[House Hearing, 114 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[H.A.S.C. No. 114-95]
HEARING
ON
NATIONAL DEFENSE AUTHORIZATION ACT
FOR FISCAL YEAR 2017
AND
OVERSIGHT OF PREVIOUSLY AUTHORIZED PROGRAMS
BEFORE THE
COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED FOURTEENTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
__________
SUBCOMMITTEE ON EMERGING THREATS AND CAPABILITIES HEARING
ON
DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE FISCAL YEAR
2017 SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY
PROGRAMS: DEFENSE INNOVATION TO
CREATE THE FUTURE MILITARY FORCE
__________
HEARING HELD
FEBRUARY 24, 2016
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
_________
U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
99-626 WASHINGTON : 2016
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SUBCOMMITTEE ON EMERGING THREATS AND CAPABILITIES
JOE WILSON, South Carolina, Chairman
JOHN KLINE, Minnesota JAMES R. LANGEVIN, Rhode Island
BILL SHUSTER, Pennsylvania JIM COOPER, Tennessee
DUNCAN HUNTER, California JOHN GARAMENDI, California
RICHARD B. NUGENT, Florida JOAQUIN CASTRO, Texas
RYAN K. ZINKE, Montana MARC A. VEASEY, Texas
TRENT FRANKS, Arizona, Vice Chair DONALD NORCROSS, New Jersey
DOUG LAMBORN, Colorado BRAD ASHFORD, Nebraska
MO BROOKS, Alabama PETE AGUILAR, California
BRADLEY BYRNE, Alabama
ELISE M. STEFANIK, New York
Kevin Gates, Professional Staff Member
Lindsay Kavanaugh, Professional Staff Member
Neve Schadler, Clerk
C O N T E N T S
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Page
STATEMENTS PRESENTED BY MEMBERS OF CONGRESS
Langevin, Hon. James R., a Representative from Rhode Island,
Ranking Member, Subcommittee on Emerging Threats and
Capabilities................................................... 2
Wilson, Hon. Joe, a Representative from South Carolina, Chairman,
Subcommittee on Emerging Threats and Capabilities.............. 1
WITNESSES
Miller, Mary J., Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Army for
Research and Technology, Office of the Assistant Secretary of
the Army for Acquisition, Logistics and Technology............. 6
Prabhakar, Dr. Arati, Director, Defense Advanced Research
Projects Agency (DARPA)........................................ 12
Walker, Dr. David E., Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Air Force
for Science, Technology and Engineering, Office of the
Assistant Secretary of the Air Force for Acquisition........... 10
Welby, Stephen, Assistant Secretary of Defense for Research and
Engineering, Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for
Acquisition, Technology and Logistics.......................... 3
Winter, RADM Mathias W., USN, Chief of Naval Research and
Director, Innovation Technology Requirements, and Test and
Evaluation (N84)............................................... 8
APPENDIX
Prepared Statements:
Miller, Mary J............................................... 46
Prabhakar, Dr. Arati......................................... 126
Walker, Dr. David E.......................................... 86
Welby, Stephen............................................... 32
Wilson, Hon. Joe............................................. 31
Winter, RADM Mathias W....................................... 66
Documents Submitted for the Record:
[There were no Documents submitted.]
Witness Responses to Questions Asked During the Hearing:
[There were no Questions submitted during the hearing.]
Questions Submitted by Members Post Hearing:
Mr. Castro................................................... 158
Mr. Langevin................................................. 155
Mr. Nugent................................................... 157
Mr. Wilson................................................... 153
DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE FISCAL YEAR 2017 SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY PROGRAMS:
DEFENSE INNOVATION TO CREATE THE FUTURE MILITARY FORCE
----------
House of Representatives,
Committee on Armed Services,
Subcommittee on Emerging Threats and Capabilities,
Washington, DC, Wednesday, February 24, 2016.
The subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 2:09 p.m., in
room 2212, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Joe Wilson
(chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. JOE WILSON, A REPRESENTATIVE FROM
SOUTH CAROLINA, CHAIRMAN, SUBCOMMITTEE ON EMERGING THREATS AND
CAPABILITIES
Mr. Wilson. Ladies and gentleman, I would like to call this
hearing of the Emerging Threats and Capabilities Subcommittee
of the House Armed Services Committee to order. I am pleased to
welcome everyone here today for this hearing on fiscal year
2017 budget requests for science and technology [S&T] programs
within the Department of Defense. In a recent speech, Secretary
of Defense Ash Carter spoke about the return of great power
competition and the need to deter our most advanced
competitors. We can only deter these competitors and
adversaries when the Department of Defense [DOD] harnesses
innovation and creates new capabilities for the military that
will maintain and expand our technical superiority, now and
into the future to achieve peace through strength.
The budget request is a good step in tackling the
modernization challenges of the Department. Activities like the
third offset strategy and the long-range research and
development plan are important to charting a course that takes
a strategic view of the security environment. However, I remain
concerned that it is too little too late. As I see it, starting
major initiatives at the end of an administration makes it
difficult to ensure that these programs will survive the new
budgetary and policy priorities that will naturally arise with
a new President. I hope I am wrong, since I support many of the
things being proposed in this budget request, but only time
will tell.
I would like to welcome our distinguished panel of
witnesses, and appreciate their perspectives on all of these
issues. This panel includes Mr. Stephen Welby, Assistant
Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering; Ms. Mary
Miller, Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Army for Research and
Technology; Rear Admiral Matt Winter, U.S. Navy, Chief of Naval
Research; Dr. David Walker, Deputy Assistant Secretary of the
Air Force for Science, Technology, and Engineering; and Dr.
Arati Prabhakar, the Director of Defense Advanced Research
Projects Agency [DARPA].
I would like now to turn to my friend and ranking member,
Mr. Jim Langevin, of Rhode Island for any comments he would
like to make.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Wilson can be found in the
Appendix on page 31.]
STATEMENT OF HON. JAMES R. LANGEVIN, A REPRESENTATIVE FROM
RHODE ISLAND, RANKING MEMBER, SUBCOMMITTEE ON EMERGING THREATS
AND CAPABILITIES
Mr. Langevin. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman. And I want to
thank you too--thanks to our distinguished witnesses for
appearing before the subcommittee to address the Department of
Defense science and technology policy and programs hearing for
fiscal year 2017. Our S&T investments have been instrumental in
delivering the capabilities necessary to address the threats
that we have faced for more than a decade and a half from our
enemies, like Al Qaeda and other terrorist organizations that
seek to do us harm. Investments in S&T have also resulted in
the very best protection for our troops from improvised
explosive devices and other combat casualties. As long as our
forces are still facing these adversaries, we must continue to
invest in tools that could rapidly deliver the edge required
for today's combat, while working to decrease technological
surprise and maintain our edge against those threats on the
horizon and beyond. Maintaining our technological edge is a
priority for the House Armed Services Committee, and especially
for this subcommittee.
As state actors continue to develop capabilities and
leverage the latest technology, and non-state actors like ISIL
[Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant] present new challenges
to our information operations, it is imperative that the
Department of Defense capitalize on the most cutting-edge
technology and spur innovation for required capabilities. Doing
so, however, requires more than just money. It requires the DOD
to build lasting dynamic relationships with industry and
academia while utilizing its in-house capability to the maximum
extent possible.
The Department must also foster new relationships with
nontraditional DOD partners. In the last 2 years, the
Department has initiated two programs, DIUx [Defense Innovation
Unit Experimental] and In-Q-Tel, intended to strengthen its
collaboration with tech firms, entrepreneurs, and start-ups.
In-Q-Tel has a proven track record with the intelligence
community and has the potential to bring the same success to
DOD. DIUx seems to be a mechanism for relationship building,
but it remains unclear to me exactly what their role is, and
how they are interfacing with transition offices, program
managers, and others in the existing S&T and acquisition
communities.
While I support efforts to access and harness new
technologies, I want to ensure the Department is fully
leveraging its existing toolbox, like small business innovation
programs, rapid innovation funds, transition offices, and
prototyping accounts in place. I would appreciate hearing the
witnesses' views and understanding of these mechanisms.
Innovation also requires the Department to be able to
recruit and retain a talented workforce. I believe the
Department's workforce is a critical element in maintaining our
technological edge, and I look forward to hearing from our
witnesses about what they may need as it pertains to current
hiring authority modifications, or new authorities to ensure
that we are investing in the very best and brightest minds
available.
Another essential element in maintaining our technological
edge is the Department's in-house infrastructure. DOD labs are
a national asset; yet, the 2017 budget remains void of
investment in physical facilities. The subcommittee has
attempted to address the lack of military construction funds
for labs by providing limited authority to use RDT&E [research,
development, test, and evaluation] funds. But today, I hope to
hear about infrastructure investment requirements and continue
a dialogue about how those requirements can be met.
With that, I just want to thank all of the witnesses for
being here today. I appreciate the work that you are doing in
very cutting-edge fields. You are all involved in investing in
your time and energy in looking at those high-risk, but high-
payoff, technologies that are going to keep our military highly
effective and our warfighters very safe.
So with that, I want to thank you again for being here and
giving your distinguished service to the Nation.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I yield back.
Mr. Wilson. Thank you, Mr. Langevin. I would like to remind
each witness that your written statements will be submitted for
the record. We ask you that you summarize your comments to 5
minutes or less, and then after each one of you have made a
presentation, each member of the subcommittee will have an
opportunity at 5 minutes, and Kevin Gates is very strict on
that 5 minutes, and you will notice that he cuts us off, so
that we can all have an opportunity to participate. And again,
we just appreciate your service so much.
Mr. Welby, we will begin with you and we look forward to
your opening statement.
STATEMENT OF STEPHEN WELBY, ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF DEFENSE FOR
RESEARCH AND ENGINEERING, OFFICE OF THE UNDER SECRETARY OF
DEFENSE FOR ACQUISITION, TECHNOLOGY AND LOGISTICS
Mr. Welby. Chairman Wilson, Ranking Member Langevin,
members of the subcommittee, I am pleased to appear before you
today and have the opportunity to provide testimony on the
Department of Defense's fiscal year 2017 science and technology
program, and to join my colleagues from across the services and
DARPA to report on the current state of science and technology
in the Department.
The DOD S&T program works to deliver a balanced portfolio
of technology to the Department informed by awareness of global
technology trends and critical threat capabilities. I believe
we are at a pivotal moment in history. And the chairman
mentioned this in his opening statement where the capacity that
the Nation has relied upon to provide us with unmatched
technological superiority on the battlefield is now being
challenged. It is being challenged by investments in military
technology being made by increasingly capable and assertive
foreign powers. I believe that today, and, in fact, every day
when I visit our laboratories and organizations across the
defense enterprise, I encounter young scientists and engineers
pursuing technological innovations motivated to meet the
challenge that we see emerging globally, launching new and
emerging capabilities in a variety of disciplines, and applying
those technologies to create improved military capabilities
informed by operational experience and needs.
