uh, in those... Talk a little bit more about space. Uh, what's the role of the human in all of this? What are the challenges? What are the opportunities for humans as they pilot these, uh, these vehicles in space and for humans that may step foot on, uh, on either the moon or Mars?

    2. KJ

      Yeah. It's a great question because, you know, I, I just have been extolling the virtues of robotic, uh-

    3. LF

      Right. Exactly.

    4. KJ

      ... and, uh, you know, rovers, autonomous systems, and those absolutely have a role. Uh, I think the thing that we don't know how to replace today is the ability to adapt on the fly to new information, and I believe that will come, uh, but we're not there yet. There's a ways to go. And, uh, so, you know, you think back to Apollo 13 and the ingenuity of the folks on the ground and on the spacecraft to essentially, uh, cobble together a, uh, way to get the carbon dioxide scrubbers to work. Those are the kinds of things that ultimately, you know, and I'd say not just from dealing with anomalies, but, you know, dealing with new information. You know, you see something and rather than waiting 20 minutes or half an hour, an hour to try to get information back and forth, but be able to essentially re-vector on the fly, collect, you know, different samples, take a different approach, choose different, uh, uh, areas to explore. Those are the kinds of things that, uh, that human presence, uh, enables that, you know, is still ways ahead of us on the AI side.

    5. LF

      Yeah. There's some interesting stuff we'll talk about on the teaming side here on Earth that's, uh, that's pretty cool to explore 100% again.

    6. KJ

      And in space. Let's not leave the space piece out.

  6. 15:08 – 16:54

    Human–AI teaming in deep space: MAIA (‘Alexa in space’) and the digital thread

    1. LF

      So what is teaming? What is AI and humans working together in space look like?

    2. KJ

      Yeah. One of the things we're working on is a system called MAIA, uh, which is you can think of it, uh, it- so it's an AI system and, uh-

    3. LF

      In space.

    4. KJ

      ... in space. Exactly. And, uh, you think of it as the Alexa in space, right?

    5. LF

      Right.

    6. KJ

      But this goes hand in hand with a lot of other developments. And so today's world, everything is essentially model-based, model-based, uh, systems engineering to the actual digital tapestry that goes through the design, the build, the manufacture, the testing, and ultimately the sustainment of these system. And so our vision is really that, you know, when our astronauts are there around Mars, they- you're gonna have that entire digital library of the spacecraft, of its operations, all the test data, all the test data and flight data from previous missions to be able to look and see if there are anomalous conditions and tell the, uh, humans, uh, and potentially deal with that before it becomes a, uh, a, a bad situation, and help the astronauts work through those kinds of things. And it's not just, uh, you know, dealing with problems as they come up, but also offering up opportunities for additional exploration capability, for example. So, so that's-

    7. LF

      Right.

    8. KJ

      ... the vision is that, you know, these are g- gonna take the best of the human to respond to, uh, to changing circumstances and rely on the best, uh, AI capabilities to monitor these, you know, this almost infinite number of data points and correlations of data points that humans frankly aren't that good at.

  7. 16:54 – 21:58

    Testing the untestable: digital twins, non-determinism, and V&V for learning systems

    1. LF

      So how do you develop systems in space like this? Uh, whether it's a (laughs) Alexa in space or in general, any kind of control systems, uh, any kind of intelligence systems, when you can't really test stuff too much out in space? It's very expensive to test stuff.

    2. KJ

      Yeah.

    3. LF

      So how do you develop such systems?

    4. KJ

      Yeah. That's, uh, that- that's the beauty of this digital twin, if you will. Uh, and of course with Lockheed Martin, we've over the past, you know, five plus decades been refining our knowledge of the space environment, of how materials behave, uh, dynamics, uh, the controls, the, uh, you know, radiation environments, all of these kinds of things. So we're able to create very sophisticated models. They're not perfect, but they're, uh, they're very good. And so you can actually do a lot of... And I, I spent part of my career, you know, simulating, uh, com- communication spacecraft, uh, you know, missile warning spacecraft, GPS spacecraft, in all kinds of scenarios and all kinds of environments. So this is really just taking that to the next level. The interesting thing is that now you're bringing into that loop a system, depending on how it's developed, that may be non-deterministic, it may be learning as it goes, and in fact-

    5. LF

      Right.

    6. KJ

      ... we anticipate that it will be learning as it goes, and so that brings a whole new, uh, level of interest, I guess, into how do you do verification and validation of these non-deterministic learning systems in scenarios that may go out of the bounds or the envelope that you have initially designed them to?

    7. LF

      So had s- this system and its intelligence has the same complexity, uh, some of the same complexity a human does in the... It learns over time, it's unpredictable in certain kinds of ways in the... So you, you still, you also have to model that when, when you're thinking about it. So in your, in your thoughts, it's possible-... to model the, the majority of situations, the, the important aspects of situations here on Earth and in space enough to test stuff?

    8. KJ

      Yeah. That's, this is really an active area of research, and we're actually funding university (laughs) research in a variety of places, including MIT. And this is in the realm of trust and verification and validation of, I'd say, autonomous systems in general, and then as a subset of that, autonomous systems that incorporate artificial intelligence capabilities. And this is, uh, this is not an easy problem. Um, we're working with startup companies. We've got internal R&D, but, you know, our conviction is that autonomy and, more and more, AI-enabled autonomy, is gonna be in everything that Lockheed Martin develops and fields, and it's gonna be retrofi- you know, it, autonomy and, and AI are gonna be retrofit into existing systems. They're gonna be part of the design for all of our future systems. And so maybe I should take a step back and say the way we define autonomy.

    9. LF

      Mm-hmm.

    10. KJ

      So we tu- we talk about autonomy, essentially, a system that composes, selects, and then executes decisions with varying levels of human intervention.

    11. LF

      Mm-hmm.

    12. KJ

      And so you could think of no autonomy, so this is essentially the human doing the task. You can think of s- um, effectively partial autonomy, where the human is in the loop, uh, so making decisions, uh, i- in every case about what the autonomous system can do.

