Keoki Jackson: Lockheed Martin | Lex Fridman Podcast #33

00:00:00.000 | The following is a conversation with Kiyoki Jackson.

00:00:03.400 | He's the CTO of Lockheed Martin,

00:00:06.700 | a company that through its long history

00:00:08.740 | has created some of the most incredible engineering marvels

00:00:11.580 | human beings have ever built,

00:00:13.960 | including planes that fly fast and undetected,

00:00:17.040 | defense systems that intersect nuclear threats

00:00:19.840 | that can take the lives of millions,

00:00:22.460 | and systems that venture out into space,

00:00:25.280 | the moon, Mars, and beyond.

00:00:28.340 | And these days, more and more,

00:00:30.580 | artificial intelligence has an assistive role

00:00:32.840 | to play in these systems.

00:00:34.800 | I've read several books in preparation

00:00:36.660 | for this conversation.

00:00:38.300 | It is a difficult one,

00:00:40.040 | because in part, Lockheed Martin builds military systems

00:00:43.440 | that operate in a complicated world

00:00:45.240 | that often does not have easy solutions

00:00:48.120 | in the gray area between good and evil.

00:00:51.480 | I hope one day this world will rid itself of war

00:00:56.400 | in all its forms.

00:00:58.620 | But the path to achieving that

00:00:59.940 | in a world that does have evil is not obvious.

00:01:02.940 | What is obvious is good engineering

00:01:05.100 | and artificial intelligence research

00:01:07.180 | has a role to play on the side of good.

00:01:11.240 | Lockheed Martin and the rest of our community

00:01:14.060 | are hard at work at exactly this task.

00:01:17.100 | We talk about these and other important topics

00:01:19.740 | in this conversation.

00:01:21.380 | Also, most certainly,

00:01:23.480 | both Kiyoki and I have a passion for space.

00:01:27.100 | Us, humans, venturing out toward the stars.

00:01:31.440 | We talk about this exciting future as well.

00:01:35.440 | This is the Artificial Intelligence Podcast.

00:01:38.080 | If you enjoy it, subscribe on YouTube,

00:01:40.540 | give it five stars on iTunes, support it on Patreon,

00:01:43.920 | or simply connect with me on Twitter @LexFriedman,

00:01:47.540 | spelled F-R-I-D-M-A-N.

00:01:50.700 | And now, here's my conversation with Kiyoki Jackson.

00:01:55.580 | I read several books on Lockheed Martin recently.

00:01:57.940 | My favorite in particular is by Ben Rich,

00:02:00.580 | Carlos Concord's personal memoir.

00:02:03.420 | It gets a little edgy at times.

00:02:05.100 | But from that, I was reminded that

00:02:08.700 | the engineers at Lockheed Martin

00:02:10.300 | have created some of the most

00:02:12.000 | incredible engineering marvels human beings have ever built

00:02:15.180 | throughout the 20th century and the 21st.

00:02:18.700 | Do you remember a particular project or system at Lockheed

00:02:22.660 | or before that at the Space Shuttle Columbia

00:02:25.480 | that you were just in awe at the fact that us humans

00:02:29.500 | could create something like this?

00:02:31.140 | - You know, that's a great question.

00:02:34.220 | There's a lot of things that I could draw on there.

00:02:37.460 | When you look at the Skunk Works

00:02:38.940 | and Ben Rich's book in particular,

00:02:40.620 | of course it starts off with basically

00:02:42.580 | the start of the jet age and the P-80.

00:02:44.920 | I had the opportunity to sit next to one of the

00:02:50.100 | Apollo astronauts, Charlie Duke, recently at dinner.

00:02:53.100 | And I said, "Hey, what's your favorite aircraft?"

00:02:56.080 | And he said, "Well, it was by far the F-104 Starfighter,"

00:02:59.320 | which was another aircraft that came out of Lockheed there.

00:03:02.760 | - What kind of?

00:03:03.600 | - It was the first Mach 2 jet fighter aircraft.

00:03:08.240 | They called it the missile with a man in it.

00:03:11.280 | And so those are the kinds of things

00:03:12.440 | I grew up hearing stories about.

00:03:14.320 | You know, of course, the SR-71 is incomparable

00:03:19.120 | as kind of the epitome of speed, altitude,

00:03:24.120 | and just the coolest looking aircraft ever.

00:03:26.940 | - That's a plane that--

00:03:29.200 | - That's a, yeah, intelligence, surveillance,

00:03:30.920 | and reconnaissance aircraft that was designed

00:03:33.340 | to be able to outrun, basically go faster

00:03:36.160 | than any air defense system.

00:03:38.600 | But I'll tell you, I'm a space junkie.

00:03:42.880 | That's why I came to MIT.

00:03:44.800 | That's really what took me ultimately to Lockheed Martin.

00:03:49.080 | And I grew up, and so Lockheed Martin, for example,

00:03:51.320 | has been essentially at the heart of every planetary mission

00:03:56.320 | like all the Mars missions we've had a part in.

00:03:59.560 | And we've talked a lot about the 50th anniversary

00:04:02.080 | of Apollo here in the last couple of weeks, right?

00:04:04.960 | But remember 1976, July 20th, again, National Space Day.

00:04:09.960 | So the landing of the Viking,

00:04:13.160 | the Viking lander on the surface of Mars,

00:04:16.240 | just a huge accomplishment.

00:04:18.000 | And when I was a young engineer at Lockheed Martin,

00:04:21.000 | I got to meet engineers who had designed

00:04:24.080 | various pieces of that mission as well.

00:04:26.800 | So that's what I grew up on is these planetary missions,

00:04:29.720 | the start of the space shuttle era,

00:04:31.560 | and ultimately had the opportunity

00:04:34.760 | to see Lockheed Martin's part.

00:04:39.080 | And we can maybe talk about some of these here,

00:04:41.100 | but Lockheed Martin's part

00:04:42.120 | in all of these space journeys over the years.

00:04:44.680 | - Do you dream, and I apologize

00:04:46.500 | for getting philosophical at times or sentimental,

00:04:49.920 | I do romanticize the notion of space exploration.

00:04:53.080 | So do you dream of the day when us humans

00:04:55.600 | colonize another planet like Mars,

00:04:57.560 | or a man, a woman, a human being steps on Mars?

00:05:02.560 | - Absolutely, and that's a personal dream of mine.

00:05:06.560 | I haven't given up yet on my own opportunity

00:05:09.200 | to fly into space.

00:05:10.440 | But as you know, from the Lockheed Martin perspective,

00:05:14.440 | this is something that we're working towards every day.

00:05:16.900 | And of course, we're building the Orion spacecraft,

00:05:20.060 | which is the most sophisticated human-rated spacecraft

00:05:23.380 | ever built, and it's really designed

00:05:24.860 | for these deep space journeys,

00:05:27.020 | starting with the moon, but ultimately going to Mars,

00:05:29.820 | and being the platform from a design perspective,

00:05:34.820 | we call the Mars Base Camp,

00:05:36.380 | to be able to take humans to the surface,

00:05:38.900 | and then after a mission of a couple of weeks,

00:05:41.020 | bring them back up safely.

00:05:42.300 | And so that is something I wanna see happen

00:05:44.600 | during my time at Lockheed Martin.

00:05:46.600 | So I'm pretty excited about that.

00:05:49.400 | And I think once we prove that's possible,

00:05:52.540 | colonization might be a little bit further out,

00:05:57.200 | but it's something that I'd hope to see.

00:06:00.040 | - So maybe you can give a little bit an overview of,

00:06:03.820 | so Lockheed Martin has partnered with,

00:06:05.880 | a few years ago, with Boeing to work with the DoD

00:06:09.380 | and NASA to build launch systems and rockets

00:06:11.900 | with the ULA.

00:06:13.540 | What's beyond that?

00:06:15.460 | What's Lockheed's mission timeline,

00:06:17.380 | long-term dream in terms of space?

00:06:19.340 | You mentioned the moon.

00:06:22.100 | I've heard you talk about asteroids.

00:06:25.180 | As Mars, what's the timeline?

00:06:27.620 | What's the engineering challenges,

00:06:29.260 | and what's the dream long-term?

00:06:31.300 | - Yeah, I think the dream long-term

00:06:33.240 | is to have a permanent presence in space

00:06:36.180 | beyond low-Earth orbit,

00:06:37.820 | ultimately with a long-term presence on the moon,

00:06:41.060 | and then to the planets, to Mars.

00:06:43.200 | - Sorry to interrupt on that.

00:06:45.620 | So long-term presence means--

00:06:47.980 | - Sustained and sustainable presence in an economy,

00:06:51.060 | a space economy, that really goes alongside that.

00:06:54.380 | - With human beings and being able to launch, perhaps,

00:06:58.260 | from those, so like, hop?

00:07:01.020 | - There's a lot of energy that goes in those hops, right?

00:07:06.060 | So I think the first step is being able to get there

00:07:09.740 | and to be able to establish sustained bases, right,

00:07:12.620 | and build from there.

00:07:14.820 | And a lot of that means getting, as you know,

00:07:18.940 | things like the cost of launch down,

00:07:21.500 | and you mentioned United Launch Alliance,

00:07:23.580 | and so I don't wanna speak for ULA,

00:07:26.100 | but obviously they're working really hard

00:07:29.020 | to, on their next generation of launch vehicles,

00:07:34.020 | to maintain that incredible mission success record

00:07:39.260 | that ULA has, but ultimately continue to drive down the cost

00:07:42.660 | and make the flexibility, the speed,

00:07:44.380 | and the access ever greater.

00:07:46.900 | - So what's the missions that are on the horizon

00:07:50.380 | that you could talk to?

00:07:51.660 | Is there a hope to get to the moon?

00:07:53.380 | - Absolutely, absolutely.

00:07:54.620 | I mean, I think you know this, or you may know this,

00:07:57.900 | you know, there's a lot of ways to accomplish

00:07:59.780 | some of these goals, and so that's a lot

00:08:01.980 | of what's in discussion today.

00:08:03.780 | But ultimately, the goal is to be able to establish a base,

00:08:09.060 | essentially in cislunar space,

00:08:11.100 | that would allow for ready transfer from orbit

00:08:16.100 | to the lunar surface and back again.

00:08:19.900 | And so that's sort of that near-term,

00:08:21.900 | I say near-term, in the next decade or so vision.