Our Department-wide focus on technological innovation seeks
to identify and invest in those unique capabilities that can
sustain and advance the Department's conventional military
superiority into the 21st century. As Secretary Carter
mentioned in his remarks on the budget at the Economic Club of
Washington on the 2nd of February, we must take the long view
and seize opportunities for the future in order to sustain our
lead in full-spectrum warfighting.
Today, the Department employs over 39,000 scientists and
engineers in 63 defense laboratories, warfare centers, and
engineering centers across 22 States, sustaining our ability to
support and field militarily critical technology that often has
no commercial equivalent. Our laboratories have produced very
significant innovations in vital defense areas such as
electronic warfare, propulsion, and weapons design. And
maintaining this unique technical expertise within the
Department is critical for ensuring the Department's ability to
prepare for future threats.
Over the last year, the science and technology community
has not only supported the immediate needs of our warfighters,
but also has taken action that has had strategic impact in the
areas such as helping to eliminate Syria's chemical weapons
stockpile and helping to deploy diagnostic laboratories to curb
the spread of Ebola in West Africa.
However, we cannot innovate and bolster our future
technological superiority from within the Department alone. Our
defense S&T enterprise touches the broadest range of emerging
concepts through our deep engagement with academia, with
industry, and our international partners, to help keep the DOD
smart, knowledgeable, agile, and responsive in the face of new
and emerging threats.
This includes, as was mentioned, an outreach to a vibrant
and growing commercial innovation community that sometimes
doesn't see the Department as a natural customer, and doesn't
think initially to apply their technologies to the national
security sphere. And we want to break down those barriers and
engage that fast-moving sector.
In those areas, investments being made by the commercial
technology sector are accelerating the development of
technologies with critical relevance to future defense
capabilities. Many of these small innovative commercial firms
lack knowledge about defense systems, organizations, and
problems that could benefit from their products and technology,
and that is why we have made investments in activities like
DIUx in Silicon Valley as a way to help match DOD customers
with some of those potential sources of advanced capabilities
that are rising from the commercial enterprises.
As the Department looks to its future, there are
significant challenges that will require renewed emphasis on
sustaining our U.S. technological superiority. The United
States must seek to develop and maintain asymmetric advantages,
those that take advantage of fundamental U.S. strengths in
military and commercial technology innovation and apply them to
outcompete our competitors.
We must accelerate our approaches to identifying promising
technology differentiators, improve our process for mapping
technology capabilities to operational advantage, and continue
to focus on methods of moving capability much more rapidly from
laboratory to field.
For the last 6 years, the Department has engaged in a major
effort to improve our internal acquisition processes through
the Better Buying Power initiatives. The latest iteration of
Better Buying Power 3.0 focuses the acquisition system of the
Department on achieving dominant capabilities through
technological excellence and innovation. That emphasis reflects
the criticality of research and engineering on our overall
acquisition success and emphasizes the need to bring and
support a strong and effective DOD laboratory enterprise.
I want to point out just very quickly three of the many
Better Buying Power initiatives that are relevant to our S&T
community. The first is the use of prototyping and
experimentation to accelerate operational assessment and
adoption of key technologies to advance current and future
weapon systems. The second is the support for robust DOD STEM
[science, technology, engineering, and mathematics] engagement
to ensure that we have a future workforce and a pool of
defense-relevant technical talent available to us to ensure our
future capabilities.
And, finally, I want to point out that the Better Buying
Power reinforces the cost consciousness of our S&T community
using tools like ``Should Cost,'' to ensure that we're getting
the best return on investment for our taxpayer and warfighter.
Our strength is in our people. We must recruit, retain the
best and brightest military and civilian scientists and
engineers and harness their innovative spirits to give our
military forces a warfighting edge. Ultimately, our goal each
day must be to ensure that our soldiers, sailors, airmen, and
marines all have the scientific knowledge, the right
technology, the advanced systems and tools, the best care, and
the decisive advantage and material edge to succeed when called
upon. Our research and engineering enterprise really does need
to measure its success in the security of our Nation and the
success of our warfighters. And we are trying to drive that
home in everything we do.
Let me thank you for your support for the Department's
science and technology efforts as we work to discover, design,
and deliver those technological capabilities that our
warfighters will need to shape the future.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Welby can be found in the
Appendix on page 32.]
Mr. Wilson. Thank you very much, Mr. Welby.
We now proceed to Ms. Miller.
STATEMENT OF MARY J. MILLER, DEPUTY ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF THE
ARMY FOR RESEARCH AND TECHNOLOGY, OFFICE OF THE ASSISTANT
SECRETARY OF THE ARMY FOR ACQUISITION, LOGISTICS AND TECHNOLOGY
Ms. Miller. Chairman Wilson, Ranking Member Langevin, and
distinguished members of the subcommittee, thank you for this
opportunity to discuss the Army's science and technology
program for fiscal year 2017. The United States faces a complex
and growing array of security challenges across the globe. A
new generation of threats and opportunities has emerged, and
will continue to develop in unprecedented ways. Technology is
evolving and proliferating at an exponential rate, and our
enemies' access to this technology has closed the gap in our
operational overmatch. We are in a race with our adversaries to
harness and field the best military applications of innovation.
In the 1990s the Army made great strides to advance night
vision technology into operational capability to own the night.
Based on those early S&T investments and the great work of our
industrial base, the U.S. has enjoyed overmatch in night
operations for almost two decades. Today other countries have
developed or acquired similar capabilities, eroding our
significant advantage. This is just one example of the impact
of the globalization of technology, and emphasizes our need to
continue to innovate alternative technologies and operational
methods to maintain overmatch.
The Army S&T enterprise cannot predict with certainty what
challenges and threats the future holds, but it can organize
itself to help prepare for the future, mitigating the
possibility of technical surprise and ensuring that we remain
dominant in any environment. Transparency, efficiency, and
flexibility help us to invest our limited resources where they
have the greatest payoff. This framework allows us to adjust
our approach in response to changing circumstances. I am proud
to represent the U.S. Army's nearly 12,000 scientists and
engineers who are innovative change agents committed to solving
difficult national security challenges and developing the
capabilities needed by America's soldiers to overcome
adversaries, both today and into the future.
In past years, I have detailed to the committee our
enduring Army challenges and how they influence the Army S&T's
technology portfolio investments. Today, I would like to take
this opportunity to describe some newer strategic initiatives
that cut across our portfolios, and are instrumental in helping
us realize our objectives. To quote General Milley, the Chief
of Staff of the Army, ``We will do what it takes to build an
agile, adaptive Army of the future. We need to listen and
learn, first from the Army itself, from other services, from
our interagency partners, but also from the private sector and
even from our critics. Developing a lethal, professional, and
technically competent force requires an openness to new ideas
and new ways of doing things in an increasingly complex world.
These strategic initiatives that I am discussing here are
designed to help the Army do just that. Listen, learn, change,
and adapt.''
Technology war gaming is a reconnaissance effort undertaken
by the S&T enterprise to foster greater innovation. It is
focused on identifying concepts and conducting technology-based
assessments about what technology will look like in the deep
future, the 2030 to 2040 timeframe, and how this will affect
both the Army and our adversaries. It includes crowd-sourced
brainstorming, conducting virtual workshops with subject matter
experts, and red teaming potential technology concepts to
ensure technical feasibility.
At the heart of this initiative lies a commitment to solid
analysis and a focus on bringing in fresh ideas from a wide
community, including innovative thinkers who haven't
traditionally been a part of the Army's S&T planning process.
We use these war games as the basis for strategic conversations
on potential leap-ahead capabilities for the future force and
how best to align resources and organizations to pursue those
opportunities.
Another key component of our S&T strategy is broadening and
deepening our ability to identify, understand, and eliminate
potential vulnerabilities in emerging technologies and future
systems that could threaten their success upon deployment in
Army operational settings against an evolving and responsive
threat. Our S&T red-teaming investment provides in-depth,
independent assessments of emerging technologies across
laboratories, tabletop, and live-build environments. A number
of years ago, the Army entrusted my office to initiate a pilot
focused on technology transition. They established a budget
activity for funding line with the intent to enable the Army to
better transition across the often-cited ``valley of death.''
This pilot began with a small amount of dollars, but with a
large vision, a vision that hinged upon establishing
collaborative partnerships with the acquisition and
requirements communities, conducting co-led technology
maturation efforts for pre-milestone A or B activities leading
into programs of record, and building prototypes that could be
used by operators in mission scenarios to allow candid feedback
on new capabilities.
By understanding the technology trends of the future,
assessing technology and system vulnerabilities, and conducting
maturation and prototyping earlier in the acquisition life
cycle, we can identify and address areas of risk before the
government commits funding to programs of record. Ultimately,
it is more cost effective to prove out innovative concepts and
capabilities within the science and technology program than it
is under a formal program acquisition.
Finally, I would also like to acknowledge the support
provided by members of this committee and your staff. Congress
is one of our most important partners, and your strong support
of the S&T enterprise helps ensure that the U.S. Army remains a
preeminent force in the world. The Army S&T mission is never
complete. We will continue working to ensure that our soldiers
are always equipped with the technology to win. We owe our
soldiers no less. Thank you, and I would be pleased to answer
any questions you may have.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Miller can be found in the
Appendix on page 46.]
Mr. Wilson. Thank you very much, Ms. Miller.
And we now proceed to Admiral Winter.
STATEMENT OF RADM MATHIAS W. WINTER, USN, CHIEF OF NAVAL
RESEARCH AND DIRECTOR, INNOVATION TECHNOLOGY REQUIREMENTS, AND
TEST AND EVALUATION (N84)
Admiral Winter. Good afternoon, Chairman Wilson, Ranking
Member Langevin, and distinguished members of this
subcommittee. Thank you for the opportunity to appear before
you today to discuss our Department of the Navy [DON] science
and technology investment strategy that ensures our sailors and
marines will retain the technological advantage on the
battlefield, which is absolutely essential. Today, I am
representing an incredible team of more than 4,000 scientists
and technical professionals in the naval S&T community. My
testimony will provide a snapshot of our naval S&T investment
strategy that is fully supported by the President's fiscal year
2017 budget request.
As you know, the DON has a rich history of pushing the
boundaries of our science and technology to ensure our Navy and
Marine Corps are equipped with the capabilities that they
require to perform the full range of military operations
assigned to our naval forces in every theater against every
known threat. Our ability to maintain that decisive
technological advantage starts right here at the Office of
Naval Research [ONR]. With our 70th anniversary this coming
August, the Office of Naval Research has been delivering that
technological advantage to our naval forces for over seven
decades, leveraging the intellectual capital of our scientists
to discover the new knowledge that generates the breakthrough
technologies that delivers the innovative solutions to win our
Nation's battles, and as importantly, strive for a global
peace.