    13. LF

      Either in the cockpit or remotely.

    14. KJ

      Or remotely, exactly, but still in that control loop. And then there's what you'd call supervisory autonomy. So the autonomous system is doing most of the work. The human can intervene to stop it or to change the direction. And then ultimately, fol- full autonomy, where the human is off the loop altogether, and for different types of missions, wanna have different levels of autonomy. So now, take that spectrum and this conviction that autonomy and more and more AI are in everything that we develop. Uh, the kinds of things that Lockheed Martin does, you know, a lot of times, are safety of life critical kinds of missions. Uh, you know, think about aircraft, for example. Um, and so we require, and our customers require, an extremely high level of confidence. Uh, one, that, you know, we're gonna protect life. Uh, two, that we're going to, uh, that these systems will behave in ways that their operators can understand. And so this gets into that whole field. Again, you know, that, it, being able to verify and validate, uh, that the systems have been, uh, that they will operate the way they're designed and the way they're expected. And furthermore, that they will do that in ways that can be explained and understood, and that is an extremely difficult challenge.

  8. 21:58 – 27:20

    Safety culture for complex software: lessons from aviation failures

    1. LF

      Yeah, so here's a difficult question. I don't mean to, uh, uh, bring this up, but I think it's a good case study that people are familiar with. Uh, Boeing 737 Max commercial airplane has had two recent crashes where their flight control software system failed, and it, it's software. So I don't mean to speak about Boeing, but broadly speaking, we have this in the autonomous vehicle space too, semi-autonomous. When you have millions of lines of code, software, making decisions, th- there is a little bit of a clash of cultures, because software engineers don't have the same culture of safety, often, uh, that people who build systems like at Lockheed Martin, uh, do, where it has to be exceptionally safe, you have to test this on. So how do we get this right when software is making so many decisions?

    2. KJ

      Yeah. And this, uh, there, there's a lot of things that have to happen, and by and large, I think it starts with the culture, right, which is n- not necessarily something that, A, is taught in school-

    3. LF

      Mm-hmm.

    4. KJ

      ... or B, is something that would come, you know, and depending on what kind of software you're developing, it m- may not be relevant, right, if you're targeting ads or something like that.

    5. LF

      Yeah.

    6. KJ

      So, uh, and by and large, I'd say not just Lockheed Martin, but certainly the aerospace industry as a whole has developed a culture that does focus on safety, safety of life, uh, operational safety, mission success. Um, but as you note, these systems have gotten incredibly complex, and so they're to the point where it's almost impossible, you know, the state space has become so huge that it's impossible to, or very difficult to do a systematic verification across the entire set of potential ways that an aircraft could be flown, all the conditions that could happen, all the potential failure, failure scenarios. Now, maybe that's solvable one day, maybe when we have our quantum computers at our-

    7. LF

      (laughs)

    8. KJ

      ... fingertips, we'll be able to actually simulate across an entire, you know, almost infinite state space. But today, uh, you know, there's a, there's a lot of work to, to really try to bound the system, to unders- to make sure that it behaves in predictable ways, and then have this culture of continuous inquiry and, you know, skepticism and questioning to say, "Did we really consider the right realm of possibilities? Have we done the right range of testing? Do we really understand, you know, in this case, you know, human and machine interactions, the human decision process alongside the machine, uh, processes?" And so that's that culture, uh, we call it the culture of mission success at Lockheed Martin, that really needs to be established. And it's not something, you know, it, it's something that people...... learn by living in it.

    9. LF

      Right.

    10. KJ

      And it's something that has to be promulgated, uh, you know, and it's done, you know, from the highest levels, uh, at a company of Lockheed Martin, like Lockheed Martin.

    11. LF

      Yeah. And the same is being faced at certain autonomous vehicle companies where that culture is- is not there because it started mostly by software engineers, so that's what they're struggling with. Is there lessons that you think we should learn as an industry and a society from the Boeing 737 Max crashes?

    12. KJ

      These crashes obviously are- are- they're tremendous tragedies. Uh, they're, uh, tragedies for all of the people, uh, the crew, the families, the passengers, the people on the ground involved. Um, and, you know, I- it's also a huge business and economic setback as well. I mean, you know, we've seen that it's impacting essentially the trade balance of the US. So these are- these are important, uh, questions. And these are the kinds of- you know, we've seen similar kinds of questioning at times. You know, you can go back to the Challenger, uh, accident. And it is, I think, always important to remind ourselves that humans are fallible, that the systems we create, uh, as perfect as we strive to make them, uh, we can always make them better. And so another element of that culture of mission success is really that commitment to continuous improvement. If there's something that goes wrong, uh, a real commitment to root cause, uh, and true root cause understanding, to taking the corrective actions, and to making the system- future systems better. And, uh, certainly, we want to- we strive for, you know- you know, no accidents. Uh, and if you look at the record of the commercial airline industry as a whole and the commercial aircraft industry as a whole, you know, there's a very nice, uh, decaying exponential to years now where we have no commercial aircraft accidents at all, right?

    13. LF

      Yeah.

    14. KJ

      Uh, fatal accidents at all.

    15. LF

      Yeah.

    16. KJ

      So that didn't happen by accident. Uh, it was through the regulatory agencies, FAA, the airframe manufacturers, uh, really working on a system to identify, uh, root causes and drive them out.

  9. 27:20 – 32:45

    What Lockheed Martin builds today: aircraft, space systems, and integrated defense

    1. LF

      So maybe we can take a step back, and many people are familiar, but Lockheed Martin broadly, what kind of categories of systems are you involved in building?

    2. KJ

      You know, Lockheed Martin, we think of ourselves as a company that solves hard mission problems, and the output of that might be an airplane or a spacecraft or a helicopter or a radar or something like that, but ultimately we're driven by these- you know, like what- what is our customer? What is that mission that they need to achieve? And so that's what drove the SR-71, right? How do you get pictures of a place, uh, where you've got sophisticated air defense systems, uh, that are capable of, uh, handling any aircraft that was out there at the time, right? So that- you know, that's what yielded an SR-71.