00:08:24.900 | Starting off with a stated objective by this administration

00:08:29.860 | to get back to the moon in the 2024, 2025 timeframe,

00:08:34.060 | which is right around the corner here.

00:08:36.740 | - How big of an engineering challenge is that?

00:08:39.140 | - I think the big challenge is not so much to go,

00:08:44.580 | but to stay, right?

00:08:46.140 | And so we demonstrated in the '60s

00:08:48.940 | that you could send somebody up,

00:08:50.860 | do a couple of days of mission,

00:08:52.900 | and bring 'em home again successfully.

00:08:55.580 | Now we're talking about doing that,

00:08:57.260 | I'd say more to, I don't wanna say an industrial scale,

00:08:59.780 | but a sustained scale, right?

00:09:01.380 | So permanent habitation, you know,

00:09:05.420 | regular reuse of vehicles,

00:09:09.460 | the infrastructure to get things like fuel, air,

00:09:13.820 | consumables, replacement parts,

00:09:17.100 | all the things that you need

00:09:18.260 | to sustain that kind of infrastructure.

00:09:20.740 | So those are certainly engineering challenges.

00:09:23.620 | There are budgetary challenges,

00:09:26.100 | and those are all things

00:09:28.980 | that we're gonna have to work through.

00:09:30.380 | You know, the other thing, and I shouldn't,

00:09:32.900 | I don't wanna minimize this.

00:09:35.060 | I mean, I'm excited about human exploration,

00:09:38.220 | but the reality is our technology

00:09:40.780 | and where we've come over the last, you know,

00:09:43.060 | 40 years essentially,

00:09:44.980 | has changed what we can do with robotic exploration as well.

00:09:48.820 | And, you know, to me, it's incredibly thrilling.

00:09:52.060 | This seems like old news now,

00:09:53.700 | but the fact that we have rovers driving around

00:09:57.340 | the surface of Mars and sending back data

00:10:00.300 | is just incredible.

00:10:01.300 | The fact that we have satellites in orbit around Mars

00:10:04.240 | that are collecting weather, you know,

00:10:06.380 | they're looking at the terrain, they're mapping,

00:10:08.300 | all of these kinds of things on a continuous basis.

00:10:11.340 | That's incredible.

00:10:12.740 | And the fact that, you know, you got the time lag,

00:10:15.460 | of course, going to the planets,

00:10:17.900 | but you can effectively have virtual human presence there

00:10:22.020 | in a way that we have never been able to do before.

00:10:25.860 | And now with the advent of even greater processing power,

00:10:30.060 | better AI systems,

00:10:32.340 | better cognitive systems and decision systems,

00:10:35.760 | you know, you put that together with the human piece

00:10:38.800 | and we really opened up the solar system

00:10:41.520 | in a whole different way.

00:10:42.540 | And I'll give you an example.

00:10:43.720 | We've got OSIRIS-REx,

00:10:44.880 | which is a mission to the asteroid Bennu.

00:10:47.800 | So the spacecraft is out there right now

00:10:50.920 | on basically a year mapping activity

00:10:54.260 | to map the entire surface of that asteroid in great detail.

00:10:59.200 | You know, all autonomously piloted, right?

00:11:02.540 | But the idea then that, and this is not too far away,

00:11:04.820 | it's gonna go in,

00:11:05.980 | it's got a sort of fancy vacuum cleaner with a bucket.

00:11:09.660 | It's gonna collect the sample off the asteroid

00:11:12.540 | and then send it back here to earth.

00:11:14.420 | And so, you know, we have gone

00:11:17.180 | from sort of those tentative steps in the 70s,

00:11:20.260 | you know, early landings, video of the solar system,

00:11:23.940 | to now we've sent spacecraft to Pluto,

00:11:27.060 | we have gone to comets and intercepted comets,

00:11:31.640 | we've brought stardust material back.

00:11:36.440 | So that's, we've gone far

00:11:40.780 | and there's incredible opportunity to go even farther.

00:11:43.720 | - So it seems quite crazy that this is even possible,

00:11:47.420 | that, can you talk a little bit about

00:11:50.340 | what it means to orbit an asteroid

00:11:54.060 | and with a bucket to try to pick up some soil samples?

00:11:58.380 | - Yeah, so part of it is just kind of the,

00:12:02.220 | you know, these are the same kinds of techniques

00:12:04.860 | we use here on earth for high speed,

00:12:09.580 | high accuracy imagery, stitching these scenes together

00:12:13.260 | and creating essentially high accuracy world maps, right?

00:12:17.500 | And so that's what we're doing,

00:12:19.740 | obviously on a much smaller scale with an asteroid.

00:12:23.220 | But the other thing that's really interesting,

00:12:24.980 | you put together sort of that neat control

00:12:28.500 | and data and imagery problem,

00:12:32.580 | but the stories around how we designed the collection,

00:12:37.020 | I mean, as essentially, you know,

00:12:38.460 | this is the sort of the human ingenuity element, right?

00:12:41.420 | That essentially, you know,

00:12:43.740 | had an engineer who had a, you know,

00:12:45.820 | one day he's like, "Oh,"

00:12:47.340 | starts messing around with parts,

00:12:49.260 | vacuum cleaner, bucket, you know,

00:12:51.940 | "Maybe we could do something like this."

00:12:53.500 | And that was what led to what we call

00:12:55.180 | the pogo stick collection, right?

00:12:57.060 | Where basically a thing comes down,

00:12:59.260 | it's only there for seconds, does that collection,

00:13:02.900 | grabs the, essentially blows the regolith material

00:13:07.580 | into the collection hopper and off it goes.

00:13:10.260 | - It doesn't really land almost.

00:13:12.140 | - It's a very short landing.

00:13:13.580 | - Wow, that's incredible.

00:13:15.500 | So what is in those,

00:13:19.700 | talk a little bit more about space.

00:13:22.180 | What's the role of the human in all of this?

00:13:24.380 | What are the challenges?

00:13:25.820 | What are the opportunities for humans

00:13:29.060 | as they pilot these vehicles in space?

00:13:33.780 | And for humans that may step foot

00:13:36.980 | on either the moon or Mars?

00:13:41.260 | - Yeah, it's a great question

00:13:42.660 | because, you know, I just have been extolling

00:13:45.140 | the virtues of robotic and, you know,

00:13:48.780 | rovers, autonomous systems,

00:13:50.820 | and those absolutely have a role.

00:13:53.740 | I think the thing that we don't know how to replace today

00:13:57.260 | is the ability to adapt on the fly to new information.

00:14:02.260 | And I believe that will come, but we're not there yet.

00:14:07.620 | There's a ways to go.

00:14:08.820 | And so, you know, you think back to Apollo 13

00:14:13.580 | and the ingenuity of the folks on the ground

00:14:15.940 | and on the spacecraft essentially cobbled together

00:14:19.140 | a way to get the carbon dioxide scrubbers to work.

00:14:22.740 | Those are the kinds of things that ultimately, you know,

00:14:28.380 | and I'd say not just from dealing with anomalies,

00:14:31.340 | but, you know, dealing with new information.

00:14:33.700 | You see something and rather than waiting 20 minutes

00:14:38.380 | or half an hour, an hour to try to get information

00:14:41.340 | back and forth, but be able to essentially

00:14:44.060 | re-vector on the fly, collect, you know,

00:14:46.380 | different samples, take a different approach,

00:14:49.140 | choose different areas to explore.

00:14:52.740 | Those are the kinds of things that human presence enables

00:14:56.780 | that is still a ways ahead of us on the AI side.

00:15:00.300 | - Yeah, there's some interesting stuff we'll talk about

00:15:02.220 | on the teaming side here on Earth.

00:15:04.580 | That's pretty cool to explore.

00:15:06.460 | - And in space, let's not leave the space piece out.

00:15:08.820 | - So what is teaming, what is AI and humans

00:15:11.720 | working together in space look like?

00:15:13.940 | - Yeah, one of the things we're working on

00:15:15.460 | is a system called Maya, which is,

00:15:18.060 | you can think of it, so it's an AI assistant.

00:15:20.900 | In space, exactly.

00:15:24.220 | And you think of it as the Alexa in space, right?

00:15:28.540 | But this goes hand in hand with a lot of other developments.

00:15:31.740 | And so today's world, everything is essentially model-based.

00:15:35.160 | Model-based systems engineering to the actual

00:15:39.740 | digital tapestry that goes through the design,

00:15:42.580 | the build, the manufacture, the testing,

00:15:44.820 | and ultimately the sustainment of these systems.

00:15:47.660 | And so our vision is really that

00:15:51.020 | when our astronauts are there around Mars,

00:15:54.800 | you're gonna have that entire digital library

00:15:58.060 | of the spacecraft, of its operations, all the test data,

00:16:04.420 | all the test data and flight data from previous missions

00:16:08.100 | to be able to look and see if there are anomalous conditions

00:16:11.840 | and tell the humans and potentially deal with that

00:16:16.060 | before it becomes a bad situation

00:16:20.100 | and help the astronauts work through those kinds of things.

00:16:23.220 | And it's not just dealing with problems as they come up,

00:16:26.860 | but also offering up opportunities

00:16:29.220 | for additional exploration capability, for example.

00:16:32.540 | So that's the vision is that these are,

00:16:35.900 | take the best of the human to respond

00:16:37.820 | to changing circumstances and rely on the best

00:16:42.780 | of AI capabilities to monitor these,

00:16:46.180 | this almost infinite number of data points

00:16:49.520 | and correlations of data points

00:16:51.620 | that humans frankly aren't that good at.

00:16:54.040 | - So how do you develop systems in space like this,

00:16:56.320 | whether it's Alexa in space or in general,

00:17:01.280 | any kind of control systems,

00:17:03.600 | any kind of intelligent systems

00:17:05.000 | when you can't really test stuff too much out in space?

00:17:08.720 | It's very expensive to test stuff.

00:17:10.880 | So how do you develop such systems?

00:17:14.280 | - Yeah, that's the beauty of this digital twin, if you will.

00:17:19.040 | And of course, with Lockheed Martin,

00:17:21.160 | we've over the past five plus decades

00:17:24.640 | been refining our knowledge of the space environment,

00:17:28.240 | of how materials behave, dynamics, the controls,

00:17:33.360 | the radiation environments, all of these kinds of things.

00:17:37.260 | So we're able to create very sophisticated models.

00:17:39.980 | They're not perfect, but they're very good.