The President's fiscal year 2017 budget request funds the
required initiatives to support our Naval S&T Strategy, which
is a key enabler in realizing our Navy's design for maintaining
maritime superiority, and our Marine Corps' priority for
modernization and technology outlined in Advance to Contact
strategy, both of which were unveiled in January by our Chief
of Naval Operations and our Commandant of the Marine Corps,
respectively. Our logical and forward looking science and
technology investment strategy leverages our S&T community
triad--academia, industry, and government performers--to
realistically deliver technological advantages.
Our investments continue to yield a very high rate of
return in terms of intellectual capital growth through our
extensive academic STEM outreach initiatives, fostering of new
innovative small businesses through our Small Business
Innovative Research initiatives, and providing of game-
changing, next-generation capabilities for our sailors and
marines through the partnerships with academia, industry, and
our naval research and development establishment.
During my first full year here as the Chief of Naval
Research, this team has accomplished this a lot. We have
awarded over 4,000 academic grants to domestic and
international universities, inspiring and retaining the
Nation's best and brightest talent. Our basic research
conducted at our premier Naval Research Laboratory has
generated over 200 basic research projects, resulting in
discoveries of new knowledge, phenomenologies, and
technologies.
Last year, we filed over and were awarded over 380
technical patents for new discoveries. It was the 16th
consecutive year that the U.S. Navy ranked first amongst all
U.S. Government agencies. And we successfully transitioned and
demonstrated over 200 key technologies across that ``valley of
death'' out of S&T to our warfighters and to programs of
record. Leveraging these accomplishments, our ONR teams are
executing ongoing research programs in a number of key priority
areas that are yielding that high payoff and potential game-
changing capabilities for our sailors and marines.
I would like to highlight a couple. Directed energy. Our
directed energy efforts will enable our naval forces to truly
fight at the speed of light. ONR-funded research delivered a
solid state laser to the USS Ponce last year, successfully
demonstrating destruction of surface and air targets. Our
hypervelocity projectile program, the HVP, was successfully
fired from a 5-inch Mark 45 gun with a ballistic range of 34
nautical miles. We have had over 40 HVP firings to date, and
have been executed paving the way for accelerated transition
and leading to significant capabilities enhancement for our
future naval force.
Another critical warfighting enabler is access to assured
information by keeping our Navy and Marine Corps cyber doors
locked. Our naval tactical cloud research is providing the
framework and big data analytics for our platform cyber defense
solutions such as resilient hull, mechanical, and electrical
security system. We call it RHIMES. RHIMES is a cyber
protection system designed to make its shipboard mechanical and
electrical control systems resilient to cyber attacks.
Autonomy. Autonomy in the undersea domain is extending our
capabilities in new ways. We have demonstrated our hybrid fuel-
cell-powered large displacement unmanned underwater vehicle. We
call it LDUUV. And it completed its first tests at our Naval
Surface Warfare Center, Carderock, and demonstrated the ability
to launch a fuel-cell-powered unmanned aerial vehicle [UAV]
from the underwater vehicle.
Finally, our warfighters will benefit from our incredible
breakthroughs in synthetic biology and medical research.
Advances in medical technology, for example, including 3-D
printing of live tissue into arteries, veins, and capillaries,
will ensure that those in the battle and those returning from
battle will not only survive, but will thrive.
Throughout this coming year our focus will remain on
rapidly delivering these innovative technological solutions.
Examples of our initiatives coming in 2016: two new forward-
looking innovative naval prototypes that will push game-
changing technologies and capabilities to maintain our
superiority in the undersea domain and our electromagnetic
domain. Directed energy efforts will continue on the USS Ponce.
We will leverage those lessons learned and we are moving
forward with the technology maturation effort of a 150-kilowatt
capability for future platforms.
While we continue to work on the ground-based capabilities
with our United States Marine Corps, the GBAD [Ground-Based Air
Defense] system, which will give a vehicle-based, high-energy
laser capability to our 21st century marine. We also are
demonstrating at-sea capability for our low-cost UAV swarming
technologies. We will be able to launch, form, control, and
task 30 UAVs in an offensive swarm.
And finally, we will take the next step in undersea
autonomy, and we will conduct a long endurance transit test of
our LDUUV operating submerged from San Diego to San Francisco.
Our ONR scientist contributions are marked and making a marked
difference to our Navy and Marine Corps. Key to these
accomplishments are our partnerships. Partnerships with
industry and academia, partnerships with our sister services
and DARPA, and through our six ONR global locations around the
world in London, Prague, Tokyo, Singapore, Santiago, and San
Paulo, working with our international S&T partners around the
world. We will continue to expand and deepen these partnerships
to execute our S&T mission.
Through innovative research, disruptive thinking, and high-
velocity learning, always striving to make existing systems
more effective and affordable while improving breakthrough
technology transitions to acquisition programs and our sailors
and marines. And in doing so, we remain aligned with our Navy
and Marine Corps leadership. Our Chief of Naval Operation and
Commandant of the Marine Corps' strategic guidance is
underpinned by our forward-thinking S&T investments.
We cannot afford to do business as usual and wish away the
technological advantages of emerging global actors that are
challenging our warfighting supremacy. Our S&T strategy
provides the framework to think and act differently for
success. We must be committed, all of us committed, to pursuing
the technology solutions for tomorrow today. It is essential to
tie the technical to the tactical to the strategic. And we in
the Navy and the Marine Corps are committed to ensuring the S&T
resources that you and your congressional colleagues provide us
gets the most bang for the buck by giving our sailors and
marines the technological advantage on the battlefield to fight
the fight and keep the peace.
One final note, I offer to each and every one of you an
open invitation to visit one of our 50 warfare centers and
system centers around the world--or excuse me, around the
United States. And right here in Anacostia, our Naval Research
Laboratory, where you can get a firsthand look at our world-
class scientists, engineers, civilian employees that are the
ones that are really making things happen. Gentlemen, I
appreciate and thank you for your time this afternoon and your
continued support of our S&T efforts. I look forward to
answering your questions.
[The prepared statement of Admiral Winter can be found in
the Appendix on page 66.]
Mr. Wilson. Admiral, thank you very much. And it is very
encouraging to hear about the public/private partnerships you
identified.
Dr. Walker.
STATEMENT OF DR. DAVID E. WALKER, DEPUTY ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF
THE AIR FORCE FOR SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY AND ENGINEERING, OFFICE
OF THE ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF THE AIR FORCE FOR ACQUISITION
Dr. Walker. Thank you. Chairman Wilson, Ranking Member
Langevin, members of the subcommittee and staff, I am pleased
again to have the opportunity to provide testimony on the
fiscal year 2017 Air Force Science and Technology Program, and
our efforts to innovatively and affordably respond to
warfighter needs today, while simultaneously creating the force
of the future. I would like to thank Congress, and especially
this subcommittee, for your continued support of the Air
Force's S&T programs, our laboratories, the infrastructure, and
most importantly, our valuable scientists and engineers. Over
the past 3\1/2\ years that I have been the Air Force's science
technology executive, I have seen the fruits of your labors and
our ability to advance game-changing technologies, continue to
develop our people, and strengthen the industrial base for the
long-term security of our Nation.
As you have heard from my colleagues today, and from the
Air Force senior leaders in the past, we are at a critical
juncture in history. The relentless pace of change continues to
increase the complexity and decrease the predictability in
warfare. We believe our science and technology program
capability development processes, our STEM workforce, our
laboratory infrastructure, are all critical to achieving new
levels of strategic agility to address this rapid rate of
change. By strategic agility, I mean harnessing the attributes
of flexibility, adaptability, and responsiveness in order to
make us more effective in a rapidly changing world.
As highlighted in the Air Force strategy, strategic agility
allows us to address evolving threat environments faster than
our adversaries, which can help us counter uncertainty. Our
efforts in this area, many of which are described in my written
statement, support the Department's third offset strategy and
are aligned with the long-range research and development
planning program.
Further, the Air Force is leveraging Mr. Kendall's Better
Buyer Power 3.0 initiatives to strengthen our ability to
innovate, to achieve technical excellence, and to dominate--to
field dominant military capabilities. Air Force senior
leadership is committed to S&T investment and embracing new
paradigms and capability development. Our fiscal year 2017
President's budget request for S&T is approximately $2.5
billion, which represents a 4.5 percent increase over our
fiscal year 2016 budget.
We emphasize research in hypersonics and low-cost cruise
missile technologies for contested environments in support of
the long-range research and development planning program. We
are working on advanced combat missiles and research and
technologies that provide robust position, navigation, and
timing capabilities; and, also, focusing on the Air Force's
game-changing technologies which include hypersonics,
autonomous systems, unmanned systems, directed energy, and
nanotechnology.
As a whole, this research is designed to amplify the speed,
range, and flexibility and precision of air power. Our fiscal
year 2017 President's budget request also includes increase
funding in budget activities 4 and 6 to support our development
planning, prototyping, experimentation, and our model and
simulation efforts. The reinvigoration of development planning
in the Air Force at the enterprise level gets us back to our
roots, and allows us to really formulate innovative strategy
choices and the leveraged attributes of agility and our
capability to development. The Air Force is using enterprise
capability collaboration teams as an approach to facilitate the
developmental planning of our highest priority mission areas.
These teams are chartered by senior leadership to explore
cross-domain concepts of operations, combined with the existing
and emerging technologies to address future warfighting gaps.
The ultimate goal is to identify capabilities, concepts of
operations, emerging technologies to inform acquisition
decisions in the future. Experimentation is the engine to our
reinvigorated development planning process. It enables the
unfettered exploration of alternatives of future--future
environments and brings together our operators, it brings
together our technologists, the requirements generators, and
the acquisition professionals, all collaborating together from
the beginning to the end to develop a truly integrated approach
to solving warfighting problems.
We are currently conducting four pilot experimentation
campaigns addressing future concepts for close air support,
operationalized and directed energy, reducing time to move from
data to decisions, and defeating agile and intelligent targets.
We are also focusing on prototyping as a valuable tool across
all levels of technology maturation from initial concepts to
operational prototypes. Our adaptive engine transition program
is an excellent example of prototyping being used to reduce
risks and bridging the gap between S&T and a program of record.
None of these efforts would be possible without our world-
class scientists and engineers operating state-of-the-art
laboratory facilities. We continue to leverage the authorities
and lab demo, the SMART [Science, Mathematics and Research for
Transformation] scholarships, and other funding sources to
recruit, retain, and develop our Air Force STEM workforce. In
addition, we are leveraging section 219 and MILCON [military
construction] funding to build and maintain world-class
laboratory facilities for them to operate in.
Chairman, and members of the subcommittee and staff, thank
you again for the opportunity to testify today. I look forward
to your questions.