    3. LF

      Was build a nice flying camera. (laughs)

    4. KJ

      Exactly, and make sure it gets out and it gets back, right?

    5. LF

      Got it.

    6. KJ

      And that led ultimately to really the start of the space program in the US as well. Um, so now take a step back to Lockheed Martin of today, and we are v- you know, on the order of 105 years old now, uh, between Lockheed and Martin, the two big heritage companies. Of course, we're made up of a whole bunch of other companies that came in as well, General Dynamics, uh, you know, kind of go down the list. Today, we're- y- you can think of us in this space of solving mission problems. So obviously on the aircraft side, uh, tactical aircraft, uh, building the most advanced fighter, uh, aircraft that the world has ever seen. Uh, you know, we're up to now s- several hundred of those delivered, uh, building almost a hundred a year, and, uh, of course working on the things that come after that. Uh, on the space side, uh, we are engaged in pretty much every venue of space, uh, utilization and exploration you can imagine. So I mentioned things like navigation timing GPS-

    7. LF

      Mm-hmm.

    8. KJ

      ... communication satellites, missile warning satellites. Uh, we've built commercial surveillance satellites. We've built commercial communication satellites. We do civil space, so everything from human exploration to the robotic exploration of the outer planets. Um, and keep- keep going on the space front. Uh, but I- you know, a couple other areas I'd like to put out. Um, we're heavily engaged in building critical defensive systems. And so a couple that I'll mention, the Aegis combat system. This is basically the integrated air and missile defense system for the US and allied fleets. And so protects, you know, carrier strike groups, for example, from incoming ballistic missile threats, aircraft threats, cruise missile threats, and, you know, kind of go down the list.

    9. LF

      So the- the carriers, the fleet itself is the thing that is being protected. N- the carriers aren't serving as a protection for something else?

    10. KJ

      Well, that's- that's a little bit of a different application.

    11. LF

      Okay.

    12. KJ

      We've actually built a version called Aegis Ashore, which is now deployed in a couple of places around the world.

    13. LF

      All right.

    14. KJ

      So that same technolo- I mean, basically, uh, it can be used to protect either an ocean-going fleet or a land-based, uh, activity. Another one, the THAAD program. So THAAD, th- this is the Theater High Altitude Area Defense. This is to protect, you know, relatively broad areas against, uh, sophisticated, uh, ballistic missile threats. And so, uh, now, uh, you know, it's deployed, uh, with a lot of US capabilities, and now we have international customers, uh, that are looking to buy that capability as well. And so these are systems that defend, not just defend militaries and military capabilities, but defend population areas. Um, you know, we saw, you know, maybe the first-... public use of these, uh, back in the, in the first, uh, Gulf War with the Patriot systems. And these are, these are the kinds of things that Lockheed Martin, uh, delivers. Um, and there's a lot of stuff that goes with it, so think about the radar systems and the sensing systems that cue these, the, the command and control systems that decide how you pair a w- a weapon against an incoming threat, and then all the human and machine interfaces, uh, to make sure that they can be operated successfully in very, uh, strenuous environments.

    15. LF

      Yeah, there's, uh, there's some incredible engineering, uh, that, uh, at every front, like y- like, like you said. So maybe if we just take a look at s-, uh, Lockheed history broadly, maybe even looking at Skunk Works, w- what are the biggest, most impressive milestones of innovations? If you look at stealth, I would have called you crazy if you said that's possible at the time, uh, and supersonic and hypersonic, so traveling at ... First of all, traveling at the speed of sound is pretty damn fast. (laughs) And the supersonic and hypersonic, three, four, five times the speed of sound, that seems ... I would also call you crazy if you say you can do that. So can you tell me how it's possible to do these kinds of things, and is there other milestones and i- innovation that's going on we can talk about?

  10. 32:45 – 38:21

    Skunk Works innovation playbook: small teams, stealth, and hypersonics

    1. KJ

      Yeah. Well, let me start, uh, you know, on the Skunk Works saga, and, and you kind of alluded to it in the beginning. I mean, Skunk Works is as much a idea as a place, and so it's driven really by Kelly Johnson's 14 principles, and I'm not gonna list all 14 of 'em off, but the idea ... And this, I'm sure, will resonate with any engineer who's worked on a highly motivated small team before, uh, the idea that if you can essentially have a small team of very capably, capable people who wanna work on really hard problems, you can do almost anything, especially if you kinda shield them from, uh, bureaucratic influences, if you create very tight relationships with your customers so that you have that, uh, that team and c- shared vision with the customer. Uh, those are the kinds of things, uh, that enabled the Skunk Works to do these, these incredible things. And, uh, you know, we listed off a number, and you, you brought up stealth, and I mean, this, this whole ... You know, I wish I could've seen Ben Rich with a ball bearing, you know-

    2. LF

      Yeah, that's- (laughs)

    3. KJ

      ... rolling it across the desk, uh, to a general officer and saying, "Would you like to have an aircraft that has the radar cross-section of this ball bearing?" Probably one of the gr- you know, the m- the least expensive and most effective marketing campaigns in the history of the industry. Uh-

    4. LF

      So just for people that are not familiar, I mean, the way you detect aircraft is, I mean, I'm sure there's a lot of ways, uh, but radar, for the longest time, y- there's a big blob that appears in the radar. How do you make a plane disappear so it looks as big as a, a ball bearing? What's involved in technology-wise there? What's, um, broadly sort of a- (laughs) the stuff you can speak about-

    5. KJ

      Yeah. (laughs) I'll stick to what's in, uh, Ben Rich's book-

    6. LF

      Yeah.

    7. KJ

      But obviously, the geometry of how radar gets reflected and the kinds of materials that either reflect or absorb, uh, are com- kind of the, couple of the critical elements there. Um, and it's a cat and mouse game, right? I mean, you know, radars get better, stealth capabilities get better, and so it's a, it's a really a game of, of continuous improvement and innovation there, and I'll leave it at that.