00:17:43.500 | And so you can actually do a lot.

00:17:46.700 | I spent part of my career simulating

00:17:50.780 | communication spacecraft, missile warning spacecraft,

00:17:54.820 | GPS spacecraft in all kinds of scenarios

00:17:58.100 | and all kinds of environments.

00:17:59.340 | So this is really just taking that to the next level.

00:18:01.940 | The interesting thing is that now

00:18:03.860 | you're bringing into that loop

00:18:06.400 | a system depending on how it's developed

00:18:08.380 | that may be non-deterministic,

00:18:10.580 | it may be learning as it goes.

00:18:13.260 | In fact, we anticipate that it will be learning as it goes.

00:18:16.620 | And so that brings a whole new level of interest, I guess,

00:18:21.620 | into how do you do verification and validation

00:18:25.420 | of these non-deterministic learning systems

00:18:28.580 | in scenarios that may go out of the bounds

00:18:31.780 | of the envelope that you have initially designed them to.

00:18:35.100 | - So this system in its intelligence

00:18:37.460 | has the same complexity,

00:18:39.220 | some of the same complexities a human does.

00:18:41.060 | And it learns over time, it's unpredictable

00:18:43.660 | in certain kinds of ways.

00:18:44.900 | So you also have to model that when you're thinking about it.

00:18:50.100 | So in your thoughts, is it possible

00:18:53.460 | to model the majority of situations,

00:18:57.260 | the important aspects of situations here on Earth

00:18:59.620 | and in space enough to test stuff?

00:19:02.340 | - Yeah, this is really an active area of research.

00:19:05.620 | And we're actually funding university research

00:19:07.500 | in a variety of places, including MIT.

00:19:10.140 | This is in the realm of trust

00:19:12.460 | and verification and validation of,

00:19:15.780 | I'd say autonomous systems in general,

00:19:17.980 | and then as a subset of that, autonomous systems

00:19:20.980 | that incorporate artificial intelligence capabilities.

00:19:24.580 | And this is not an easy problem.

00:19:27.940 | We're working with startup companies,

00:19:29.560 | we've got internal R&D, but our conviction is

00:19:33.660 | that autonomy and more and more AI-enabled autonomy

00:19:38.660 | is gonna be in everything

00:19:40.820 | that Lockheed Martin develops and fields.

00:19:44.260 | And it's gonna be retrofit,

00:19:46.660 | autonomy and AI are gonna be retrofit into existing systems.

00:19:50.140 | They're gonna be part of the design

00:19:52.460 | for all of our future systems.

00:19:54.500 | And so maybe I should take a step back

00:19:56.540 | and say the way we define autonomy.

00:19:58.660 | So we talk about autonomy essentially,

00:20:01.080 | a system that composes, selects,

00:20:04.780 | and then executes decisions

00:20:08.460 | with varying levels of human intervention.

00:20:12.500 | And so you could think of no autonomy.

00:20:15.660 | So this is essentially the human doing the task.

00:20:18.460 | You can think of effectively partial autonomy

00:20:23.080 | where the human is in the loop.

00:20:25.820 | So making decisions in every case

00:20:29.140 | about what the autonomous system can do.

00:20:31.140 | - Either in the cockpit or remotely.

00:20:33.220 | - Or remotely, exactly, but still in that control loop.

00:20:36.020 | And then there's what you'd call supervisory autonomy.

00:20:39.860 | So the autonomous system is doing most of the work.

00:20:42.420 | The human can intervene to stop it

00:20:44.380 | or to change the direction.

00:20:45.820 | And then ultimately full autonomy

00:20:47.940 | where the human is off the loop altogether.

00:20:50.300 | And for different types of missions,

00:20:52.860 | you wanna have different levels of autonomy.

00:20:55.820 | So now take that spectrum and this conviction

00:20:58.380 | that autonomy and more and more AI

00:21:01.220 | are in everything that we develop.

00:21:03.480 | The kinds of things that Lockheed Martin does,

00:21:07.980 | a lot of times are safety of life critical

00:21:10.820 | kinds of missions.

00:21:12.700 | Think about aircraft, for example.

00:21:14.640 | And so we require and our customers require

00:21:20.140 | an extremely high level of confidence.

00:21:23.260 | One, that we're gonna protect life.

00:21:26.420 | Two, that we're going to,

00:21:28.460 | that these systems will behave in ways

00:21:31.300 | that their operators can understand.

00:21:33.900 | And so this gets into that whole field.

00:21:36.420 | Again, being able to verify and validate

00:21:40.340 | that the systems have been,

00:21:44.060 | they will operate the way they're designed

00:21:46.300 | and the way they're expected.

00:21:48.100 | And furthermore, that they will do that

00:21:50.740 | in ways that can be explained and understood.

00:21:55.460 | And that is an extremely difficult challenge.

00:21:58.860 | - Yeah, so here's a difficult question.

00:22:00.820 | I don't mean to bring this up,

00:22:04.420 | but I think it's a good case study

00:22:05.620 | that people are familiar with.

00:22:07.900 | Boeing 737 MAX commercial airplane

00:22:11.140 | has had two recent crashes

00:22:13.440 | where their flight control software system failed.

00:22:15.980 | And it's software.

00:22:17.540 | So I don't mean to speak about Boeing,

00:22:19.060 | but broadly speaking,

00:22:20.540 | we have this in the autonomous vehicle space too,

00:22:22.860 | semi-autonomous.

00:22:24.060 | When you have millions of lines of code software

00:22:27.820 | making decisions,

00:22:29.320 | there is a little bit of a clash of cultures

00:22:32.900 | because software engineers

00:22:35.300 | don't have the same culture of safety often

00:22:38.300 | that people who build systems like at Lockheed Martin

00:22:43.100 | do where it has to be exceptionally safe.

00:22:46.460 | You have to test this on.

00:22:48.060 | So how do we get this right

00:22:49.860 | when software is making so many decisions?

00:22:53.180 | - Yeah, and there's a lot of things that have to happen.

00:22:57.100 | And by and large, I think it starts with the culture,

00:23:01.260 | which is not necessarily something

00:23:03.340 | that A, is taught in school,

00:23:05.940 | or B, is something that would come,

00:23:07.980 | depending on what kind of software you're developing,

00:23:10.820 | it may not be relevant

00:23:13.100 | if you're targeting ads or something like that.

00:23:15.740 | So, and by and large,

00:23:19.020 | I'd say not just Lockheed Martin,

00:23:20.620 | but certainly the aerospace industry as a whole

00:23:23.700 | has developed a culture that does focus on safety,

00:23:27.260 | safety of life, operational safety, mission success.

00:23:31.020 | But as you know,

00:23:33.300 | these systems have gotten incredibly complex.

00:23:36.100 | And so they're to the point where it's almost impossible.

00:23:40.660 | The state space has become so huge

00:23:42.580 | that it's impossible to,

00:23:44.820 | or very difficult to do a systematic verification

00:23:48.860 | across the entire set of potential ways

00:23:52.260 | that an aircraft could be flown,

00:23:53.740 | all the conditions that could happen,

00:23:55.540 | all the potential failure scenarios.

00:23:59.300 | Now, maybe that's soluble one day,

00:24:01.100 | maybe when we have our quantum computers at our fingertips,

00:24:04.380 | we'll be able to actually simulate across an entire,

00:24:08.820 | you know, almost infinite state space.

00:24:11.260 | But today, you know, there's a lot of work

00:24:16.260 | to really try to bound the system,

00:24:20.940 | to make sure that it behaves in predictable ways,

00:24:24.780 | and then have this culture of continuous inquiry

00:24:29.060 | and skepticism and questioning to say,

00:24:33.140 | did we really consider the right realm of possibilities?

00:24:37.300 | Have we done the right range of testing?

00:24:40.140 | Do we really understand, you know, in this case,

00:24:42.100 | you know, human and machine interactions,

00:24:44.580 | the human decision process alongside the machine processes?

00:24:49.460 | And so that's that culture,

00:24:51.420 | that we call it the culture of mission success

00:24:53.500 | at Lockheed Martin, that really needs to be established.

00:24:56.700 | And it's not something, you know,

00:24:57.900 | it's something that people learn by living in it.

00:25:02.140 | And it's something that has to be promulgated,

00:25:04.860 | you know, and it's done, you know,

00:25:06.060 | from the highest levels at a company of Lockheed Martin,

00:25:09.140 | like Lockheed Martin.

00:25:10.180 | - Yeah, and the same is being faced

00:25:12.500 | at certain autonomous vehicle companies

00:25:13.980 | where that culture is not there

00:25:15.780 | because it's started mostly by software engineers.

00:25:18.580 | So that's what they're struggling with.

00:25:20.500 | Is there lessons that you think we should learn

00:25:25.700 | as an industry and a society

00:25:27.300 | from the Boeing 737 MAX crashes?

00:25:30.220 | - These crashes obviously are either tremendous tragedies,

00:25:34.740 | they're tragedies for all of the people,

00:25:37.820 | the crew, the families, the passengers,

00:25:41.260 | the people on the ground involved.

00:25:43.220 | And, you know, it's also a huge business

00:25:47.460 | and economic setback as well.

00:25:49.060 | I mean, you know, we've seen it's impacting

00:25:51.100 | essentially the trade balance of the US.

00:25:53.820 | So these are important questions.

00:25:58.380 | And these are the kinds of, you know,

00:26:00.180 | we've seen similar kinds of questioning at times,

00:26:03.020 | you know, you go back to the Challenger accident,

00:26:06.900 | and it is, I think, always important to remind ourselves

00:26:10.580 | that humans are fallible,

00:26:11.900 | that the systems we create,

00:26:13.980 | as perfect as we strive to make them,

00:26:16.540 | we can always make them better.

00:26:18.900 | And so another element of that culture of mission success

00:26:21.700 | is really that commitment to continuous improvement.

00:26:24.940 | If there's something that goes wrong,

00:26:27.460 | a real commitment to root cause

00:26:31.140 | and true root cause understanding

00:26:33.300 | to taking the corrective actions

00:26:35.100 | and to making the future systems better.

00:26:38.900 | And certainly we strive for, you know, no accidents.

00:26:43.900 | And if you look at the record

00:26:47.780 | of the commercial airline industry as a whole

00:26:50.500 | and the commercial aircraft industry as a whole,

00:26:53.020 | you know, there's a very nice decaying exponential

00:26:57.660 | to years now where we have no commercial aircraft accidents

00:27:01.700 | at all, right, or fatal accidents at all.