[The prepared statement of Dr. Walker can be found in the
Appendix on page 86.]
Mr. Wilson. Thank you very much, Dr. Walker.
We now proceed to Dr. Prabhakar.
STATEMENT OF DR. ARATI PRABHAKAR, DIRECTOR, DEFENSE ADVANCED
RESEARCH PROJECTS AGENCY (DARPA)
Dr. Prabhakar. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Mr. Langevin,
members of the subcommittee. I will add my thanks for this
opportunity to be here with my colleagues.
DARPA works closely with this entire defense science and
technology community. And we also work with defense companies,
with commercial companies, with universities and labs of all
sorts. We are very much part of this wide ecosystem. Within
that ecosystem, DARPA has one specific role, and that is, to
make the pivotal early investments in the technologies that can
have huge impact, off-scale impact, on the future of national
security.
Now, today when we do that work, we do it in the context of
these shifts in the global security environment in a world that
is filled with fast-moving technologies, very much the themes
that we have been talking about this afternoon. I wanted to
give you one concrete example that brings all of that to life,
and it is an example about aircraft self-protection. Today,
when our aircraft go out on their missions, they are loaded up
with a set of jamming profiles. So these are specific
frequencies and wave forms that they can transmit in order to
jam and disrupt an adversary radar to protect themselves.
Sometimes when they go out today, they encounter a new kind
of frequency, or a different wave form, one that they are not
programmed for, that is not in their library. And in a time of
conflict, that would leave them exposed. So what do we do when
we come across that situation today? Today what we do is we
have to send a new aircraft out, a different aircraft out, to
collect that signal. That signal is then sent to a lab where it
is analyzed, where a new jamming profile is created, where the
development--where the new software upgrade for the system is
developed, and then eventually, months, sometimes years later,
our aircraft finally get the protection that they need against
this new kind of radar signal.
Now, in a time when our adversaries were changing their
radar signals very rarely, that might have been okay. But, of
course, that very slow-moving world is now gone. And in fact,
it is actually just not that hard to modify a radar system
today. If you think about it, the same technologies that
brought--that have brought communications and the Internet to
billions of people around the world, those are the same
technologies that now people are using to modify radars to
shift the frequencies and they use new wave forms. And we see
that going on in many different regions around the world.
One of our programs at DARPA is taking a whole new approach
to this problem, this is an effort that we refer to as
cognitive electronic warfare. We are using artificial
intelligence to learn in real time what the adversary's radar
is doing, and then on the fly, create a new jamming profile.
And that whole process of sensing, learning, and adapting is
going on continuously. So what all of that means is that our
aircraft in the future won't have to wait weeks--you know,
months to years, but in real time, in the battlespace, they
will be able to adapt and jam this new radar threat that they
get.
I think that is just one example of how powerful it can be
to first accelerate these areas of research and technology, and
then apply them for our military capabilities. And across the
DARPA portfolio, you will find many, many other examples of
that kind of power of technology. They range from new systems
that we are developing. We just put in the water our new
surface vessel that will be able to navigate across the open
ocean by itself without a single sailor onboard. If you look
across our research portfolio, you will find that we are
harnessing photons and algorithms, and even living cells to
open possibilities that people really just couldn't even have
dreamt about until today. And I am happy to talk about all of
that, but I want to finish this afternoon by just touching on
two pillars of your support that are so vital for us to be able
to do this work.
The first, of course, is the budget. And your support here
has been vital to a relative stability that we have benefited
from at DARPA over the last few years. So I will ask again for
your full support of the fiscal year 2017 President's budget
request level.
The second area is people. And, of course, nothing could be
more important to that--than that. I want to really give a
special thanks to the work that this committee has done over
many years, first in creating a special 1101 hiring authority,
and then over many years, supporting that. That is a big reason
that DARPA is able to move fast and hire exceptional people.
And really, you know, great people and that trust that you have
in us, that is why DARPA is able to develop breakthrough
technologies that allow us to take these huge strides forward
in our national security capabilities. And with your continued
support, that is exactly what we will continue to do. So thank
you very much. And I look forward to answering questions along
with my colleagues.
[The prepared statement of Dr. Prabhakar can be found in
the Appendix on page 126.]
Mr. Wilson. And, Dr. Prabhakar, thank you very much. And I
also want to thank you so much for the opportunity I had to
visit your facilities, to visit your personnel. It really is
reassuring, and I hope that other members of the subcommittee
will take advantage of the open invitation you have 24 hours a
day, 7 days a week, to come visit. And--but it really is
inspiring, the personnel that you have assembled.
As we now begin the very strict 5 minutes, beginning with
me. Mr. Welby, could you explain the third offset strategy? How
are science and technology investments being aligned to support
that strategy?
Mr. Welby. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. As we have discussed
in, I think, every statement here today, we find ourselves
increasingly challenged by near-peer competitors who are
investing in high-end capabilities, in ballistic missiles, in
advanced cruise missile technology, in advanced electronic
warfare and other capabilities that directly challenge U.S.
systems. We recognize that as we look to the future, it is
going to be increasingly difficult to compete with those
capabilities in an investment-for-investment, dollar-for-
dollar, system-for-system basis. We need to be thinking harder
about how we shift the shape of competition, the playing field
on which our soldiers, sailors, and marines will be fighting
into areas where can ensure the United States has an enduring
dominant technical capability.
The Deputy Secretary regularly talks about the first and
second offset strategy, looking back to competition with the
Soviet Union, and in the 1950s, how technical nuclear weapons
were deployed to counter the numerical superiority of that
threat and how, in the 1970s and 1980s, the Department
developed precision weapons, ISR [intelligence, surveillance,
and reconnaissance], low observability, novel use of space,
network-centric capabilities, the toolkit that we have fought
with since to remarkable success.
Today, we now see others around the world building
capabilities directly designed to blunt those U.S. advantages.
We now see others having those capabilities which were once
purely the domain of the United States. And as that symmetry
begins to develop between ourselves and potential competitors,
we want to assure that we have asymmetric advantage that we can
deploy in the future.
This whole discussion about offset strategies is about
finding those technology offsets, how they map into operational
capabilities, how we can invest in those capabilities that will
begin to move the ball in a way that will shape a longstanding
advantage for U.S. capabilities.
And we believe those capabilities will rise from the
emerging technical innovations that were discussed here today
in areas like thinking about new long-range systems and
exploiting manned/unmanned machine teaming in new ways and
leveraging autonomy to build things like cognitive warfare
systems, electronic warfare systems, and thinking about
spectral agility, and many of the things that we are working on
in our laboratories, but moving them faster into tactical
application and arranging those into strategic concepts that
will allow our forces to shape future battlefields.
The topics that were mentioned earlier, things like the
long-range research and development planning program, an
activity that I led for the previous 18 months, provided a set
of potential options for the future of the Department, new
material systems that might offer significant advantage in the
future, that report--while the report itself remains
classified, is reflected in the support and decisions that were
made in the shaping the 2017 budget submission, and informed by
many--a number of other studies in areas and the ongoing war-
gaming activities that are going on across the Department.
And, so, the third offset strategy is not a thing, if you
will. It is an ambition to think differently about how a
department will fight in the future, how the services will
align technology, organization, and capabilities to provide
that enduring advantage. But it is underpinned in a very
significant way by our critical technology investments we are
making here across the services.
Mr. Wilson. Well, as a very grateful dad of four sons
serving in the military, I appreciate you thinking ahead on how
to protect our service members and protect the American people.
And, Dr. Prabhakar, could you describe some of the efforts
DARPA has initiated to combat the ability of groups like Daesh
to spread violent extremist propaganda and radicalize users
online.
Dr. Prabhakar. Mr. Chairman, you have touched on something
that is increasingly becoming integral to any kind of conflict
around the world. Obviously, I think, we are all aware of the
use of social media by ISIS [Islamic State of Iraq and Syria],
ISIL. It is also very integral to hybrid warfare that we see
the Russians engaging in. So I think it is a vital important
area today.
DARPA has had programs over the last several years that
bring data analytics and tools to end users so that they can
start to wrestle with this vast array of bits that are flying
at them, whether it is military information or open online
information. And building on those today, we are developing
some tools that we hope will be very helpful in these kinds of
future information conflicts. One specific area in the last
year where we have had some good progress, last couple of
years, has been focusing on the impact on what--we have been
working with law enforcement who have been worried about human
trafficking. And they have been struggling to really see--you
know, if you think about where people advertise for the sex
trade, for example, a lot of that is open advertising. But
right now our law enforcement partners, we found, really are
sort of searching that space single threaded, one Google search
at a time, if you like, a very arduous way to figure out the
patterns and the connectivity of the kinds of ads that are
being served up.
So what we have developed, in that case, was a set of tools
that allow for very deep domain-specific, deep Web search, not
just the surface Web that is indexed by Google or Bing, but
really an ability to go deep into the open Web and find all the
linkages among ads, for example, for human trafficking, that
are related to human trafficking.
What we find is that it dramatically enhances our law
enforcement partners' ability to find those linkages. And that
tool is now being used, for example, by the district attorney's
office in New York, and has led to a number of indictments, and
even at least one conviction.
So I think that gives you a little bit of a sense of the
power of the kinds of tools. When you apply these big data
approaches to these areas like law enforcement, you can see, I
think, how that would extend into the information warfare
domain that sadly, I think, is going to become integral to
conflicts going forward.
Mr. Wilson. Well, thank you very much. And thank you for
citing about human trafficking. I am very grateful. My home
State of South Carolina, by State legislation and prosecution,
has been one of the leading States to address what is just
horrific.
We now proceed to Mr. Langevin.
Mr. Langevin. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I thank our panel
here, again, for your testimony here today and the work you are
doing in these fields.
Admiral Winter, if I could start with you, can you discuss
the relationship and the coordination efforts between ONR and
the Strategic Capabilities Office when it comes to directed
energy efforts. And certainly, I would like to also hear from
our other witnesses how you are working with the Strategic
Capabilities Office as well. But, Admiral, let's start with you
if we could.
Admiral Winter. Yes, sir. I am in a periodic contact with
Dr. Will Roper, who is the head of the Strategic Capabilities
Office, and geographically, they are one block down from my
office. And we have continuous discussions about the
technologies that ONR is bringing forward that I mentioned in
my opening remarks across the spectrum of electric weapons and
directed energy specifically, but others. And so we have a
number of relationships and technological partnerships with the
Strategic Capabilities Office. I will focus on the electric
weapons and the directed energy to your question, sir.
Our work with the Strategic Capabilities Office is a
partnership in requirements and funding to pursue the science
and technology objectives of the Department of the Navy. Our
Department of the Navy's strategic focus on laser and directed
energy, so high energy laser and also high energy RF [radio
frequency] technologies, to push forward to meet our Marine
Corps and Navy objectives continues to move forward in marked
progress, and moving forward, as I mentioned earlier. The
Strategic Capabilities Office has come forward with their
analysts and resources to provide us an opportunity to move
faster and to move into different directions and partnerships.