    8. LF

      Yeah, so the, uh, the idea, uh, that something is essentially invisible is, uh, is quite fascinating. But the other one is flying fast, so speed of sound is 750, 60 miles an hour, uh, w- so supersonic is three, you know, Mach 3, something like that, so somewhere there?

    9. KJ

      Yeah, we talk about ... So supersonic obviously, and we kinda talk about that as that realm from Mach 1 up through about Mach 5.

    10. LF

      Right.

    11. KJ

      And then hypersonic, uh, so, you know, high supersonic speeds, uh, would be past Mach 5. And you gotta remember, uh, you know, Lockheed Martin and actually other companies have been involved in hypersonic development since the late '60s, um, you know? You think of everything from the X-15 to the space shuttle as examples of that. I think the difference now is, uh, if you look around the world, um, particularly the threat environment, uh, that we're in today, you're starting to see, you know, publicly, uh, the, uh, folks like the Russians and the Chinese, um, saying they have hypersonic, uh, weapons capability that could threaten, uh, US and allied, uh, capabilities, and also m- basically, you know, the claims are that these could get around defensive systems that are out there today. And so there's a real sense of urgency. You hear it from, uh, folks like the, uh, Undersecretary of Defense for Research and Engineering, Dr. Mike Griffin, and others in the Department of Defense that hypersonics is, uh, is something that's really important to the nation, m- in terms of both parity, but also in defensive capabilities. And so, uh, that's something that, you know, we're pleased, and it's something that Lockheed Martin's, you know, had a heritage in. Uh, we've invested, uh, R&D dollars on our side for many years, and, uh, we have a number of things going on with various, uh, US government customers, uh, in that field today that we're very excited about. So I, I would anticipate we'll be hearing more about that in the future from our customers.

    12. LF

      And I've actually haven't read much about this. Probably you can't talk about much of it at all, but on the defensive side is the fascinating problem of perception, of trying to detect things that are really hard to see.Can you comment on how hard that problem is and, uh, the, how, how hard is it to stay ahead? Uh, e- even if we go back a few decades, h- how, stay ahead of the competition in that regard?

    13. KJ

      Well, may- maybe I, I... Again, you gotta think of these as ongoing d- capability development.

    14. LF

      Excuse me.

    15. KJ

      And, uh, so think back to the early phase of missile defense, so this would be in the '80s, uh, the SDI program, and in that timeframe, we proved, uh, and Lockheed Martin proved that you could hit a bullet with a bullet, essentially, and, uh, and which is something that had never been done before to take out an incoming, uh, ballistic missile. And so that's led to these incredible hit-to-kill kinds of capabilities, uh, PAC-3, um, that's the Patriot Advanced Capability, uh, uh, Model 3 that Lockheed Martin builds, the THAAD system that I, uh, that I talked about. Um, so now, hypersonics, uh, you know, they're different from ballistic systems, and so we gotta take the next step, uh, in defensive capability.

  11. 38:21 – 42:18

    Secrecy, inspiration, and mission impact: why engineers still join

    1. LF

      (laughs) I can, uh, I'll l- I'll leave that there, but I can only imagine. Now, let me just comment, sort of as an engineer, it, it's sad to know that so much that Lockheed has done in the past is classified or today, you know, a- and it's shrouded in secrecy. It has to be, uh, by the nature of the application. (sighs) So like what, what I do, so we, what we do here at MIT, we like to inspire young engineers, uh, young scientists, and yet, in the Lockheed case, some of that engineering has to stay quiet. Ho- how do you think about that? How does that make you feel? Is there a future where more can be shown or is it just the nature, th- the nature of this world that it has to remain secret?

    2. KJ

      It's a good question. I think, you know, the public can see enough of, a- and- and including students who may be in grade school, high school, college today, uh, to understand the kinds of really hard problems that we work on.

    3. LF

      Right.

    4. KJ

      And, uh, I mean, look at the F-35, right? And, uh, y- you know, obviously a lot of the detailed performance levels are, are sensitive and controlled, but, you know, we can talk about what an incredible aircraft this is. It's, you know, a supersonic, super cruise kind of a fighter, a, uh, a, uh, you know, stealth capabilities. It's a flying information, you know, system in the sky with, uh, data fusion, sensor fusion capabilities that have never been seen before. So these are the kinds of things that I believe, you know, those, these are the kinds of things that got me excited when I was a student, and I think these still inspire, uh, students today. And the other thing I would say, I mean, you know, people are inspired by space. Uh, people are inspired by aircraft. Um, our employees are also inspired by that sense of mission.

    5. LF

      Mm-hmm. Yeah.

    6. KJ

      And I will, I'll just give you an example. I had the privilege to work and m- and lead our GPS programs for some time, and, uh, that was a case where, you know, I actually worked on a program that touches billions of people every day, and so when I said, "I worked on GPS," everybody knew what I was talking about, even though they didn't maybe appreciate the technical challenges, uh, that went into that. Uh, but I'll tell you, I, I got a briefing one time from a major in the Air Force, uh, and, uh, he said, "I, I go by call sign GIMP. GPS is my passion."

    7. LF

      (laughs)

    8. KJ

      So you know, "I love GPS," and he was involved in the operational test of the system. He said, "I went... I was at, um, in Iraq, and I was on a helicopter, uh, Black Hawk helicopter," um, uh, "and I was bringing back a, you know, a sergeant and a handful of troops from a deployed location, and, uh," you know, he said, "my job is GPS. So I asked that sergeant-"

    9. LF

      (laughs)

    10. KJ

      ... "and he's, you know, beaten down and kinda-"

    11. LF

      (laughs)

    12. KJ

      ... "half asleep, and I said, 'What do you think about GPS?'" And he brightened up, his eyes lit up, and he said, "Well, GPS, that brings me and my troops home every day. I love GPS." And that's the kind of story where it's like, okay, I'm really making a difference here in the kind of work. So that, that mission piece is really important. The last thing I'll say is tha- and this gets to some of these questions around advanced technologies, it's not j- you know, the- they're- and they're not just airplanes and spacecraft anymore. For people who are excited about advanced software capabilities, about AI, about bringing machine learn- these are the ap- these are the things that we're doing to, y- you know, exponentially increase the mission capabilities that go on those platforms, and those are the kinds of things that I think are more and more visible to the public.