00:27:04.780 | So that didn't happen by accident.

00:27:08.380 | It was through the regulatory agencies, FAA,

00:27:11.660 | the airframe manufacturers,

00:27:14.380 | really working on a system to identify root causes

00:27:18.660 | and drive them out.

00:27:20.500 | - So maybe we can take a step back,

00:27:23.860 | and many people are familiar,

00:27:25.540 | but Lockheed Martin broadly,

00:27:28.880 | what kind of categories of systems

00:27:31.260 | are you involved in building?

00:27:34.300 | - You know, Lockheed Martin,

00:27:35.140 | we think of ourselves as a company

00:27:37.300 | that solves hard mission problems.

00:27:39.900 | And the output of that might be an airplane or a spacecraft

00:27:43.060 | or a helicopter or a radar or something like that.

00:27:45.700 | But ultimately we're driven by these,

00:27:47.940 | you know, like what is our customer?

00:27:50.260 | What is that mission that they need to achieve?

00:27:52.860 | And so that's what drove the SR-71, right?

00:27:55.540 | How do you get pictures of a place

00:27:57.860 | where you've got sophisticated air defense systems

00:28:02.220 | that are capable of handling any aircraft

00:28:05.460 | that was out there at the time, right?

00:28:07.480 | So that's what yielded an SR-71.

00:28:10.420 | - Let's build a nice flying camera.

00:28:12.500 | - Exactly, and make sure it gets out and it gets back.

00:28:16.100 | And that led ultimately to really the start

00:28:18.300 | of the space program in the US as well.

00:28:20.480 | So now take a step back to Lockheed Martin of today.

00:28:24.980 | And we are on the order of 105 years old now

00:28:29.080 | between Lockheed and Martin, the two big heritage companies.

00:28:32.460 | Of course, we're made up of a whole bunch of other companies

00:28:34.640 | that came in as well.

00:28:36.140 | General Dynamics, you know, kind of go down the list.

00:28:39.840 | Today, you can think of us

00:28:42.640 | in this space of solving mission problems.

00:28:44.880 | So obviously on the aircraft side,

00:28:48.480 | tactical aircraft, building the most advanced fighter

00:28:52.400 | aircraft that the world has ever seen.

00:28:54.880 | You know, we're up to now several hundred

00:28:56.720 | of those delivered, building almost 100 a year.

00:29:00.120 | And of course, working on the things that come after that.

00:29:04.120 | On the space side, we are engaged in pretty much every venue

00:29:09.120 | of space utilization and exploration you can imagine.

00:29:14.320 | So I mentioned things like navigation, timing, GPS,

00:29:18.100 | communication satellites, missile warning satellites.

00:29:22.460 | We've built commercial surveillance satellites.

00:29:24.820 | We've built commercial communication satellites.

00:29:27.700 | We do civil space.

00:29:29.260 | So everything from human exploration

00:29:32.360 | to the robotic exploration of the outer planets.

00:29:35.040 | And keep going on the space front.

00:29:39.140 | But you know, a couple of other areas I'd like to put out.

00:29:42.540 | We're heavily engaged in building

00:29:45.580 | critical defensive systems.

00:29:47.440 | And so a couple that I'll mention,

00:29:50.080 | the Aegis Combat System.

00:29:51.680 | This is basically the integrated air

00:29:53.640 | and missile defense system for the US and allied fleets.

00:29:58.640 | And so protects carrier strike groups, for example,

00:30:03.680 | from incoming ballistic missile threats,

00:30:06.600 | aircraft threats, cruise missile threats,

00:30:08.520 | and you know, kind of go down the list.

00:30:10.120 | - So the carriers, the fleet itself is the thing

00:30:14.020 | that is being protected.

00:30:15.360 | The carriers aren't serving as a protection

00:30:18.180 | for something else.

00:30:19.400 | - Well, that's a little bit of a different application.

00:30:21.880 | We've actually built a version called Aegis Ashore,

00:30:24.400 | which is now deployed in a couple of places

00:30:26.960 | around the world.

00:30:28.000 | So that same technology, I mean,

00:30:29.760 | basically can be used to protect either

00:30:34.280 | an ocean going fleet or a land-based activity.

00:30:37.880 | Another one, the THAAD program.

00:30:39.720 | So THAAD, this is the Theater High Altitude Area Defense.

00:30:44.780 | This is to protect, you know,

00:30:48.320 | relatively broad areas against sophisticated

00:30:52.320 | ballistic missile threats.

00:30:54.120 | And so now, you know, it's deployed

00:30:58.600 | with a lot of US capabilities.

00:31:00.560 | Now we have international customers

00:31:02.680 | that are looking to buy that capability as well.

00:31:05.240 | And so these are systems that defend,

00:31:07.720 | not just defend militaries and military capabilities,

00:31:10.840 | but defend population areas.

00:31:13.020 | We saw, you know, maybe the first public use of these

00:31:17.800 | back in the first Gulf War with the Patriot systems.

00:31:21.620 | And these are the kinds of things

00:31:24.560 | that Lockheed Martin delivers.

00:31:27.440 | And there's a lot of stuff that goes with it.

00:31:29.520 | So think about the radar systems and the sensing systems

00:31:33.120 | that cue these, the command and control systems

00:31:36.760 | that decide how you pair a weapon

00:31:39.360 | against an incoming threat.

00:31:40.920 | And then all the human and machine interfaces

00:31:45.400 | to make sure that they can be operated successfully

00:31:48.040 | in very strenuous environments.

00:31:51.040 | - Yeah, there's some incredible engineering

00:31:54.640 | that at every front, like you said.

00:31:57.280 | So maybe if we just take a look at Lockheed history broadly,

00:32:02.280 | maybe even looking at Skunk Works,

00:32:05.640 | what are the biggest,

00:32:08.520 | most impressive milestones of innovation?

00:32:11.200 | So if you look at stealth, I would have called you crazy

00:32:14.880 | if you said that's possible at the time.

00:32:16.880 | And supersonic and hypersonic.

00:32:21.360 | So traveling at, first of all,

00:32:24.080 | traveling at the speed of sound is pretty damn fast.

00:32:27.640 | And the supersonic and hypersonic,

00:32:29.760 | three, four, five times the speed of sound.

00:32:32.240 | That seems, I would also call you crazy

00:32:34.440 | if you say you can do that.

00:32:35.840 | So can you tell me how it's possible

00:32:38.120 | to do these kinds of things?

00:32:39.640 | And is there other milestones

00:32:41.120 | and innovation that's going on

00:32:44.360 | that you can talk about?

00:32:45.200 | - Yeah, well, let me start on the Skunk Works saga.

00:32:49.040 | And you kind of alluded to it in the beginning.

00:32:51.760 | Skunk Works is as much a idea as a place.

00:32:54.960 | And so it's driven really by Kelly Johnson's 14 principles.

00:32:59.580 | And I'm not gonna list all 14 of them off,

00:33:02.040 | but the idea, and this I'm sure will resonate

00:33:04.560 | with any engineer who's worked

00:33:06.280 | on a highly motivated small team before.

00:33:09.480 | The idea that if you can essentially have a small team

00:33:13.440 | of very capable people who wanna work

00:33:17.320 | on really hard problems, you can do almost anything.

00:33:20.560 | Especially if you kind of shield them

00:33:23.320 | from bureaucratic influences,

00:33:26.680 | if you create very tight relationships with your customers

00:33:30.760 | so that you have that team

00:33:33.020 | and shared vision with the customer.

00:33:36.040 | Those are the kinds of things that enable the Skunk Works

00:33:40.400 | to do these incredible things.

00:33:43.040 | - And we listed off a number that you brought up stealth.

00:33:46.360 | And I mean, this whole,

00:33:48.600 | I wish I could have seen Ben Rich with a ball bearing,

00:33:51.720 | rolling it across the desk to a general officer and saying,

00:33:55.800 | "Would you like to have an aircraft

00:33:58.320 | "that has the radar cross section of this ball bearing?"

00:34:01.800 | Probably one of the least expensive

00:34:04.280 | and most effective marketing campaigns

00:34:06.280 | in the history of the industry.

00:34:08.400 | - So just for people that are not familiar,

00:34:10.660 | I mean, the way you detect aircraft,

00:34:12.760 | 'cause I mean, I'm sure there's a lot of ways,

00:34:14.680 | but radar, for the longest time,

00:34:17.360 | there's a big blob that appears in the radar.

00:34:20.680 | How do you make a plane disappear

00:34:22.360 | so it looks as big as a ball bearing?

00:34:26.200 | What's involved in technology-wise there?

00:34:28.040 | What's, broadly, sort of the stuff you can speak about?

00:34:32.480 | - I'll stick to what's in Ben Rich's book.

00:34:34.840 | But obviously the geometry of how radar gets reflected

00:34:39.040 | and the kinds of materials that either reflect

00:34:41.420 | or absorb are kind of the couple

00:34:44.360 | of the critical elements there.

00:34:46.520 | I mean, it's a cat and mouse game, right?

00:34:48.120 | I mean, radars get better, stealth capabilities get better,

00:34:53.000 | and so it's a really a game of continuous improvement

00:34:57.720 | and innovation there, and I'll leave it at that.

00:35:00.200 | - Yeah, so the idea that something is essentially invisible

00:35:04.800 | is quite fascinating.

00:35:06.480 | But the other one is flying fast.

00:35:09.000 | So speed of sound is 750, 60 miles an hour.

00:35:13.300 | So supersonic is Mach 3, something like that.

00:35:19.240 | - Yeah, we talk about the supersonic, obviously,

00:35:21.640 | and we kind of talk about that as that realm

00:35:24.160 | from Mach 1 up through about Mach 5.

00:35:26.760 | And then hypersonic, so high supersonic speeds

00:35:31.760 | would be past Mach 5.

00:35:34.800 | And you gotta remember, Lockheed Martin

00:35:37.160 | and actually other companies have been involved

00:35:39.120 | in hypersonic development since the late '60s.

00:35:42.320 | You know, you think of everything from the X-15

00:35:45.400 | to the Space Shuttle as examples of that.

00:35:48.080 | I think the difference now is if you look around the world,

00:35:54.360 | particularly the threat environment that we're in today,

00:35:57.380 | you're starting to see publicly folks like the Russians

00:36:02.560 | and the Chinese saying they have hypersonic weapons

00:36:07.560 | capability that could threaten US and Allied capabilities.