From an electric weapon perspective, we are in partnership
with them on our electromagnetic rail gun. But I don't consider
that directed energy. I look at that as more as electric
weaponry.
So right now, sir, those are the--that is our relationship.
That is our engagement. The Strategic Capabilities Office
provides those resources and guidance along the lines of the
third offset strategy and other greater departmental
warfighting capability analysis. And the Department of the Navy
has the opportunity to partner and bring our resources to bear
to help Dr. Roper and his team realize their mission.
Mr. Langevin. Okay. We are not going to have--I am not
going to have time, I don't think, to hear from everybody on
that, but I would like to hear your feedback. Maybe you can
respond in writing on how you are interacting with the
Strategic Capabilities Office.
What I would like to ask for all of you, is directed energy
a priority, and, in particular, is it a priority for the
Department? I know many of you are working on these things.
And, Admiral, you have talked about. But I want to know, is it
a priority for the Department? Are they ready to accept these
technologies once they have matured, and what technologies are
maturing in this field? I think you talked about the Ponce,
Admiral. So maybe from the other ones if we could hear your
perspective on these things?
Mr. Welby. Maybe I could start and we could move down the
table quickly.
Mr. Langevin. Yeah.
Mr. Welby. Sir, I believe that today--you know, we have
long had a conversation about directed energy being just 5
years off, and it has always been just 5 years off. And what--
you know, I have a strong background in working directed energy
programs. I think we are now today at a very different place, a
place where those systems are now rapidly moving towards
realization and are going to have impact on future military
capabilities. Each of the services has efforts underway today.
We heard about the Ponce. I will let Dave talk about some of
the things that the Air Force is doing, particularly in
advanced beam direction, I think, that are putting the other
pieces together for real airborne lasers, and the opportunities
in programs of record in areas like IFPC [indirect fire
protection capability], where the Army is considering utilizing
directed energy as a tool in the counter-rocket, artillery,
mortar space.
I think we are now seeing application space emergence of
capabilities, the breakthrough technologies, smart beam
direction, realizable solid state lasers at high powers, 100
kilowatt plus kind of levels, and the ability to amass large
numbers of fiber lasers coherently and to be able assemble and
scale at a way that we just have not been able to do. All
those--I am very excited about what is happening in each of
those spaces. I'll turn it down the table.
Mr. Langevin. Thank you.
Ms. Miller. So the Army is committed to pursuing directed
energy. Our high energy laser program within the Army S&T is
demonstrating capability and has been used in an analysis of
alternatives for the indirect fire protection capability
program of record. Right now, we are aligned to transition into
that program of record in the 2023--fiscal year 2023 timeframe.
Why that long? Because we are doing a step-wise demonstration
of capability in the mission set of the Army. So we have to
make sure that the lasers work and do the full set of scopes
against the threats that we project. And those threats include
the counter-rockets, artillery, and mortar, but also, UAV
threats and cruise missile threats. We are trying to make sure
that we understand, before we offer it to a soldier, what it
can do and they understand its capabilities. And that is
already planned in and funded.
Dr. Walker. On the Air Force side, we have got a strong
support for the Air Combat Command and our Air Force Special
Operations Command [AFSOC] for integrating lasers defensively
and offensively onto our aircraft in the future. Air Combat
Command, together with the Air Force Research Lab, has
commissioned the, what we call the Shield Advanced Technology
demonstration to put a medium-powered laser, 30-kilowatt-class
laser into a pod on a fighter aircraft to provide self-
protection with the goal to grow the power as the devices grow
in power. The Special Operations Command [SOCOM] has now
commissioned both the Air Force Research Laboratory and the
Navy at Dahlgren working with SOCOM to look at putting an
offensive capability onto a AFSOC 130 gunship.
So that is a second one we are working. There is a lot of
technology in beam steering and in power management, thermal
management, that has to be worked in these that we are working
under a considered S&T program with an eye toward transition on
those two aircraft.
Mr. Langevin. Very good. Thank you.
And with that, I know my time I have gone over, and I know
Mr. Lamborn has similar questions, my co-chair of the Directed
Energy Caucus. So in that case, I will yield back, Mr.
Chairman, and thank you.
Mr. Kline. Thank you, Mr. Langevin. And now we will proceed
to your teammate, Congressman Doug Lamborn of Colorado.
Mr. Lamborn. Thank you. And I thank the co-chairman of the
Directed Energy Caucus, Representative Langevin of Rhode
Island, for beginning this subject. It is such an important
subject. And I am just going to build on what he has already
asked.
How do you all make sure that you are not duplicating what
each other is doing? I see three centers of important research
of making things operational, not to mention DARPA. And so--and
I don't know if that is for you, Mr. Welby, or for the
individual branches to respond to. But how do we make sure that
there is no duplication, you know, no reinventing the wheel
going on, whether it is directed energy or anything?
Mr. Welby. If I could quickly, I think this is a great area
where we can demonstrate kind of solid cooperation coordination
through S&T and across the services. The High Energy Laser
Joint Technology Office serves as a clearinghouse and a center
for coordination across all the efforts across the Department.
And that allows us to ensure that each of our investments are
aligned, not duplicative, and are building on each other. And I
think that in each of the domains, there are service-unique
issues. So it is with how those will be hosted on future
platforms. But there is also supporting technology that
services all those needs. And we very well coordinate, I think,
in this space, across all those areas. And I will turn it
back----
Mr. Lamborn. And, Ms. Miller, I see that you have been
working on this for 30 years. So--and, Admiral, did you want to
respond to that as well?
Admiral Winter. Not to the 30-year question, sir, but the
center--the center--the communities of interest that the
Department has established that allows the services and DARPA
to come forward in functional areas allows us to share our
resources, our research, and our efforts, not specifically for
directed energy, but across the board, that allows us to see
what I call common, cousin, and unique efforts. And there is
some benefit in common research where it is appropriate. But as
Mr. Welby mentioned, our uniquenesses for maritime shipboard
applications, for example, and also looking at underwater
directed energy applications, there is challenges in that. And
so our efforts that go forward are looked at the Navy
uniquenesses. I am very--sitting here now one year downrange,
very satisfied that we collectively--we meet once a month at
the senior level, and we have working group that meets once a
week to talk across our span of 6.1, 6.2, and 6.3 research to
understand where we can leverage off of each other. And not
only within the Department of Defense, but with our industry
partners, academia, and our other interagency folks.
Mr. Lamborn. Mrs. Miller, would you agree that we are--like
Mr. Welby has already said, that we are--it is not something
that is always 5 years off, that we are now getting a lot
closer, if not actually there, with operational directed energy
weapons?
Ms. Miller. I believe----
Mr. Lamborn. Defensive and offensive.
Ms. Miller [continuing]. I believe we are very close. And I
think right now what we need to do is build trust with our
operators so they understand what lasers can do. Lasers have
been promised for an awful long time, and they have never held
up and delivered what was asked for. And so the operators are
quite rightfully skeptical, which is why you see the services
taking laser out in operational environments and letting them
be used by operators so they understand what the capabilities
are.
I think we are very close. And while we are looking at the
large capabilities that these can provide, there will be steps
along the way where we will spin out lesser capable laser
systems that can do good things on smaller platforms, and that
is something that you will see coming out relatively soon.
Dr. Walker. A couple of things on that, sir. The Air Force
every day is flying with lasers under our large aircraft,
infrared countermeasure system. So we have done exactly that.
We have spun out lower-powered lasers that gave us the
capability to protect our aircraft, flying in theater today.
The goal is to build off the experiences that we have had there
to, as we get larger power outputs, better thermal management
out of smaller packaged lasers to be able to transition these
to other aircraft besides our large transport aircraft. And as
we build those powers eventually moving defensive capability to
using that same laser to give us offensive capability as well.
So I think we are on a good path. The move to electronic
lasers has allowed us to do that. The other point is, one of
the reasons that we are able to do this well across the
services, is that we have a joint technology office that really
works those fundamental laser technologies for us as a joint
team that we then spin off each into our own particular areas,
our domains for usage. And having that office support, what we
need as the three of us sit on the advisory panel to determine
what they are going to actually invest the funds in, make sure
that they are meeting our needs as a service.
And the last piece is our partnership with DARPA has really
allowed to us move lasers forward, moving the slab lasers,
electric lasers, and moving into fiber lasers. DARPA has been a
key partner in allowing us to do that.
Mr. Lamborn. I appreciate the work that you are all doing.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Wilson. And thank you co-chairman Lamborn. We now
proceed to Congressman Marc Veasey of Texas.
Mr. Veasey. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I wanted to
specifically ask you about talent as it relates to implementing
a lot of this new technology. Of course, you know that the
Secretary has visited Silicon Valley and talked with the
executives there. How does the Department tap into these
smaller companies, because so much of what has happened in
Silicon Valley and the technology that we are using today, and
so much of the technology that our enemies around the world are
using, I mean, we have been following this deal with not being
able to unlock the iPhone.
How does the Department tap into the technology that may be
available from some of these smaller companies that aren't
necessarily coming up through some of the larger defense
corporations and things like that that we normally use? Anybody
that wants to answer that, it would be great.
Mr. Welby. Let me start, again, and pass it down the table.
I think we have a number of tools that we use I think very
effectively to engage small innovative business. And small
business is often the key engine for innovation. Traditional
tools, like our Small Business Innovative Research program, our
STTR [Small Business Technology Transfer] program, and tools
like the Rapid Innovation Fund, which has a very large portion
of small business engaged in rapidly moving contracts that can
be rapidly exploited, moving technology to application.
The Secretary has been committed to trying, opening the
Department to new sources of innovation. He has been out
engaging small companies in Boston, and on the West Coast, will
happen in other parts of the country here shortly, personally
demonstrating the importance of the Department engaging with
small innovative business to think through ways that we can
couple what they are working on with the needs of the
Department.
I spent a day last week out at our DIUx facility in
Mountain View, where we had an afternoon and invited small
innovative companies in to come talk to us. And we had over 200
companies show up at that meeting. I spent 2 hours in one-on-
ones with small companies afterwards. A lot of these folks
don't want to be called small companies, of course, because
they want to be the next big thing and they take that as a bit
of a--but it is really kind of remarkable sets of ideas.
Traditionally, the challenge has been trying to connect those
back to the needs of the Department, and many of these
companies don't have the time, energy, connections, background
knowledge to be able to make those kind of connections.
And the question earlier was what are we trying to do with
DIUx, part of it is to take that burden off of those companies
and to allow some of our smart folks to serve as shepherds, if
you will, to serve as ambassadors to connect those folks who
have ideas, who have new emerging technology, often focused at
a commercial market, and connect them with people in the
Department who could really apply that.