  12. 42:18 – 50:06

    Autonomy in the cockpit: loyal wingmen, collision avoidance, and ‘optimal piloting’

    1. LF

      Yeah, I think, uh, autonomy, especially in flight, is super exciting. Do you, do you see if a day... Here we go, back into philosophy. A future when most fighter jets, uh, will be highly autonomous to a degree where a human doesn't need to be in the cockpit in almost all cases?

    2. KJ

      Well, I, I mean, that's a world that, to a certain extent, we're in today. Now these are remotely pir- piloted aircraft, uh, to be sure, but, um, but we have hundreds of thousands of flight hours a year now in remotely piloted aircraft.

    3. LF

      Remotely, right.

    4. KJ

      Um, and then if you take the F-35, uh, there, I mean, there are huge layers, I guess, and levels of autonomy built into that aircraft so that the, the pilot is essentially more of a mission manager rather than the doing the day-to-day, you know, the, the, the second-to-second, uh, elements of flying the aircraft. So in, in some ways, it's the easiest aircraft in the world to fly. And kind of a funny story on that, so I- I don't know if you know how aircraft carrier, uh, landings work-

    5. LF

      Mm-hmm.

    6. KJ

      ... but basically-... uh, there's what's called a tail hook and it catches wires on the deck of the carrier, and that's what brings the, uh, the aircraft to a screeching halt, right?

    7. LF

      Mm-hmm.

    8. KJ

      And there's typically three of these wires, so if you miss the first or second one, you catch the- the next one, right? And, uh, you know, we- we- we got a little criticism... I don't know how true this story is, but we got a little criticism. The F-35 is so perfect, it always gets the second wire, so we're wearing out the wire-

    9. LF

      (laughs)

    10. KJ

      ... (laughs) because it always hits that one. So that, but that's the kind of autonomy that just makes these air, uh, uh, essentially up-levels what the human is doing to more of that mission manager.

    11. LF

      So much of that landing, by that 35, is autonomous?

    12. KJ

      Well, it's just, you know, the control systems are such that you really have dialed out the variability, um-

    13. LF

      Got it.

    14. KJ

      ... with the, that comes with all the environmental conditions, right?

    15. LF

      You're wearing it out.

    16. KJ

      So my point is, to a certain extent, that world is here today.

    17. LF

      Mm-hmm.

    18. KJ

      Do I think that we're gonna see a day any time soon when there are no humans in the cockpit? I don't believe that. But I do think we're gonna see much more human-machine teaming, and we're gonna see that much more at the tactical edge. And we did a demo, you asked about what the Skunk Works is doing these days.

    19. LF

      (laughs)

    20. KJ

      And so this is what, something I can talk about.

    21. LF

      (laughs) Yeah.

    22. KJ

      But we did a demo, uh, with the Air Force Research Laborto- or Laboratory, uh, we called it HAVRater. And so using an F-16 as an autonomous wingman, and we demonstrated all kinds of maneuvers and various mission scenarios with the autonomous F-16 being that so-called loyal or trusted wingman. And so those are the kinds of things that, you know, we've shown what is possible now, uh, given that you've up-leveled that pilot to be a mission manager, now they can control multiple other aircraft. Think of them almost as extensions of your own aircraft flying alongside with you. So that's a, that's another example of how this is really coming to fruition. And then, uh, you know, I- I mentioned the- the landings, but, um, think about just the implications for humans and flight safety, and this goes a little bit back to the discussion we were having about how do you continuously improve the level of sa- safety through automation while working through the complexities that automation introduces? So one of the challenges that you have in high-performance fighter aircraft is what's called G-LOC, so this is G-induced loss of consciousness. So you pull 9 Gs, you're wearing a pressure suit-

    23. LF

      9 Gs.

    24. KJ

      ... that's not enough to keep the blood going to your brain.

    25. LF

      Yep.

    26. KJ

      You black out.

    27. LF

      Right.

    28. KJ

      Right? And, uh, of course, that's bad if you happen to be flying, uh, low, you know, near the deck, and, uh, you know, or an obstacle or terrain environment. And so we developed a system, uh, in our aeronautics, uh, division called Auto G-CAS, so autonomous ground collision avoidance system. And, uh, we built that into the F-16. It's actually saved seven aircraft, eight pilots already, uh, in the relatively short time it's been deployed. It was so successful that, uh, the, uh, Air Force said, "Hey, we need to have this in the F-35 right away." So we've actually gone, done testing of that now on the F-35. Um, and we've also integrated an autonomous air collision avoidance system, so think the air-to-air problem. So now it's the integrated collision avoidance system, uh, but the- these are the kinds of capabilities... You know, I wouldn't call them AI. I mean, they are very sophisticated models, uh, you know, of the aircraft's dynamics coupled with the terrain models to be able to predict when essentially, you know, the pilot is doing something that, you know, is gonna take the aircraft into... Or the pilot's not doing something, in this case. Uh, but those, you know, just gives you an example of how, uh, autonomy can be really a lifesaver, um, in today's world.

    29. LF

      It's like a autonomous emergence, uh, automated emergency braking in cars. But is there any exploration of perception of, uh, for example, detecting a G-LOC that the pilot has, is out? So as opposed to perceiving the external environment to infer that the pilot is out, but actually perceiving the pilot directly?

    30. KJ

      Yeah, this is one of those cases where you'd like to, you know, not take action if you think the pilot's there.