00:36:12.600 | And also, basically, you know, the claims are

00:36:17.240 | that these could get around defensive systems

00:36:19.920 | that are out there today.

00:36:21.880 | And so there's a real sense of urgency.

00:36:24.560 | You hear it from folks like the Undersecretary of Defense

00:36:28.200 | for Research and Engineering, Dr. Mike Griffin,

00:36:30.840 | and others in the Department of Defense

00:36:32.840 | that hypersonics is something that's really important

00:36:37.240 | to the nation in terms of both parity

00:36:41.080 | but also defensive capabilities.

00:36:43.160 | And so that's something that, you know, we're pleased.

00:36:46.240 | It's something that Lockheed Martin's, you know,

00:36:47.880 | had a heritage in.

00:36:49.320 | We've invested R&D dollars on our side for many years.

00:36:53.840 | And we have a number of things going on

00:36:56.240 | with various US government customers in that field today

00:36:59.800 | that we're very excited about.

00:37:01.560 | So I would anticipate we'll be hearing more about that

00:37:04.560 | in the future from our customers.

00:37:06.280 | - And I've actually haven't read much about this.

00:37:08.920 | Probably you can't talk about much of it at all,

00:37:10.880 | but on the defensive side,

00:37:12.800 | it's a fascinating problem of perception,

00:37:15.640 | of trying to detect things that are really hard to see.

00:37:18.400 | Can you comment on how hard that problem is

00:37:21.600 | and how hard is it to stay ahead,

00:37:26.600 | even if we're going back a few decades,

00:37:29.240 | stay ahead of the competition?

00:37:30.520 | - Well, maybe I'd, again, you gotta think of these

00:37:33.760 | as ongoing capability development.

00:37:36.520 | And so think back to the early days of missile defense.

00:37:40.760 | So this would be in the '80s, the SDI program.

00:37:44.160 | And in that timeframe, we proved,

00:37:46.520 | Lockheed Martin proved that you could hit a bullet

00:37:48.920 | with a bullet, essentially,

00:37:50.320 | and which is something that had never been done before,

00:37:53.240 | to take out an incoming ballistic missile.

00:37:56.080 | And so that's led to these incredible

00:37:58.720 | hit-to-kill kinds of capabilities, PAC-3.

00:38:01.840 | That's the Patriot Advanced Capability,

00:38:05.280 | Model 3 that Lockheed Martin builds,

00:38:08.120 | the THAAD system that I talked about.

00:38:10.720 | So now hypersonics,

00:38:13.880 | they're different from ballistic systems.

00:38:17.520 | And so we gotta take the next step in defensive capability.

00:38:21.100 | - I can, I'll leave that there, but I can only imagine.

00:38:26.480 | Now, let me just comment.

00:38:27.720 | So if it's an engineer, it's sad to know that

00:38:31.440 | so much that Lockheed has done in the past is classified,

00:38:36.440 | or today, and it's shrouded in secrecy.

00:38:40.920 | It has to be by the nature of the application.

00:38:44.680 | So like what I do, so what we do here at MIT,

00:38:49.200 | we'd like to inspire young engineers, young scientists.

00:38:53.920 | And yet, in the Lockheed case,

00:38:56.440 | some of that engineer has to stay quiet.

00:38:59.680 | How do you think about that?

00:39:00.880 | How does that make you feel?

00:39:02.080 | Is there a future where more can be shown?

00:39:07.080 | Or is it just the nature of this world

00:39:11.200 | that it has to remain secret?

00:39:13.480 | - It's a good question.

00:39:15.640 | I think the public can see enough of,

00:39:21.800 | and including students who may be in grade school,

00:39:25.560 | high school, college today,

00:39:27.720 | to understand the kinds of really hard problems

00:39:32.400 | that we work on.

00:39:34.080 | And I mean, look at the F-35, right?

00:39:36.800 | And obviously a lot of the detailed performance levels

00:39:41.280 | are sensitive and controlled.

00:39:43.820 | But we can talk about what an incredible aircraft this is.

00:39:48.720 | Supersonic, super cruise kind of a fighter,

00:39:51.160 | a stealth capabilities.

00:39:55.160 | It's a flying information system in the sky

00:39:58.560 | with data fusion, sensor fusion capabilities

00:40:02.120 | that have never been seen before.

00:40:03.800 | So these are the kinds of things that I believe,

00:40:06.200 | these are the kinds of things that got me excited

00:40:07.980 | when I was a student.

00:40:08.920 | I think these still inspire students today.

00:40:12.600 | And the other thing, I'd say,

00:40:14.040 | I mean, people are inspired by space.

00:40:17.000 | People are inspired by aircraft.

00:40:20.180 | Our employees are also inspired by that sense of mission.

00:40:25.320 | And I'll just give you an example.

00:40:27.520 | I had the privilege to work

00:40:30.400 | and lead our GPS programs for some time.

00:40:34.400 | And that was a case where I actually worked on a program

00:40:39.160 | that touches billions of people every day.

00:40:41.720 | And so when I said I worked on GPS,

00:40:43.480 | everybody knew what I was talking about,

00:40:45.240 | even though they didn't maybe appreciate

00:40:46.880 | the technical challenges that went into that.

00:40:50.240 | But I'll tell you, I got a briefing one time

00:40:54.980 | from a major in the Air Force.

00:40:57.440 | And he said, "I go by call sign GIMP.

00:41:01.600 | GPS is my passion."

00:41:04.320 | So I love GPS.

00:41:05.720 | And he was involved in the operational test of the system.

00:41:08.960 | He said, "I was out in Iraq and I was on a helicopter,

00:41:14.640 | Black Hawk helicopter, and I was bringing back a sergeant

00:41:19.640 | and a handful of troops from a deployed location."

00:41:23.800 | And he said, "My job is GPS."

00:41:26.600 | So I asked that sergeant, and he's beating down

00:41:29.200 | and kind of half asleep.

00:41:31.400 | And I said, "What do you think about GPS?"

00:41:34.100 | And he brightened up, his eyes lit up, and he said,

00:41:36.300 | "Well, GPS, that brings me and my troops home every day.

00:41:39.960 | I love GPS."

00:41:41.120 | And that's the kind of story where it's like,

00:41:42.960 | okay, I'm really making a difference here

00:41:45.600 | in the kind of work.

00:41:46.440 | So that mission piece is really important.

00:41:48.920 | Last thing I'll say is, and this gets to some

00:41:52.840 | of these questions around advanced technologies.

00:41:56.120 | It's not, you know, they're not just airplanes

00:41:58.720 | and spacecraft anymore.

00:41:59.960 | For people who are excited

00:42:01.420 | about advanced software capabilities, about AI,

00:42:04.780 | about bringing machine learning,

00:42:06.040 | these are the things that we're doing to, you know,

00:42:09.200 | exponentially increase the mission capabilities

00:42:12.960 | that go on those platforms.

00:42:14.360 | And those are the kinds of things that I think are more

00:42:16.440 | and more visible to the public.

00:42:18.440 | - Yeah, I think autonomy,

00:42:19.920 | especially in flight is super exciting.

00:42:23.080 | Do you see if a day, here we go, back into philosophy,

00:42:28.080 | future when most fighter jets will be highly autonomous

00:42:33.120 | to a degree where a human doesn't need to be in the cockpit

00:42:38.900 | in almost all cases?

00:42:40.640 | - Well, I mean, that's a world that to a certain extent

00:42:43.520 | we're in today.

00:42:44.360 | Now, these are remotely piloted aircraft to be sure,

00:42:47.800 | but we have hundreds of thousands of flight hours a year now

00:42:52.800 | in remotely piloted aircraft.

00:42:55.800 | And then if you take the F-35,

00:42:58.400 | there are huge layers, I guess, in levels of autonomy

00:43:04.680 | built into that aircraft

00:43:06.200 | so that the pilot is essentially more of a mission manager

00:43:11.200 | rather than doing the data, you know,

00:43:14.020 | the second to second elements of flying the aircraft.

00:43:17.180 | So in some ways it's the easiest aircraft

00:43:19.500 | in the world to fly.

00:43:20.820 | And kind of a funny story on that.

00:43:22.500 | So I don't know if you know how aircraft carrier landings

00:43:26.940 | work, but basically there's what's called a tail hook

00:43:30.820 | and it catches wires on the deck of the carrier.

00:43:33.780 | And that's what brings the aircraft

00:43:37.320 | to a screeching halt, right?

00:43:39.440 | And there's typically three of these wires.

00:43:41.840 | So if you miss the first, the second one,

00:43:43.520 | you catch the next one, right?

00:43:46.000 | And, you know, we got a little criticism.

00:43:49.580 | I don't know how true this story is,

00:43:50.940 | but we got a little criticism.

00:43:52.440 | The F-35 is so perfect.

00:43:54.520 | It always gets the second wire.

00:43:56.160 | So we're wearing out the wire

00:43:57.720 | because it always hits that one.

00:44:00.640 | So that, but that's the kind of autonomy

00:44:03.040 | that just makes these, that essentially up levels

00:44:05.800 | what the human is doing to more of that mission manager.

00:44:08.600 | - So much of that landing by the F-35 is autonomous.

00:44:12.100 | - Well, it's just, you know, the control systems are such

00:44:14.460 | that you really have dialed out the variability

00:44:17.100 | that comes with all of the environmental conditions.

00:44:19.920 | - You're wearing it out.

00:44:20.840 | - So my point is to a certain extent,

00:44:24.360 | that world is here today.

00:44:26.180 | Do I think that we're gonna see a day anytime soon

00:44:30.020 | when there are no humans in the cockpit?

00:44:31.860 | I don't believe that,

00:44:33.380 | but I do think we're gonna see much more

00:44:35.900 | human machine teaming,

00:44:37.160 | and we're gonna see that much more at the tactical edge.

00:44:40.540 | And we did a demo,

00:44:41.500 | you asked about what the Skunk Works is doing these days.

00:44:43.800 | And so this is something I can talk about,

00:44:46.260 | but we did a demo with the Air Force Research Laboratory.

00:44:51.260 | We called it Have Raider.

00:44:52.660 | And so using an F-16 as an autonomous wingman,

00:44:59.860 | and we demonstrated all kinds of maneuvers

00:45:02.540 | and various mission scenarios with the autonomous F-16

00:45:06.340 | being that so-called loyal or trusted wingman.