And so we have got folks sitting out in that facility in
Mountain View today who understand a lot about the needs of the
Department. They spend a lot of time talking to small
innovative businesses, and they are trying to make those
connections every day. We think that is going to help us
accelerate the process. It is a people thing, as well as simply
the kind of making sure we have dollars and contracting
vehicles in place.
Mr. Veasey. Yes, and let me ask you another question along
the lines as far as innovation and technology. You know, one of
the things that has been brought up also is retaining talent,
the Pentagon being able to retain talent because Silicon Valley
and other tech centers can pay so much more. Just from a
budgetary standpoint, do you think that as far as retaining
that talent, that maybe we need to look at paying those people
more? And let me give you an example of what I mean by that.
Like, for instance, in State government, like in the State that
I am from, or the State that Mr. Aguilar is from, where you
have large pension funds. The people that actually are the
State employees that run those pension funds are usually the
highest paid employees. They make a lot more than the Governor
makes.
Do you think that there should be some sort of a, you know,
carve-out for individuals, because this is obviously going to
be high priority with our enemies being able to more and more
use this technology to try to harm us; that we should have some
kind of a carve-out that will allow us to pay the people that
have this expertise and keep them at the Pentagon?
Mr. Welby. Sir, I don't want to keep them at the Pentagon.
I want to keep them out in our laboratories where they are
going to make those real compelling changes. But the thing I do
worry about is talent. The thing that keeps me up at night is
talent. And I am very excited that under the ``Force of the
Future'' personnel initiatives that the Secretary has
initiated, we are now talking about talent management, talent
retention, recruiting, using kind of commercial recruiters as
ways to get access to key talent.
I don't worry that--in the government, it is going to be
very difficult for us to compete dollar for dollar in terms of
salary with folks. I note that last week, the National
Engineering Salary Survey came out, and I noted that the
average salary, not the talent that we are looking for, but
kind of average over the engineering professionals in the
United States, the typical pay increase was 7.5 percent over
the last year. We haven't seen a 7.5 percent increase in
government I don't think ever.
So I mean, every year we kind of fall behind in terms of
that offer we are able to make people. But people don't come to
work for us because of the pay. Historically, people came to
work for the government because of stability, but the current
generation doesn't want stability. What they want is
opportunity. And we offer, in many of the laboratories and many
of our critical areas, the ability to make a difference, a
mission that is compelling, an access to key technical tools,
and in some areas, we are competing directly with the best for
cutting-edge talent.
I worry though, in some areas, biotechnology, in artificial
intelligence, computer science, robotics, we are in a strict
competition for talent. And I watch those areas very closely,
and the folks that I have on my short list of our best, I see
more leaving than coming in. So we are working hard to kind of
focus our recruiting efforts in that area. We are thinking
about what we can do to augment those people with contract and
support or other mechanisms that we can have. But any
flexibility in people I think is going to be critically
important in the future.
Dr. Prabhakar. I know we are late on time. I would like to
just tag on one small comment. A very specific thing that we
use all the time is the special hiring authority that this
committee originated in 1999, and has extended over and over
again. It is called the 1101 authority. It gives DARPA a little
bit of flexibility in salary levels; not nearly enough to
compete head on, but exactly, as Steve said, it makes it not
completely impossible to go after some of these amazing people.
But that authority is vital to our ability to bring in
amazing people and we do regularly compete against staggeringly
large number salary offers that our candidates are getting, and
we are able to get them because they want to come change the
world from DARPA. But the specific thing that this committee
has an opportunity that can make a huge difference, is that
1101 authority has been an experimental authority now for 16
years. I think the experiment has really proven out, and I
would ask for your support to make that a permanent option for
hiring as we go forward.
Mr. Veasey. Thank you.
Dr. Walker. I would also like to weigh in on it. One of the
things that really allows us to attract top talent is some of
our scholarship capabilities, and the SMART program has been
one that has been exceedingly successful for the Air Force and
for the other services. One of the keys to retaining talent is
getting them into the laboratory and getting them the
opportunity to actually operate in the laboratory and have the
freedom they get and the magnitude of responsibility they get
within the government laboratories. The SMART program is a way
to bring them in and then to continue to educate them as they
move forward, and, so, that is one of the ways we have been
able to bring in top talent, and so far, we have been retaining
about 87 percent of our SMART-educated folks, once their
government service mandate is up. So, that has been very
successful. I would like to continue that one.
Mr. Veasey. Thank you. Mr. Chairman, thank you very much.
Mr. Wilson. Thank you, Mr. Veasey. We now proceed to
Congressman Pete Aguilar of California.
Mr. Aguilar. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, I appreciate the
opportunity, and I had similar questions to Mr. Veasey related
to your ranks and pipeline and the number of researchers we
have. And I know out of the material that was one of the
takeaways that I had is continuing to offer that flexibility
and the resources that you have in order to attract and retain
those who are at the laboratory level working hard for us.
You know, we heard a little bit about directed energy, and
within S&T, if you folks, you know, I may be the last
questioner here, so, you know, within your crystal ball, if you
were talking to your predecessor, or, I am sorry, your
successor, you know, 10, 20 years down the line, what areas do
you think this committee and those individuals will be working
on? And I say that, Mr. Welby, you know, you talked about small
businesses, and those in the outside world who were thinking
about big ideas, and, but I mean, I look across this table, and
what you have done in government, the five of you, you know,
you are our innovators, and you are our line to, you know,
weigh and discuss these issues of importance that are going to
help protect and defend this country.
And, so, I would just like to hear a few ideas or examples
of things that you feel you would be talking to your successors
about, you know, down the line if you were crystal balling
looking at areas that this committee may have to weigh in on.
Mr. Welby. Let me quick start. Sir, I've had the
opportunity to kind of spend my life thinking about that
future, trying to live in that future, trying to predict what
those things that will matter will be. When I look across what
is being invested in by my colleagues and the folks within the
Department, I see four areas I will just bring up. There are
many more. But I will go through these very quickly.
One is unmanned and autonomous systems, the work that is
going on in the Navy in unmanned undersea vehicles and the
DARPA work in unmanned surface vehicles, the work going on in
swarming air vehicles. I think we are going to see a lot of--a
very fundamental change from the baby steps we have taken in
that space today to a very different world in the future.
I see a real opportunity as we come to the end of Moore's
law where we have been able to predict microprocessor change
over time, seeing explosion in new capabilities. We built
industries on the predictability of Moore's law, which is
coming to an end and it is going to create new opportunities. I
think that we are going to see biology as a technology, a major
push of DARPA's start to shape the world in fundamental ways.
We need to think about that. That is an area for which the
Department is not as strong as we could be. We need to start
thinking about how we build our biological technology
capabilities; not just--we think about biochem defense, but
really, biology, for example, as a manufacturing science.
And then thinking about that last topic, manufacturing,
what is the future of manufacturing and design? How will we be
delivering capability in the future? How will it be stanching
that capability to advanced systems? I think that that list is
interesting because those four things are not going to be
unique to defense. All of them are going to have commercial
implications and we need to be--if I tell my folks, we want to
be able to surf the coming wave in these areas, but to be a
good surfer, you have to be out in front of that wave paddling
in front of it. And we need to be smart getting out in front of
that before those things hit. And so that is my short list
anyway, sir.
Ms. Miller. So he had four critical ones and in the area of
autonomy, you know, we are looking at intelligence systems and
how we can get the capability to interface autonomous
capability with humans and make sure that we have a seamless
way to provide kind of design for individual capability, be it
training, be it operating systems that scenario that goes into
the biological sciences that we are not usually accustomed to.
And so when we talk about building our workforce and giving
them interesting dilemmas to bring them into our team to work
for the Department of Defense, that is one of those areas that
we are building up our expertise because we see that as
critical for the future going forward.
Admiral Winter. Sir, I just have to look at 30 years ago
what was in our petri dish and test tubes that we are fighting
with today. So what should be in our petri dish and test tubes
today that we are going to be fighting with in 30 years that I
would tell to my successor. I look at areas of brain-based
learning, understanding the true neuroscience of human thinking
and how we can model that into an engineering model that will
allow us to truly realize cognitive artificial intelligence of
man-machine capabilities. That is one area.
Breakthrough in our nano and photonic domain, of being able
to process and transmit data at rates that are just
unfathomable today, based upon advanced material science and
bringing that together to then enable that cognitive AI
[artificial intelligence] and man-based and machine
capabilities to levels we haven't even thought about,
Terminators, those type of things, moving forward.
And then from a bio-inspired perspective, the advances in
our synthetic biology of being able to craft organisms that can
eat ferro metallic material and excrete electricity in any
domain, undersea, a vacuum, allows us to start to think of the
possibilities of endless supplies of energy. Endless supplies
of energy are things that people scoff at, but the scientists
are the ones that are supposed to be doing the things that are
scoffed at. So I see areas in brain-based learning, our bio-
inspired technologies, our cognitive IA, advanced materials,
and photonics and nano areas. Thank you, sir.
Dr. Walker. I have to say that we are all looking down the
same path. One of the areas I really see promise that in 20
years from now, I would hope to be actually the state of the
art is really the science of the very small. Is how do we take
advantage of nanomaterials, quantum effects, metamaterials, and
then how do we link that with biological agents that actually
help us manufacture those materials in a very effective way.
There is a lot of promise in that area that I think we will
see in the future will move us into being able to build
materials that we don't even conceive at this point in time.
The other areas which Mr. Welby hit on was manufacturing is
fundamentally changing. And we are not going to see large
factories in the future like we are used to today. We are going
to see the ability to actually grow things and other
manufacturing technologies that will allow us to get our
economic order quantities down to the order of one, which will
fundamentally change how we do business where we don't have to
buy 1,000 to be effective.
And the final one is in autonomy. We are just scratching
the surface with autonomy and aiding humans. Autonomous
decision-making to aid humans to be able to execute warfighting
from a distance. We are seeing it now in its very infancy.
Twenty years from now, we will just see this as everyday. You
will see that every day when you get in your car and your car
takes you where you want to go, and parks you where you need to
be, and you read your iPad the entire time you are going there.
Dr. Prabhakar. These are all great answers. I think they
are terrific. Let me add one different kind of log on the fire.
There is something happening with social behavior with the
Internet, the Internet of Things and social media. And social
behavior itself is changing, but also how we can look at and
understand social behavior is changing in some fundamental
ways. It is going to, in the next 10 or 20 years, I think it is
going to give us even bigger headaches than we already see. We
are going to have privacy headaches. We are going to have
information warfare headaches. We see that today. I think those
are going to get worse over time. But at the same time, what is
happening is, I think there is going to be a fundamental shift
in our ability to understand social behavior. And I would
submit that there is actually nothing more fundamental to
national security than that.