  13. 50:06 – 58:48

    AI arms race fears and governance: OODA loops, DoD policy, and ethics principles

    1. LF

      So this is a, a difficult question from the AI space that I would love it if you're able to comment. So a lot of this autonomy in AI you've mentioned just now has this empowering effect. One is the last resort, it keeps you safe. The other is there's a, with the teaming and, in general, um, assistive, uh, assistive AI. Uh, and I think there's a, there's always a race. So th- the world is full of... The world is complex. It's full of, uh, uh, bad actors, so there's, there's often a race to make sure that we keep this, uh, this country safe, right? Th- but with AI, it, there is a concern that it's a slightly different race. Uh, there's a lot of people in the AI space that are concerned about the AI arms race, that as opposed to U- the United States becoming, you know, um, having the best technology and therefore keeping us safe, it, we, even we lose ability to s- keep control of it. So this, uh, the AI arms race getting away from all of us humans. So do you share this worry? Do you share this concern when we are talking about military applications, that too much control and decision-making capability is giving to software or A- AI?

    2. KJ

      Well, I, I don't see it happening today. And in fact, this is something, from a policy perspective, uh, you know, it's, it's obviously a very dynamic space, but the Department of Defense has put quite a bit of thought into that. And maybe before talking about the policy, I'll just talk about some of the why. And you alluded to it, it being a sort of a complicated and a little bit scary world out there. But there's some, um, big things happening today. You hear a lot of talk now about a return to great powers competition, particularly around China and Russia, uh, with the US, but there are some other big players out there as well. And what we've seen is, uh, the deployment of some very, uh, uh, I'd say, concerning new weapon systems, uh, you know, particularly with Russia and breaching, uh, some of the I- IRBM, intermediate-range ballistic missile treaties. That's been in the news a lot. Um, you know, the building of islands, uh, artificial islands in the South China Sea by the Chinese and then arming, uh, those islands, um, the annexation of Crimea, uh, by Russia, the invasion of Ukraine, uh, so there's, there's some pretty scary things. And then you add on top of that, uh, the North Korean threat has certainly not gone away.

    3. LF

      Yeah.

    4. KJ

      There's a lot going on in the Middle East with Iran in particular. And, uh, we see this global terrorism threat, uh, uh, has not abated, right? So there are a lot of reasons to look for technology to assist with those problems, whether it's AI or other technologies, like hypersonics, which, which we discussed. So now, let me give just a couple of hypotheticals. So people react sort of in the second timeframe, right? You know, y- you're, your, you know, photon hitting your eye to, you know, movement is, you know, on the order of a few tenths of a second kinds of, uh, of processing time. Roughly speaking, you know, computers are operating in the nanosecond timescale, right? So just to bring home what that means, a nanosecond to a second is like a second to 32 years. So seconds on the battlefield, in that sense, literally are lifetimes.

    5. LF

      (laughs)

    6. KJ

      And so if you can bring an autonomous or AI-enabled capability that will enable the human to shrink wa- uh, maybe you've heard the term-

    7. LF

      Mm-hmm.

    8. KJ

      ... the OODA loop. So this whole idea that a typical battlefield decision is characterized by, uh, observe, so information comes in, orient, how does that, what does that mean in the context, decide what do I do about it, and then act, take that action. If you can use these capabilities to compress that OODA loop, uh, to stay inside what your adversary is doing, that's an incredible, um, uh, uh, powerful force on the battlefield.

    9. LF

      That's a really nice way to put it, that the role of AI in computing in general has a lot to benefit from just, uh, decreasing from 32 years to one second, as opposed to on the scale of seconds and minutes and hours making decisions that humans-

    10. KJ

      Yeah.

    11. LF

      ... are better at making.

    12. KJ

      And it actually goes the other way too. So that's on the short timescale.

    13. LF

      Right.

    14. KJ

      So humans kind of work in the, you know, one second, two seconds to eight hours. After eight hours, you get tired, you know.

    15. LF

      Right.

    16. KJ

      Uh, you gotta go to the bathroom, whatever-

    17. LF

      Yeah.

    18. KJ

      ... the case might be. So there's this whole range of other things. Think about, um, you know, surveillance, uh, and guarding, you know, facilities. Think about moving material, logistics, sustainment, a lot of these what they call dull, dirty, and dangerous things that you need to have sustained activity, but it's sort of beyond the length of time that a human can practically do as well. So there's this, this range of things, um, that are critical, uh...... in military and defense applications that AI and autonomy are particularly well-suited to. Now, the interesting question that you brought up is, okay, how do you make sure that stays within human control? And that, so that was the context for now the policy, and so there is a DoD directive called, uh, 3000.09 because that's the way we name stuff in this world.

    19. LF

      (laughs)

    20. KJ

      And, uh, and, but it, you know, and I'd, I'd say it's r- It's well worth reading. It's only a couple pages long.

    21. LF

      Mm-hmm.

    22. KJ

      But it makes some key points, and it's really around, you know, making sure that there's human agency and control, uh, over, uh, use of semi-autonomous and autonomous weapons systems, um, making sure that these systems are tested, verified, and evaluated in realistic, real-world type scenarios, making sure that the people are actually trained on how to use them, making sure that the systems, uh, have human machine interfaces that can show what state they're in and what kinds of decisions they're making, making sure that you establish doctrine and tactics and techniques and procedures for the use of these kinds of systems. And so I, and by the way, I mean, th- this, none of this is easy.

    23. LF

      That's right.

    24. KJ

      But it, I'm, I'm just trying to lay kind of the picture of how the US has said, "This is the way we're gonna treat AI and autonomous systems," that it's not a free-for-all. And like there are rules of war and rules of engagement with other kinds of systems, think chemical weapons, biological weapons, we need to think about the same sorts of implications. And this is something that's really important for Lockheed Martin. I mean, obviously we are 100% complying with our customer and the, and the policies and regulations, but I mean, AI is an incredible enabler, say, within the walls of Lockheed Martin, in terms of improving production efficiency-

    25. LF

      Mm-hmm.