00:45:09.580 | And so those are the kinds of things that, you know,

00:45:12.140 | we've shown what is possible now,

00:45:15.500 | given that you've up-leveled that pilot

00:45:17.940 | to be a mission manager,

00:45:19.040 | now they can control multiple other aircraft.

00:45:22.340 | Think of them almost as extensions of your own aircraft

00:45:25.100 | flying alongside with you.

00:45:27.220 | So that's another example of how this is really

00:45:30.340 | coming to fruition.

00:45:31.620 | And then, yeah, I mentioned the landings,

00:45:35.220 | but think about just the implications

00:45:38.160 | for humans and flight safety.

00:45:39.900 | And this goes a little bit back to the discussion

00:45:41.860 | we were having about how do you continuously improve

00:45:45.740 | the level of safety through automation

00:45:48.980 | while working through the complexities

00:45:51.400 | that automation introduces.

00:45:53.380 | So one of the challenges that you have

00:45:54.780 | in high-performance fighter aircraft

00:45:56.340 | is what's called G-LOC.

00:45:57.500 | So this is G-induced loss of consciousness.

00:46:00.000 | So you pull nine Gs, you're wearing a pressure suit,

00:46:02.860 | that's not enough to keep the blood going to your brain,

00:46:05.820 | you blackout.

00:46:06.940 | - Right.

00:46:07.780 | - Right?

00:46:08.620 | And of course that's bad if you happen to be flying low,

00:46:11.900 | you know, near the deck,

00:46:13.100 | and you know, or an obstacle or terrain environment.

00:46:17.580 | And so we developed a system in our aeronautics division

00:46:22.460 | called Auto GCAS,

00:46:23.780 | so Autonomous Ground Collision Avoidance System.

00:46:27.460 | And we built that into the F-16.

00:46:30.100 | It's actually saved seven aircraft, eight pilots already,

00:46:33.020 | in the relatively short time it's been deployed.

00:46:35.860 | It was so successful that the Air Force said,

00:46:39.220 | "Hey, we need to have this in the F-35 right away."

00:46:41.460 | So we've actually done testing of that now on the F-35.

00:46:45.380 | And we've also integrated

00:46:47.860 | an autonomous air collision avoidance system.

00:46:51.000 | So think the air-to-air problem.

00:46:52.900 | So now it's the integrated collision avoidance system.

00:46:56.060 | But these are the kinds of capabilities,

00:46:58.600 | you know, I wouldn't call them AI.

00:46:59.940 | I mean, they're very sophisticated models,

00:47:03.540 | you know, of the aircraft dynamics,

00:47:06.260 | coupled with the terrain models,

00:47:08.080 | to be able to predict when essentially,

00:47:11.420 | you know, the pilot is doing something

00:47:12.820 | that is gonna take the aircraft into,

00:47:14.860 | or the pilot's not doing something in this case.

00:47:18.140 | But those, it just gives you an example

00:47:20.220 | of how autonomy can be really a lifesaver in today's world.

00:47:25.220 | - It's like a autonomous,

00:47:28.180 | automated emergency braking in cars.

00:47:30.580 | But is there any exploration of perception of,

00:47:34.660 | for example, detecting a G-lock that the pilot is out?

00:47:39.660 | So as opposed to perceiving the external environment

00:47:43.020 | to infer that the pilot is out,

00:47:44.500 | but actually perceiving the pilot directly?

00:47:47.420 | - Yeah, this is one of those cases

00:47:48.740 | where you'd like to not take action

00:47:50.780 | if you think the pilot's there.

00:47:52.100 | And it's almost like systems that try to detect

00:47:54.740 | if a driver's falling asleep on the road, right?

00:47:57.700 | With limited success.

00:47:59.980 | So, I mean, this is what I'd call

00:48:02.060 | the system of last resort, right?

00:48:03.740 | Where if the aircraft has determined

00:48:06.940 | that it's going into the terrain, get it out of there.

00:48:10.900 | And this is not something that we're just doing

00:48:13.580 | in the aircraft world.

00:48:15.700 | And I wanted to highlight,

00:48:16.940 | we have a technology we call Matrix,

00:48:18.660 | but this is developed at Sikorsky Innovations.

00:48:21.980 | The whole idea there is what we call optimal piloting.

00:48:26.140 | So not optional piloting or unpiloted, but optimal piloting.

00:48:31.140 | So an FAA certified system.

00:48:35.100 | So you have a high degree of confidence.

00:48:37.460 | It's generally pretty deterministic.

00:48:40.620 | So we know that it'll do in different situations,

00:48:43.940 | but effectively be able to fly a mission

00:48:48.140 | with two pilots, one pilot, no pilots.

00:48:51.540 | And you can think of it almost as like a dial

00:48:56.020 | of the level of autonomy that you want,

00:48:58.340 | but able, so it's running in the background at all times

00:49:01.300 | and able to pick up tasks,

00:49:03.260 | whether it's sort of autopilot kinds of tasks

00:49:05.900 | or more sophisticated path planning kinds of activities.

00:49:10.900 | To be able to do things like, for example,

00:49:14.220 | land on an oil rig in the North Sea

00:49:16.860 | in bad weather, zero, zero conditions.

00:49:19.540 | And you can imagine, of course,

00:49:20.740 | there's a lot of military utility to capability like that.

00:49:24.540 | You could have an aircraft that you want to send out

00:49:27.300 | for a crewed mission, but then at night,

00:49:29.780 | if you want to use it to deliver supplies

00:49:31.900 | in an unmanned mode, that could be done as well.

00:49:35.540 | And so there's clear advantages there.

00:49:39.980 | But think about on the commercial side,

00:49:41.860 | if you're an aircraft taken,

00:49:44.420 | you're gonna fly out to this oil rig.

00:49:46.100 | And if you get out there and you can't land,

00:49:48.020 | then you gotta bring all those people back,

00:49:50.660 | reschedule another flight, pay the overtime for the crew

00:49:53.140 | that you just brought back 'cause they didn't get

00:49:55.260 | where they were going, pay for the overtime

00:49:56.660 | for the folks that are out there on the oil rig.

00:49:58.660 | This is real economic, these are dollars and cents

00:50:01.900 | kinds of advantages that we're bringing

00:50:04.020 | in the commercial world as well.

00:50:06.060 | - So this is a difficult question from the AI space

00:50:09.180 | that I would love it if we're able to comment.

00:50:11.660 | So a lot of this autonomy in AI you've mentioned just now

00:50:15.420 | has this empowering effect.

00:50:17.060 | One is the last resort, it keeps you safe.

00:50:20.420 | The other is there's a, with the teaming

00:50:22.900 | and in general assistive AI.

00:50:27.900 | And I think there's always a race.

00:50:33.140 | So the world is full of, the world is complex.

00:50:36.980 | It's full of bad actors.

00:50:41.140 | So there's often a race to make sure

00:50:43.640 | that we keep this country safe, right?

00:50:47.160 | But with AI, there is a concern

00:50:51.940 | that it's a slightly different race.

00:50:55.100 | There's a lot of people in the AI space

00:50:56.780 | that are concerned about the AI arms race.

00:50:59.580 | That as opposed to the United States becoming,

00:51:03.300 | you know, having the best technology

00:51:05.420 | and therefore keeping us safe,

00:51:07.380 | even we lose ability to keep control of it.

00:51:11.500 | So this, the AI arms race getting away

00:51:14.520 | from all of us humans.

00:51:16.780 | So do you share this worry?

00:51:19.440 | Do you share this concern when we're talking

00:51:21.520 | about military applications that too much control

00:51:25.720 | and decision-making capabilities giving to software or AI?

00:51:30.400 | - Well, I don't see it happening today.

00:51:34.140 | And in fact, this is something from a policy perspective,

00:51:37.840 | you know, it's obviously a very dynamic space,

00:51:39.960 | but the Department of Defense has put quite a bit

00:51:42.400 | of thought into that.

00:51:44.280 | And maybe before talking about the policy,

00:51:46.580 | I'll just talk about some of the why.

00:51:48.920 | And you alluded to it being a sort of a complicated

00:51:52.240 | and a little bit scary world out there,

00:51:54.040 | but there's some big things happening today.

00:51:57.280 | You hear a lot of talk now about a return

00:51:59.420 | to great powers competition,

00:52:01.480 | particularly around China and Russia with the US,

00:52:05.440 | but there are some other big players out there as well.

00:52:09.620 | And what we've seen is the deployment of some very,

00:52:14.620 | I'd say concerning new weapon systems,

00:52:20.340 | you know, particularly with Russia and breaching

00:52:23.040 | some of the IRBM, Intermediate-Range Ballistic Missile

00:52:26.060 | treaties that's been in the news a lot.

00:52:28.020 | You know, the building of islands, artificial islands

00:52:33.060 | in the South China Sea by the Chinese

00:52:35.160 | and then arming those islands.

00:52:38.740 | The annexation of Crimea by Russia,

00:52:42.920 | the invasion of Ukraine.

00:52:44.820 | So there's some pretty scary things.

00:52:47.180 | And then you add on top of that,

00:52:48.820 | the North Korean threat has certainly not gone away.

00:52:52.980 | There's a lot going on in the Middle East

00:52:54.740 | with Iran in particular.

00:52:56.680 | And we see this global terrorism threat

00:52:59.700 | has not abated, right?

00:53:02.380 | So there are a lot of reasons to look for technology

00:53:06.100 | to assist with those problems,

00:53:07.660 | whether it's AI or other technologies like hypersonics,

00:53:11.300 | which we discussed.

00:53:12.980 | So now let me give just a couple of hypotheticals.

00:53:17.340 | So people react sort of in the second timeframe, right?

00:53:22.260 | You know, you're,

00:53:23.620 | photon hitting your eye to, you know,

00:53:27.180 | movement is, you know, on the order of a few tenths

00:53:30.000 | of a second kinds of processing times.

00:53:34.400 | Roughly speaking, you know,

00:53:36.520 | computers are operating in the nanosecond timescale, right?

00:53:41.520 | So just to bring home what that means,

00:53:44.600 | a nanosecond to a second is like a second to 32 years.

00:53:49.600 | So seconds on the battlefield in that sense,

00:53:53.920 | literally are lifetimes.