Mr. Aguilar. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Wilson. And thank you, Mr. Aguilar. And Dr. Prabhakar,
the, as you have said, headaches, I was hoping with the
Internet, it would be opportunity.
Dr. Prabhakar. Both.
Mr. Wilson. And it should be both, but sadly, recently I
have seen more headaches than I have seen opportunity. And so
we are counting on you to figure out how to address the
headaches. So again, I am very grateful for each of you for
your service. And there being no further business, and upon the
advice of Mr. Langevin, we are now adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 3:26 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]
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A P P E N D I X
February 24, 2016
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PREPARED STATEMENTS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD
February 24, 2016
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[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
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QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MEMBERS POST HEARING
February 24, 2016
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QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MR. WILSON
Mr. Wilson. In your opening statement, you mentioned some work on
swarming air vehicles. Could you provide some more details on that work
so we can understand how that work, and what the Department is thinking
about its applications and potential countermeasures?
Mr. Welby. The Navy is pursuing science and technology efforts in
autonomy and unmanned systems for naval operations. In 2015, the Navy
demonstrated swarming unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) as part of the
Low-Cost UAV Swarming Technology (LOCUST) program. The demonstrations
are an important step on the way to the 2016 ship-based demonstration
of 30 rapidly launched autonomous, swarming UAVs.
The LOCUST program includes a tube-based launcher that can send
multiple UAVs into the air in rapid succession. Information-sharing
between the UAVs enables autonomous collaborative behavior in either
defensive or offensive missions. This autonomous behavior will allow
for the UAVs to adapt to changing adversary conditions to include
countermeasures. Additionally, with the goal of low-cost, the program
aims to ``bend the cost curve'' in our favor, especially when employed
against conventional weapon systems.
Because the launcher and the UAVs themselves have a small
footprint, the technology could enable swarms of compact UAVs to be
launched from ships, tactical vehicles, aircraft, or other unmanned
platforms. Depending on a range of payload options, a wide variety of
missions can be enabled ranging from surveillance to strike.
Mr. Wilson. For each of you, how well do your service's science and
technology strategies also integrate long-range planning for the
facilities, people, and infrastructure needed to support the technical
missions of your organizations?
Mr. Welby. Within the Department, ASD(R&E) continues to provide
oversight of the Department's comprehensive S&T investment portfolio
through the Reliance 21 framework. Reliance 21 provides a forum to
synchronize, coordinate, and deconflict Service and Agency S&T
activities. In the last year, we improved joint planning and
coordination of S&T activities among the Department's senior S&T
leadership to achieve efficiencies and improve the effectiveness of our
support to the operating force. This collaborative process captures the
interests and activities of the entire R&E enterprise and all our
partners in a collection of 17 Communities of Interest (COIs). The COIs
maintain awareness of their portfolio areas by reviewing and assessing
the alignment of current and planned R&E programs, identifying gaps,
and helping to prioritize R&E funding efforts to meet the technical
challenges of the DOD in their respective portfolio area. Each Reliance
21 COI represents a specific, cross-domain technology area with a
rotating steering group lead, and draws upon subject-matter experts
from across the Department working in the relevant technology area. The
Reliance 21 framework, its S&T Executive Committee, and technology area
COIs are key mechanisms that support ASD(R&E)'s integrated oversight of
the Department's S&T investments.
Mr. Wilson. Could you highlight a few areas where the Long Range
Research and Development Program for Ground Combat is likely to suggest
focusing additional investments?
Ms. Miller. The Long Range Research and Development Planning
Program for Ground Combat (LRRDPP-GC) is an ongoing OSD study that is
led by the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering.
The LRRDPP-GC is focused on ground combat technologies that can be
incorporated into developmental programs over the next five years and
acquired and fielded in quantity within 15 years. It assesses
capabilities within the following general areas: future conventional
combat; future unconventional combat; future urban combat; combat
operations conducted with traditional and non-traditional partners;
sustaining combat capabilities in highly challenged cyber- and
spectrum-denied environments; and future operations on human terrain.
Until this study is completed, however, it would be premature to
speculate on particular investment recommendations.
Mr. Wilson. For each of you, how well do your service's science and
technology strategies also integrate long-range planning for the
facilities, people, and infrastructure needed to support the technical
missions of your organizations?
Ms. Miller. The Long-range Investment Requirements Analysis (LIRA)
helps Army Science and Technology (S&T) facilitate more informed
program planning and budget decisions by looking out over the next 30
years. The LIRA has put additional rigor into the development of the
Army's budget submission, creating an environment where the communities
who invest in all phases of the materiel lifecycle work together to
maximize the Army's capabilities over time and strengthen the ties
between the S&T community and their Program Executive Office (PEO),
Requirements community, sustainment and installation partners. While
the facilities, people, and infrastructure are not currently a
significant part of the LIRA process, this planning has allowed the
laboratory directors to better understand their long-term needs in
these areas. As we move forward with future LIRAs, we will look at
further integrating laboratory and research and engineering facilities,
people, and infrastructure needs into the process.
Mr. Wilson. For each of you, how well do your service's science and
technology strategies also integrate long-range planning for the
facilities, people, and infrastructure needed to support the technical
missions of your organizations?
Admiral Winter. The Naval Science and Technology (S&T) Strategy
uses a broad investment approach that leverages long-term, targeted
basic research and applied research to give talented scientists and
engineers in government, academia and industry, the flexibility to
pursue new discoveries and promising ideas to support development of
new capabilities for the warfighter.
The labs, like other government entities, continue to struggle with
competition for highly skilled S&T and support personnel given the
salaries and benefits offered by industry and academia. However,
workforce planning and development is fairly decentralized so that S&T
laboratory directors have sufficient influence on the size and shape of
their workforce.
The basic building block for the future workforce is a robust,
strategic commitment to Science, Technology, Engineering and
Mathematics (STEM) education and talent-development to nurture and
sustain a well-educated, highly-experienced and motivated workforce.
Through Section 219 of the Duncan Hunter National Defense Authorization
Act for Fiscal Year 2009 (Public Law 110-417, 122 STAT. 4356), the
Naval Innovative Science & Engineering (NISE) Program makes funds
available to Navy laboratories and warfare centers to support in-house
workforce efforts. This has been important in expanding the technical
capabilities of the STEM workforce, through hands-on work, as well as
in providing training and advanced degrees. NISE efforts have provided
breakthrough research and have been responsible for maturation and
transition of technology to the warfighter and programs of record. NISE
has encouraged cross-organizational multi-disciplinary projects that
include partnerships with academia and industry.
The aging and deteriorating portions of Navy laboratories and
warfare centers threaten their ability to successfully address their
mission of discovering and developing future technology. Navy
laboratories and warfare centers face the additional challenge of
competing with other Military Construction priorities, such as docks
for fleet ships, base housing and base hospitals. As technology rapidly
advances, laboratory building construction costs continue to grow.
The infrastructure challenges faced by laboratory directors include
limited availability of maintenance, repair and construction funding;
and reduced capacity of centralized facilities contracting/management
functions (also due to limited funding). As a result, our S&T
laboratory directors cannot effectively plan for or ensure the long
term readiness of S&T facilities and infrastructure. Additionally, our
aging facilities and recapitalization challenges also impact our
ability to recruit and retain highly skilled S&T and support personnel,
mentioned above.
Mr. Wilson. For each of you, how well do your service's science and
technology strategies also integrate long-range planning for the
facilities, people, and infrastructure needed to support the technical
missions of your organizations?
Dr. Walker. The strategic goals in the Air Force Science and
Technology (S&T) Strategy (2014) provide for integrated long-range
planning for the people, facilities, and infrastructure necessary to
support the Air Force S&T enterprise. Three of the seven strategic
goals are specific to these vital areas. All of these strategic goals
inform the efforts carried out under the Air Force Research
Laboratory's Strategic Plan. Our strategic focus on long-range planning
ensures our S&T enterprise can be successful now and into the future.
Mr. Wilson. For each of you, how well do your service's science and
technology strategies also integrate long-range planning for the
facilities, people, and infrastructure needed to support the technical
missions of your organizations?
Dr. Prabhakar. Within the Department, ASD(R&E) continues to provide
oversight of the Department's comprehensive S&T investment portfolio
through the Reliance 21 framework. Reliance 21 provides a forum to
synchronize, coordinate, and deconflict Service and Agency S&T
activities. In the last year, we improved joint planning and
coordination of S&T activities among the Department's senior S&T
leadership to achieve efficiencies and improve the effectiveness of our
support to the operating force. This collaborative process captures the
interests and activities of the entire R&E enterprise and all our
partners in a collection of 17 Communities of Interest (COIs). The COIs
maintain awareness of their portfolio areas by reviewing and assessing
the alignment of current and planned R&E programs, identifying gaps,
and helping to prioritize R&E funding efforts to meet the technical
challenges of the DOD in their respective portfolio area. Each Reliance
21 COI represents a specific, cross-domain technology area with a
rotating steering group lead, and draws upon subject-matter experts
from across the Department working in the relevant technology area. The
Reliance 21 framework, its S&T Executive Committee, and technology area
COIs are key mechanisms that support ASD(R&E)'s integrated oversight of
the Department's S&T investments.
______
QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MR. LANGEVIN
Mr. Langevin. How you are you working with the Strategic
Capabilities Office?
Mr. Welby. When clearances allow, ASD(R&E) personnel monitor
Strategic Capabilities Office (SCO) efforts to avoid the potential for
duplication and looks for opportunities to collaborate. To that end,
ASD(R&E) personnel currently participate in bi-weekly SCO enterprise
VTCs, and SCO is now partnering with ASD(R&E) on the Small Satellite
Communications Network Joint Capability Technology Demonstration
initiated in FY 15.
ASD(R&E) personnel periodically brief SCO on relevant technologies
when there are opportunities to assist SCO to achieve its objectives.
The latest example is an upcoming briefing on hand held link 16-effort.
Mr. Langevin. How do the S&T and intelligence communities work
together to drive an informed investment strategy? How are S&T programs
prioritized in order to meet threats now, and those in the mid and
long-term?
Mr. Welby. The Science and Technology (S&T) and Intelligence
Communities (IC) collaborate through a number of efforts to develop an
informed strategy. These efforts include development of an annual
Intelligence Needs Plan (INP), routine liaison with a number of
individual agencies, and close engagement with the Director of National
Intelligence's S&T and weapons-related IC.
The INP is a formal document that provides the IC's, OASD(R&E)'s,
and the S&T Executives' intelligence requirements for current programs,
as well as intelligence requirements and gaps that need to be filled to
begin developing capabilities to mitigate near-term and emerging
threats. The value of the INP for the Services and the S&T Communities
of Interest is that the INP is the means to ensure that S&T
intelligence needs are represented in the IC's planning.