    26. KJ

      ... doing, helping engineers doing generative design, improving logistics, uh, driving down energy costs. I mean, there are so many applications. But we're, you know, we ha- Uh, we're also very interested in some of the elements of ethical application, you know, within Lockheed Martin. So we need to make sure that things like privacy is, uh, is taken care of, that we do everything we can to drive out bias in AI-enabled kinds of systems, that we make sure that humans are involved in decisions, that we're not just delegating accountability to algorithms. And so it, for us, you know, it all comes back. I talked about culture before, and it comes back to sort of the Lockheed Martin culture and our core values. You know, and so it's pretty simple for us. We do what's right, respect others, perform with excellence. And, uh, now how do we tie that back to the ethical principles that will govern how AI is used within Lockheed Martin? And we actually have a world, uh, pretty, uh, so you might not know this, but there are actually awards for ethics programs.

    27. LF

      Mm-hmm.

    28. KJ

      Lockheed Martin's had a, a, a recognized ethics program for many years, and this is one of the things that our ethics team is working with our engineering team on.

  14. 58:48 – 1:04:25

    Deterrence and modern strategic threats: nuclear recapitalization and cyber as WMD-like risk

    1. LF

      One of the miracles to me, perhaps a layman ... Again, I was born in the Soviet Union, uh, so, uh, I, I have echoes, at least in my family history of World War II and the Cold War. Do you, do you, do you have a sense of why human civilization has not destroyed itself through nuclear war, so nuclear deterrents? And thinking about the future, does this technology have a role to play here? And what is the long-term future of nuclear deterrents look like?

    2. KJ

      Yeah, it's ... You know, this is one of those hard, hard questions, and I, I should note that Lockheed Martin is, you know, both proud and privileged to play a part in multiple legs of our nuclear, uh, and strategic deterrent, uh, systems like the Trident, uh, uh, submarine launched ballistic missiles. You know, you talk about (sighs) you know, is, is there still a possibility that the human race could destroy itself? I'd say that possibility is real, but interestingly, um, in some sense, I think the strategic deterrents have prevented the kinds of, you know, incredibly destructive world wars that we saw in the first half of the 20th century. Now, things have gotten more complicated since that time and since the Cold War. Uh, it is more of a multipolar great powers world today. Uh, just to give you an example, back then, you know, there were, you know, in the, in the Cold War timeframe, just a handful of nations that had ballistic missile capability. Uh, by last count, and this is a few years old, there's over 70 nations today that have that, uh, similar kinds of numbers in terms of space-based capabilities. So, so the world has gotten more complex and more challenging, and the threats, I think, have proliferated, uh, in ways that we didn't expect. You know, the, the nation today is in the middle of a recapitalization of our strategic deterrent. Uh, I look at that as one of the most important things that our nation can do.

    3. LF

      What is involved in deterrents? Is it, is it being ready to attack or is it the defensive systems that catch attacks?

    4. KJ

      A little bit of both. And so it's a complicated game theoretical kinda program.

    5. LF

      Mm-hmm.

    6. KJ

      But, uh, ultimately, um, we are trying to prevent the use of any of these weapons, and the theory behind prevention is that, um, even if an adversary uses a weapon against you, you have the capability to essentially strike back and do harm to them, uh, that's unacceptable. And so that will deter them from-... you know, making use of these weapon systems. Um, the deterrence calculus has changed, of course, with, uh, you know, more nations now having these kinds of weapons. But I think, you know, from my perspective, it's very important, uh, you know, to maintain a strategic deterrent, you have to have systems that you will know, you know will work when they're required to work. Uh, you know that they have to be adaptable to a variety of different scenarios in today's world. And so that's what this recapitalization of systems that were built, uh, over previous decades, making sure that they are appropriate, not just for today, but for the decades to come. So the other thing I, I'd really like to note is strategic deterrence has a very different, um, uh, character today. Uh, you know, we used to think of weapons of mass destruction in terms of nuclear, chemical, biological, and today we have a cyber-threat. Um, we've seen examples of the use of cyber, uh, weaponry and uh, if you think about the possibilities of using cyber capabilities or an adversary attacking the US to take out things like critical infrastructure, electrical grids, water systems, um, those are scenarios that are strategic in nature to the survival of a nation as well. So that is the kind of world that we live in today, um, and, you know, part of my hope on this is, one, that we can also develop technical or technological systems, perhaps enabled by AI and autonomy, that will allow us to contain and to fight back against these kinds of, uh, new threats that were not conceived when we first developed our strategic deterrents.

    7. LF

      Yeah, I know that Lockheed is involved with cyber, so

    8. NA

      Mm-hmm.

    9. LF

      ... I saw that, that you, you mentioned that. Uh, it's, (laughs) it's an incredibly cha... Nuclear almost seems easier than cyber 'cause there's so many attack, like there's so many ways that cyber can evolve in such an uncertain future. But talking about engineering with a mission, I mean, uh, in this case, that you're engineering systems that, uh, basically save the world. (laughs) It's, uh-

    10. KJ

      Well, like, like I said, we-

    11. LF

      ... quite-

    12. KJ

      ... uh, we're privileged to do s- to work on some very challenging problems for, uh, for very critical customers here in the US and with our allies abroad as well.

  15. 1:04:25 – 1:12:50

    Military-industrial complex, competition in space, and a 100-year technology horizon

    1. LF

      (inhales deeply) Lockheed builds both military and non-military systems, and perhaps the future of Lockheed may be more in non-military applications, if you talk about space and beyond. I say that as a preface to a difficult question. So President Eisenhower in 1961 in his farewell address talked about the military-industrial complex and that it shouldn't grow beyond what is needed. So what are your thoughts on those words, on the military-industrial complex, on the concern of growth of their developments beyond what may be needed?

    2. KJ

      That what, where it may be needed, uh, is a critical phrase, of course.

    3. LF

      Right.