00:53:55.660 | And so if you can bring an autonomous

00:54:01.000 | or AI enabled capability

00:54:03.240 | that will enable the human to shrink,

00:54:05.600 | maybe you've heard the term the OODA loop.

00:54:07.520 | So this whole idea that a typical battlefield decision

00:54:12.120 | is characterized by observe.

00:54:15.800 | So information comes in, orient,

00:54:18.400 | how does that, what does that mean in the context?

00:54:21.240 | Decide, what do I do about it?

00:54:23.040 | And then act, take that action.

00:54:25.160 | If you can use these capabilities to compress that OODA loop

00:54:29.040 | to stay inside what your adversary is doing,

00:54:32.240 | that's an incredible, powerful force on the battlefield.

00:54:37.240 | - That's a really nice way to put it.

00:54:39.160 | That the role of AI in computing in general

00:54:41.720 | has a lot to benefit from just decreasing

00:54:45.180 | from 32 years to one second.

00:54:47.260 | As opposed to on the scale of seconds and minutes and hours

00:54:50.580 | making decisions that humans are better at making.

00:54:53.480 | - And it actually goes the other way too.

00:54:55.000 | So that's on the short time scale.

00:54:57.200 | So humans kind of work in the, you know,

00:54:58.780 | one second, two seconds to eight hours.

00:55:01.560 | After eight hours, you get tired, you know,

00:55:04.360 | you gotta go to the bathroom, whatever the case might be.

00:55:07.520 | So there's this whole range of other things.

00:55:09.760 | Think about, you know, surveillance and guarding,

00:55:14.760 | you know, facilities.

00:55:16.600 | Think about moving material, logistics, sustainment.

00:55:20.540 | A lot of these, what they call dull, dirty,

00:55:22.620 | and dangerous things that you need to have

00:55:24.960 | sustained activity, but it's sort of beyond the length

00:55:27.600 | of time that a human can practically do as well.

00:55:30.960 | So there's this range of things that are critical

00:55:35.280 | in military and defense applications

00:55:39.160 | that AI and autonomy are particularly well suited to.

00:55:43.260 | Now, the interesting question that you brought up is,

00:55:46.080 | okay, how do you make sure that stays within human control?

00:55:49.040 | And that, so that was the context for now the policy.

00:55:52.400 | And so there is a DOD directive called 3000.09,

00:55:56.200 | because that's the way we name stuff in this world.

00:55:59.300 | And, but it, you know, and I'd say it's well worth reading.

00:56:04.300 | It's only a couple pages long, but it makes some key points.

00:56:07.320 | And it's really around, you know,

00:56:09.000 | making sure that there's human agency and control

00:56:12.360 | over use of semi-autonomous and autonomous weapon systems.

00:56:17.360 | Making sure that these systems are tested, verified,

00:56:23.840 | and evaluated in realistic, real-world type scenarios.

00:56:28.240 | Making sure that the people are actually trained

00:56:30.440 | on how to use them.

00:56:31.920 | Making sure that the systems have human machine interfaces

00:56:36.040 | that can show what state they're in

00:56:38.120 | and what kinds of decisions they're making.

00:56:40.360 | Making sure that you've established doctrine and tactics

00:56:43.880 | and techniques and procedures

00:56:45.840 | for the use of these kinds of systems.

00:56:48.280 | And so, and by the way, I mean, none of this is easy,

00:56:52.920 | but I'm just trying to lay kind of the picture

00:56:56.080 | of how the US has said,

00:56:58.200 | this is the way we're gonna treat AI and autonomous systems.

00:57:02.620 | That it's not a free for all.

00:57:04.600 | And like there are rules of war and rules of engagement

00:57:08.160 | with other kinds of systems,

00:57:09.480 | think chemical weapons, biological weapons,

00:57:12.200 | we need to think about the same sorts of implications.

00:57:15.600 | And this is something that's really important

00:57:17.320 | for Lockheed Martin.

00:57:18.240 | I mean, obviously we are 100% complying

00:57:21.600 | with our customer and the policies and regulations.

00:57:26.440 | But I mean, AI is an incredible enabler,

00:57:30.580 | say within the walls of Lockheed Martin

00:57:32.360 | in terms of improving production efficiency,

00:57:35.220 | doing helping engineers, doing generative design,

00:57:38.240 | improving logistics, driving down energy costs.

00:57:42.040 | I mean, there's so many applications.

00:57:44.380 | But we're also very interested in some of the elements

00:57:48.160 | of ethical application within Lockheed Martin.

00:57:51.800 | So we need to make sure that things like privacy

00:57:54.360 | is taken care of, that we do everything we can

00:57:58.480 | to drive out bias in AI enabled kinds of systems.

00:58:03.440 | That we make sure that humans are involved in decisions,

00:58:06.280 | that we're not just delegating accountability to algorithms.

00:58:10.600 | And so for us, it all comes back,

00:58:13.240 | I talked about culture before,

00:58:14.520 | and it comes back to sort of the Lockheed Martin culture.

00:58:17.880 | And our core values, and so it's pretty simple for us.

00:58:20.880 | And do what's right, respect others,

00:58:22.480 | perform with excellence.

00:58:24.240 | And now how do we tie that back to the ethical principles

00:58:27.880 | that will govern how AI is used within Lockheed Martin?

00:58:31.800 | And we actually have a world,

00:58:33.360 | so you might not know this,

00:58:35.520 | but there are actually awards for ethics programs.

00:58:37.680 | Lockheed Martin's had a recognized ethics program

00:58:41.400 | for many years, and this is one of the things

00:58:43.680 | that our ethics team is working

00:58:45.040 | with our engineering team on.

00:58:47.840 | - One of the miracles to me, perhaps a layman,

00:58:51.320 | again, I was born in the Soviet Union,

00:58:53.760 | so I have echoes, at least in my family history

00:58:57.840 | of World War II and the Cold War.

00:59:00.640 | Do you have a sense of why human civilization

00:59:04.800 | has not destroyed itself through nuclear war,

00:59:07.120 | so nuclear deterrence?

00:59:09.200 | And thinking about the future,

00:59:11.960 | does technology have a role to play here?

00:59:14.620 | And what does the long-term future

00:59:17.420 | of nuclear deterrence look like?

00:59:20.460 | - Yeah, this is one of those hard, hard questions.

00:59:24.860 | And I should note that Lockheed Martin

00:59:27.980 | is both proud and privileged to play a part

00:59:30.420 | in multiple legs of our nuclear and strategic deterrent

00:59:35.420 | systems like the Trident submarine-launched

00:59:38.780 | ballistic missiles.

00:59:41.780 | You know, you talk about, you know,

00:59:45.300 | is there still a possibility that the human race

00:59:48.060 | could destroy itself?

00:59:49.100 | I'd say that possibility is real,

00:59:50.900 | but interestingly, in some sense,

00:59:55.460 | I think the strategic deterrents have prevented

01:00:00.060 | the kinds of, you know, incredibly destructive

01:00:03.100 | world wars that we saw in the first half

01:00:05.220 | of the 20th century.

01:00:07.300 | Now, things have gotten more complicated

01:00:10.040 | since that time and since the Cold War.

01:00:12.300 | It is more of a multipolar, great powers world today.

01:00:15.520 | Just to give you an example, back then,

01:00:18.620 | you know, there were, you know,

01:00:20.060 | in the Cold War time frame, just a handful of nations

01:00:23.060 | that had ballistic missile capability.

01:00:25.120 | By last count, and this is a few years old,

01:00:28.220 | there's over 70 nations today that have that.

01:00:31.220 | Similar kinds of numbers in terms

01:00:34.300 | of space-based capabilities.

01:00:38.080 | So, the world has gotten more complex

01:00:41.600 | and more challenging, and the threats, I think,

01:00:43.800 | have proliferated in ways that we didn't expect.

01:00:47.560 | You know, the nation today is in the middle

01:00:52.000 | of a recapitalization of our strategic deterrent.

01:00:55.360 | I look at that as one of the most important things

01:00:58.760 | that our nation can do.

01:01:00.320 | - What is involved in deterrence?

01:01:01.880 | Is it being ready to attack?

01:01:07.700 | Or is it the defensive systems that catch attacks?

01:01:11.580 | - A little bit of both.

01:01:12.580 | And so, it's a complicated game theoretical kind of program.

01:01:16.700 | But, ultimately, we are trying to prevent the use

01:01:21.700 | of any of these weapons.

01:01:24.900 | And the theory behind prevention is that even

01:01:29.700 | if an adversary uses a weapon against you,

01:01:33.340 | you have the capability to essentially strike back

01:01:37.660 | and do harm to them that's unacceptable.

01:01:40.860 | And so, that will deter them from making use

01:01:44.960 | of these weapon systems.

01:01:46.300 | The deterrence calculus has changed, of course,

01:01:50.820 | with more nations now having these kinds of weapons.

01:01:55.140 | But I think, from my perspective, it's very important

01:02:02.220 | to maintain a strategic deterrent.

01:02:05.020 | You have to have systems that you know will work

01:02:08.820 | when they're required to work.

01:02:11.220 | You know that they have to be adaptable

01:02:13.540 | to a variety of different scenarios in today's world.

01:02:17.540 | And so, that's what this recapitalization of systems

01:02:20.380 | that were built over previous decades,

01:02:23.220 | making sure that they are appropriate, not just for today,

01:02:26.640 | but for the decades to come.

01:02:29.120 | So, the other thing I'd really like to note

01:02:32.220 | is strategic deterrence has a very different character today.

01:02:37.220 | You know, we used to think of weapons of mass destruction

01:02:42.420 | in terms of nuclear, chemical, biological.

01:02:45.780 | And today, we have a cyber threat.

01:02:48.700 | We've seen examples of the use of cyber weaponry.

01:02:53.700 | And if you think about the possibilities

01:02:58.580 | of using cyber capabilities or an adversary

01:03:02.260 | attacking the US to take out things

01:03:05.480 | like critical infrastructure, electrical grids,

01:03:08.860 | water systems, those are scenarios that are strategic

01:03:13.860 | in nature to the survival of a nation as well.

01:03:19.080 | So, that is the kind of world that we live in today.

01:03:23.060 | And, you know, part of my hope on this

01:03:26.180 | is one that we can also develop technical

01:03:29.140 | or technological systems, perhaps enabled by AI and autonomy

01:03:33.620 | that will allow us to contain and to fight back

01:03:38.620 | against these kinds of new threats that were not conceived

01:03:43.500 | when we first developed our strategic deterrence.