    4. KJ

      And, and I, I think it is worth pointing out, as you noted, that Lockheed Martin, we are in a number of commercial businesses from energy to space to commercial aircraft. And so I, I wouldn't, and I wouldn't neglect the importance of those, uh, parts of our business as well. Uh, I think the world is dynamic and, uh, you know, there was a time, and it doesn't seem that long ago to me, it was, uh, while I was a graduate student, uh, here at MIT and we were talking about the peace dividend at the end of the Cold War. If you look at expenditure on military systems as a fraction of GDP, we're far below peak levels, um, uh, of the past. And, uh, to me at least, it looks like a time where you're seeing global threats changing in a way that would warrant, you know, rel- relevant, uh, investments in defense, uh, defensive capabilities. Um, the other thing I'd note, uh, for military and defensive systems, um, it's, it's not quite a free market, right? We don't sell to, you know, people on the street. And that warrants a very close partnership between, you know, I'd say the customers and the people that design, build, uh, and maintain these systems because of the very unique nature, the, the very difficult requirements, the very, uh, great importance on, you know, safety and on, uh, you know, operating the way they're intended every time. And so that does create... And, and it's frankly, it's one of Lockheed Martin's great strengths is that we have this expertise built up over many years in partnership with our customers to be able to design and build these systems that meet these very unique, uh, mission needs.

    5. LF

      Yeah, because building those systems is very costly. There's very (laughs) little room for mistake. I mean, it's, uh, yeah, just, uh, Ben Rich's book and so on just tells the story, it's nerve-wracking just reading it. (laughs) If you're an engineer, it reads like a thriller. Okay. Uh, let me... Let's go back to space for a second. (laughs) I guess, uh-

    6. KJ

      I'm always happy to go back to space.

    7. LF

      (laughs) So, um, a, a few quick, maybe out there, maybe fun questions, maybe a little provocative. What, what are your thoughts on the efforts of, uh...... the new folks, SpaceX and Elon Musk. What are your thoughts about what Elon is doing? Do you see him as competition? Do you enjoy competition? Or what are your thoughts?

    8. KJ

      Oh, yeah. First of all, uh, certainly Elon, uh, I would say SpaceX-

    9. LF

      SpaceX.

    10. KJ

      ... and some of his o- and some of his other ventures are definitely a competitive force in the, uh, in the space industry. And do we like competition? Yeah, we do.

    11. LF

      (laughs)

    12. KJ

      And, uh, and, uh, we think we're, uh, very strong competitors. I think it's in- you know, competition is what the US is founded on in, in a lot of ways, and, uh, always coming up with a better way. And I, I think it's really important to continue, uh, you know, to have fresh eyes coming in, new innovation. Uh, I do think it's important to have level playing fields, and so, uh, you wanna make sure that, uh, that you're not giving, n- different requirements to different players. But, uh, you know, I tell people, and you know, I spend a lot of time at places like MIT, I'm gonna be at the MIT, uh, Beaver Works Summer Institute-

    13. LF

      Mm-hmm.

    14. KJ

      ... over the weekend here. And I tell people, "This is the most exciting time to be in the space business in my entire life." And it is this explosion of new capabilities, uh, that have been driven by things like the, you know, the massive increase in computing power, um, things like the massive increase in comms capabilities, advanced and additive manufacturing, are, are really bringing down the barriers to entry in this field, and it's driving just incredible innovation. And it's happening at startups, but it's also happening at Lockheed Martin. You might not realize this, but Lockheed Martin, working with Stanford, actually built the first CubeSat, uh, that was launched, uh, here out of the US, um, that was called, uh, QuakeSat, and we did that with Stellar Solutions. Uh, this was right around, uh, just after 2000, I guess. And so we've been in that, you know, from the very beginning. And, uh, you know, I, I, I talked about some of these, like, you know, Maia and Orion, but you know, we're in the middle of, uh, what we call smart sats and software-defined satellites that can essentially restructure and remap their, uh, purpose, their mission on orbit to give you almost a, you know, unlimited flexibility for these satellites over their lifetimes. So, uh, those are just a couple of examples, but yeah, this, this is a great time to be in space.

    15. LF

      Absolutely. So Wright brothers flew for the first time 116 years ago. Uh, so now we have supersonic stealth planes and all the technology we've talked about. What innovations... Obviously you can't predict the future, but do you see Lockheed in the next 100 years? If you take that same leap, m- th- how will the world of technology and engineering change? I know it's an impossible question, but, uh, nobody could have predicted that we could even fly 120 years ago. So what do you think is the edge of possibility that we're going to be exploring in the next 100 years?

    16. KJ

      Yeah. I, I don't know that there is an edge. Um, I, you know, we've been around for almost that entire time, right? Uh, you know, uh, the Lockheed brothers and, uh, Glenn L. Martin starting their companies, you know, in the basement of a church, in a old, uh, you know, service station. Uh, we're very different companies today than we were back then, right? And that's because we've continuously reinvented ourselves over the... all, all of those decades. I think it's fair to say, yeah, I know this for sure, the world of the future, it's gonna move faster, it's gonna be more connected, it's gonna be more autonomous, and, uh, it's gonna be more (laughs) complex than it is today. And so, this is the world, you know, as a CTO at Lockheed Martin, that I think about, what are the technologies that we have to invest in? Whether it's things like AI and autonomy, you know, you can think about quantum computing, which is an area that we've invested in to try to stay ahead of these technological changes, and frankly, some of the threats that are out there. I b- I believe that we're gonna be out there in the solar system, that we're gonna be defending, and defending well, against probably, you know, military threats that nobody has even thought about today. Uh, we are going to be... m- we're gonna use these capabilities to have far greater knowledge of our own planet, the depths of the oceans, you know, all the way to the, uh, upper reaches of the atmosphere, and everything out to the sun and to the edge of the solar system. So, uh, so that's what I look forward to. Um, and I, uh, I'm excited, I mean, just looking ahead in the next decade or so to the steps that I see ahead of us, uh, in that time.

    17. LF

      I don't think there's a better place to end. Okay, okay, thank you so much.

    18. KJ

      Lex, it's been a real pleasure, and, uh, sorry it took so long to get up here, but I'm glad we were able to make it happen.

    19. LF

      I'm glad we were able to make it happen.

Episode duration: 1:13:05

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