01:03:46.260 | - Yeah, I know that Lockheed is involved in cyber.

01:03:48.340 | So, I saw that you mentioned that.

01:03:50.900 | It's an incredibly,

01:03:54.380 | nuclear almost seems easier than cyber

01:03:57.580 | 'cause there's so many attack,

01:03:58.780 | there's so many ways that cyber can evolve.

01:04:01.740 | It's such an uncertain future.

01:04:03.460 | But talking about engineering with a mission,

01:04:05.780 | I mean, in this case, your engineering system

01:04:09.580 | is that basically save the world.

01:04:12.740 | - It's, like I said, we're privileged to work

01:04:18.000 | on some very challenging problems

01:04:19.980 | for very critical customers here in the US

01:04:23.300 | and with our allies abroad as well.

01:04:25.140 | - Lockheed builds both military and non-military systems.

01:04:30.740 | And perhaps the future of Lockheed

01:04:32.940 | may be more in non-military applications.

01:04:35.300 | If you talk about space and beyond.

01:04:37.180 | I say that as a preface to a difficult question.

01:04:41.420 | So, President Eisenhower in 1961,

01:04:45.100 | in his farewell address talked about

01:04:46.780 | the military industrial complex

01:04:49.020 | and that it shouldn't grow beyond what is needed.

01:04:52.740 | So, what are your thoughts on those words

01:04:55.860 | on the military industrial complex

01:04:58.780 | on the concern of growth of their developments

01:05:03.780 | beyond what may be needed?

01:05:05.740 | - That what, where it may be needed

01:05:09.460 | is a critical phrase, of course.

01:05:12.260 | And I think it is worth pointing out,

01:05:14.300 | as you noted, that Lockheed Martin,

01:05:15.980 | we're in a number of commercial businesses

01:05:19.380 | from energy to space to commercial aircraft.

01:05:24.020 | And so, I wouldn't neglect the importance

01:05:28.660 | of those parts of our business as well.

01:05:32.100 | I think the world is dynamic and there was a time,

01:05:37.100 | it doesn't seem that long ago to me,

01:05:39.420 | I was a graduate student here at MIT

01:05:41.940 | and we were talking about the peace dividend

01:05:43.940 | at the end of the Cold War.

01:05:45.780 | If you look at expenditure on military systems

01:05:49.260 | as a fraction of GDP, we're far below peak levels

01:05:53.260 | of the past.

01:05:55.660 | And to me, at least, it looks like a time

01:05:59.180 | where you're seeing global threats changing

01:06:01.580 | in a way that would warrant relevant investments

01:06:06.580 | in defensive capabilities.

01:06:10.020 | The other thing I'd note,

01:06:12.180 | for military and defensive systems,

01:06:18.540 | it's not quite a free market, right?

01:06:21.500 | We don't sell to people on the street.

01:06:25.740 | And that warrants a very close partnership

01:06:29.500 | between, I'd say, the customers and the people

01:06:33.180 | that design, build, and maintain these systems.

01:06:38.180 | Because of the very unique nature,

01:06:42.020 | the very difficult requirements,

01:06:44.980 | the very great importance on safety

01:06:49.460 | and on operating the way they're intended every time.

01:06:54.460 | And so that does create, and frankly,

01:06:57.700 | it's one of Lockheed Martin's great strengths,

01:06:59.580 | is that we have this expertise built up over many years

01:07:03.500 | in partnership with our customers

01:07:05.420 | to be able to design and build these systems

01:07:08.260 | that meet these very unique mission needs.

01:07:11.580 | - Yeah, because building those systems is very costly.

01:07:14.420 | There's very little room for mistake.

01:07:16.100 | I mean, it's, yeah, just Ben Rich's book and so on

01:07:18.980 | just tells the story.

01:07:20.300 | It's nerve-wracking just reading it.

01:07:22.340 | If you're an engineer, it reads like a thriller.

01:07:24.380 | Okay, let's go back to space for a second.

01:07:29.380 | I guess--

01:07:30.700 | - I'm always happy to go back to space.

01:07:33.100 | - So a few quick, maybe out there, maybe fun questions,

01:07:38.100 | maybe a little provocative.

01:07:40.580 | What are your thoughts on the efforts

01:07:43.660 | of the new folks, SpaceX and Elon Musk?

01:07:48.660 | What are your thoughts about what Elon is doing?

01:07:50.900 | Do you see him as competition?

01:07:52.660 | Do you enjoy competition?

01:07:54.220 | What are your thoughts?

01:07:56.220 | - Yeah, first of all, certainly Elon, I'd say SpaceX

01:08:01.140 | and some of his other ventures

01:08:03.220 | are definitely a competitive force in the space industry.

01:08:08.220 | And do we like competition?

01:08:09.900 | Yeah, we do.

01:08:11.500 | And we think we're very strong competitors.

01:08:15.580 | I think it's, competition is what the US is founded on

01:08:20.580 | in a lot of ways and always coming up with a better way.

01:08:24.700 | And I think it's really important to continue,

01:08:28.740 | to have fresh eyes coming in, new innovation.

01:08:33.020 | I do think it's important to have level playing fields.

01:08:35.500 | And so you wanna make sure that you're not giving

01:08:39.940 | different requirements to different players.

01:08:42.860 | But I tell people, I spent a lot of time at places like MIT,

01:08:47.580 | I'm gonna be at the MIT Beaverworks Summer Institute

01:08:50.640 | over the weekend here.

01:08:52.140 | And I tell people, this is the most exciting time

01:08:55.100 | to be in the space business in my entire life.

01:08:58.460 | And it is this explosion of new capabilities

01:09:03.020 | that have been driven by things like the massive increase

01:09:07.020 | in computing power, things like the massive increase

01:09:10.940 | in comms capabilities, advanced and additive manufacturing

01:09:15.180 | are really bringing down the barriers to entry in this field

01:09:19.540 | and it's driving just incredible innovation.

01:09:21.940 | And it's happening at startups,

01:09:23.080 | but it's also happening at Lockheed Martin.

01:09:25.460 | You may not realize this, but Lockheed Martin,

01:09:27.300 | working with Stanford actually built the first CubeSat

01:09:30.020 | that was launched here out of the US

01:09:33.660 | that was called QuakeSat.

01:09:35.180 | And we did that with Stellar Solutions.

01:09:37.500 | This was right around just after 2000, I guess.

01:09:41.660 | And so we've been in that from the very beginning.

01:09:45.580 | And I talked about some of these like Maya and Orion,

01:09:50.160 | but we're in the middle of what we call smartsats

01:09:54.220 | and software-defined satellites

01:09:55.860 | that can essentially restructure and remap their purpose,

01:10:00.660 | their mission on orbit to give you

01:10:03.140 | almost unlimited flexibility for these satellites

01:10:06.540 | over their lifetimes.

01:10:08.020 | So those are just a couple of examples,

01:10:10.260 | but yeah, this is a great time to be in space.

01:10:13.520 | - Absolutely.

01:10:14.380 | So Wright Brothers flew for the first time 116 years ago.

01:10:19.380 | So now we have supersonic stealth planes

01:10:23.060 | and all the technology we've talked about.

01:10:25.420 | What innovations, obviously you can't predict the future,

01:10:29.300 | but do you see Lockheed in the next 100 years?

01:10:32.420 | If you take that same leap,

01:10:34.100 | how will the world of technology and engineering change?

01:10:37.820 | I know it's an impossible question,

01:10:39.340 | but nobody could have predicted

01:10:42.300 | that we could even fly 120 years ago.

01:10:45.780 | So what do you think is the edge of possibility

01:10:50.620 | that we're going to be exploring in the next 100 years?

01:10:52.660 | - I don't know that there is an edge.

01:10:54.500 | We've been around for almost that entire time, right?

01:11:00.780 | The Lockheed brothers and Glenn L. Martin

01:11:03.860 | starting their companies in the basement of a church

01:11:07.980 | and an old service station.

01:11:10.680 | We're very different companies today

01:11:14.260 | than we were back then, right?

01:11:15.700 | And that's because we've continuously reinvented ourselves

01:11:19.060 | over all of those decades.

01:11:21.700 | I think it's fair to say, I know this for sure,

01:11:24.340 | the world of the future, it's gonna move faster,

01:11:27.840 | it's gonna be more connected,

01:11:29.340 | it's gonna be more autonomous,

01:11:31.700 | and it's gonna be more complex than it is today.

01:11:36.220 | And so this is the world, as a CTO at Lockheed Martin,

01:11:39.740 | that I think about,

01:11:40.580 | what are the technologies that we have to invest in,

01:11:42.700 | whether it's things like AI and autonomy,

01:11:45.500 | you can think about quantum computing,

01:11:47.300 | which is an area that we've invested in

01:11:49.140 | to try to stay ahead of these technological changes

01:11:53.540 | and frankly, some of the threats that are out there.

01:11:56.300 | I believe that we're gonna be out there

01:11:58.380 | in the solar system, that we're gonna be defending

01:12:00.860 | and defending well against probably military threats

01:12:04.980 | that nobody has even thought about today.

01:12:07.180 | We are going to be, we're gonna use these capabilities

01:12:12.380 | to have far greater knowledge of our own planet,

01:12:15.700 | the depths of the oceans, all the way to the upper reaches,

01:12:19.320 | the atmosphere and everything out to the sun

01:12:21.420 | and to the edge of the solar system.

01:12:23.420 | So that's what I look forward to.

01:12:26.740 | And I'm excited, I mean, just looking ahead

01:12:30.860 | in the next decade or so to the steps

01:12:33.380 | that I see ahead of us in that time.

01:12:35.360 | - I don't think there's a better place to end, Koki.

01:12:38.580 | Thank you so much.

01:12:39.620 | - Lex, it's been a real pleasure

01:12:41.100 | and sorry it took so long to get up here,

01:12:43.460 | but glad we're able to make it happen.

01:12:45.540 | (upbeat music)

01:12:48.120 | (upbeat music)

01:12:50.700 | (upbeat music)

01:12:53.280 | (upbeat music)

01:12:55.860 | (upbeat music)

01:12:58.440 | (upbeat music)

01:13:01.020 | [BLANK_AUDIO]

Keoki Jackson: Lockheed Martin | Lex Fridman Podcast #33

Chapters