Liaison with various intelligence agencies, through both the
Defense Intelligence Officer for S&T and numerous agency liaison and
support officers, occurs on a regular basis to inform ongoing S&T
efforts and development of longer-range priorities. As an example,
ASD(R&E) in collaboration with the acquisition community and the IC,
collects data on U.S. and threat systems to identify and assess
potential strategic, operational, and tactical vulnerabilities across
the near-, mid-, and far-term. The issues identified through these
assessments are prioritized based on the expected impact to operational
success. These assessments also highlight areas where insufficient
information is available on adversaries' capabilities. These
intelligence shortfalls are then communicated back to the IC to inform
the development of collection requirements through the Intelligence
Needs Plan.
Mr. Langevin. How you are you working with the Strategic
Capabilities Office?
Ms. Miller. The Army Acquisition Executive and DASA Research and
Technology hold regular meetings with Director, SCO to ensure our
efforts are synchronized. Additionally, the SCO directly engages
subject matter experts at the Army labs and centers. One example of SCO
leveraging current Army S&T investments is with our Extended Range
Cannon Artillery (ERCA) effort and subject matter expertise at the US
Army Armament Research Development and Engineering Center (ARDEC) to
evaluate and demonstrate firing the OSD-funded, Navy-developed
Hypervelocity Projectile from an Army powder gun. The SCO is also
leveraging Army S&T investments and subject matter expertise at the
Aviation and Missile Engineering Research and Development Center
(AMRDEC) to evaluate and demonstrate repurposing of existing missile
technologies in the area of Fire Support.
Mr. Langevin. How do the S&T and intelligence communities work
together to drive an informed investment strategy? How are S&T programs
prioritized in order to meet threats now, and those in the mid and
long-term?
Ms. Miller. Understanding the current and projected threat
environment is essential as we develop future capabilities and our
investment strategy. To this end, we are engaging the National Ground
Intelligence Center, the Army G2 and the Office of Technical
Intelligence at OSD to remain aware of projected future threats and
identify areas of interest for future assessment. Our red teaming/
vulnerability analysis activities and our technology wargaming are also
fostering closer ties between S&T and the intelligence community while
providing insights into potential areas for future investments.
Mr. Langevin. How do the S&T and intelligence communities work
together to drive an informed investment strategy? How are S&T programs
prioritized in order to meet threats now, and those in the mid and
long-term?
Admiral Winter. The Naval S&T community maintains a robust Science
and Technology Intelligence Liaison Officer (STILO) program. These
full-time liaison officers are embedded in 25 naval systems commands,
warfare centers, laboratories, and university affiliated research
centers, ensuring the flow of threat information from intelligence
community (IC) to the science and technology (S&T) community. These
liaisons also serve to connect intelligence analysts with technical
subject matter experts from the Naval S&T community to assist the IC in
assessing the maturity and implications of scientific developments by
adversaries. Additionally, STILOs have the authority to formally task
the IC with intelligence production requirements in support of Naval
S&T.
U.S Naval forces require a broad spectrum of core capabilities to
assure access to the global maritime domain. Consequently, the Naval
Science and Technology (S&T) strategy invests in a balanced and broad
portfolio of promising scientific research and innovative technology in
the United States and around the world.
Science and technology investment balance, to address near-term and
mid-to-long-term priorities, is provided by the Navy S&T Strategy and
guidance from the Navy Research, Development, Test & Evaluation (RDT&E)
Corporate Board. There are four components of the investment portfolio.
Discovery and Invention (D&I) makes up 50% of the
portfolio and includes basic research (6.1) and early applied research
(6.2) to address long term priorities.
Leap-Ahead Innovations make up 12% of the portfolio and
includes Innovative Naval Prototypes and the majority of SwampWorks
efforts. This component of the technology portfolio defines the future
of naval warfighting.
Technology Maturation makes up 30% of the portfolio to
deliver critical component technologies to naval acquisition programs.
This includes Future Naval Capabilities, which mature in a two- to
four-year time frame into products from the late stages of applied
research (6.2) and advanced technology development (6.3).
Quick Reaction makes up 8% of the portfolio by responding
to urgent technology needs and solves problems for warfighters in the
near-term. This includes funds for TechSolutions, as well as Navy and
Marine Corps experimentation.
The Naval S&T strategy is to discover, develop and deliver decisive
naval capabilities, near to long term, by investing in a balanced
portfolio of breakthrough scientific research, innovative technology
and talented people.
Mr. Langevin. How you are you working with the Strategic
Capabilities Office?
Dr. Walker. The Air Force is in dialogue with the Strategic
Capabilities Office (SCO) to determine areas where our S&T enterprise
can coordinate and leverage SCO efforts. The Air Force also has a
liaison position within the SCO to facilitate communication.
Mr. Langevin. How do the S&T and intelligence communities work
together to drive an informed investment strategy? How are S&T programs
prioritized in order to meet threats now, and those in the mid and
long-term?
Dr. Walker. The Air Force S&T planning process brings together
diverse groups of stakeholders to ensure our S&T efforts are well
understood and aligned with Air Force priorities. This includes
maintaining a robust research component that pushes the technological
state of the art across a range of areas for potential military
application as well as being responsive to near-, mid-, and far-term
technology needs as expressed by the intelligence, operational, and
acquisition communities. Air Force S&T planning is integrated into the
Air Force's strategy, planning and programming process (SP3) to ensure
S&T investments address areas of research and development consistent
with time-phased Air Force priorities.
Mr. Langevin. How you are you working with the Strategic
Capabilities Office?
Dr. Prabhakar. When clearances allow, ASD(R&E) personnel monitor
Strategic
Capabilities Office (SCO) efforts to avoid the potential for
duplication and looks for opportunities to collaborate. To that end,
ASD(R&E) personnel currently participate in bi-weekly SCO enterprise
VTCs, and SCO is now partnering with ASD(R&E) on the Small Satellite
Communications Network Joint Capability Technology Demonstration
initiated in FY 15.
ASD(R&E) personnel periodically brief SCO on relevant technologies
when there are opportunities to assist SCO to achieve its objectives.
The latest example is an upcoming briefing on hand held link 16-effort.
Mr. Langevin. How do the S&T and intelligence communities work
together to drive an informed investment strategy? How are S&T programs
prioritized in order to meet threats now, and those in the mid and
long-term?
Dr. Prabhakar. The Science and Technology (S&T) and Intelligence
Communities (IC) collaborate through a number of efforts to develop an
informed strategy. These efforts include development of an annual
Intelligence Needs Plan (INP), routine liaison with a number of
individual agencies, and close engagement with the Director of National
Intelligence's S&T and weapons-related IC.
The INP is a formal document that provides the IC's, OASD(R&E)'s,
and the S&T Executives' intelligence requirements for current programs,
as well as intelligence requirements and gaps that need to be filled to
begin developing capabilities to mitigate near-term and emerging
threats. The value of the INP for the Services and the S&T Communities
of Interest is that the INP is the means to ensure that S&T
intelligence needs are represented in the IC's planning.
Liaison with various intelligence agencies, through both the
Defense Intelligence Officer for S&T and numerous agency liaison and
support officers, occurs on a regular basis to inform ongoing S&T
efforts and development of longer-range priorities. As an example,
ASD(R&E) in collaboration with the acquisition community and the IC,
collects data on U.S. and threat systems to identify and assess
potential strategic, operational, and tactical vulnerabilities across
the near-, mid-, and far-term. The issues identified through these
assessments are prioritized based on the expected impact to operational
success. These assessments also highlight areas where insufficient
information is available on adversaries' capabilities. These
intelligence shortfalls are then communicated back to the IC to inform
the development of collection requirements through the Intelligence
Needs Plan.
______
QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MR. NUGENT
Mr. Nugent. The Office of Naval Research is conducting
groundbreaking research into the dangers of working for prolonged
periods of time in extreme high and low pressure environments. I want
to give you an opportunity to talk about the innovative solutions being
developed under your leadership to prepare our forces for these extreme
conditions. Can you describe the extreme pressure conditions these
warfighters are operating in? Who in the Navy gets exposed to these
conditions? Beyond preparation for a dive, I was amazed to learn that
your research is developing treatments for those who suffer adverse
effects of prolonged atmospheric pressure in the past. Would you please
tell us a little bit about that treatment portion of your work? Is the
limitation of your research one of technology or of funding? In other
words, could the Warfighter Sustainment program do more to prevent and
treat service members exposed to extreme environments with an increase
in funding in fiscal year 2017?
Admiral Winter. The Office of Naval Research (ONR) has a
longstanding history of supporting undersea warriors, including Navy
Divers, SEALs, and submariners, through the Undersea medicine program,
one of the five ONR ``National Naval Responsibilities''. The missions
include deep dives to work on the ocean floor, clandestine transits in
cold, dark waters, and long durations in the confines of the submarine.
The Undersea Medicine Program comprises the science and technology
efforts to overcome human shortfalls in operating in this extreme
environment.
One threat faced by both undersea operators and aviators is
decompression sickness (DCS), as a result of the body absorbing and
releasing nitrogen and other gases with changing atmospheric pressure.
Research is underway to better understand the causes of DCS and to
develop pharmaceutical interventions to prevent and treat DCS. A theory
that has derived from ONR supported research is that the extreme
pressures cause small pieces of our body's cells called microparticles
to break off and enter the blood stream. These microparticles are
thought to act as a nucleus for the formation of gas bubbles. This
finding lends itself to further research to understand how
microparticles can be effectively treated. The program is also
supporting development of injectable substances that can absorb the
extra gases in the blood stream.
The high pressures also affect the way the body responds to oxygen.
Oxygen toxicity seizures and lung damage can occur when operators are
exposed to abnormally high levels of oxygen while, for example, using a
clandestine rebreather to avoid a bubble trail. Undersea Medicine is
exploring the repurposing of FDA-approved epilepsy and asthma drugs to
treat these conditions. Recent findings with an animal model have
demonstrated that a high-fat dietary supplement can delay the onset of
oxygen toxicity seizures and are now moving to human testing.
Conversely, hypoxia, the condition when the body can't acquire
enough oxygen is a concern with breathing equipment use, high-altitude
mountain operations, and casualty evacuations. A ``Hypoxia Alert and
Mitigation System'' is under development for aviators and medical
personnel to prevent and treat hypoxia.
Undersea Medicine is also addressing the increased operational
focus being placed on undersea clandestine operations. Undersea Human
Performance efforts apply advancements in the understanding of the
human mind and body to the areas of human-systems integration,
underwater situational awareness, and maintaining physical and
cognitive readiness. For the first time, researchers from Navy
laboratories are measuring the unique nutritional and metabolic demands
of the SEAL Delivery Vehicle operators and will be conducting biometric
assessment and performance modeling during cold water training
evolutions. Collaboration between Naval Special Warfare and the
research community have highlighted nutrition, hydration, respiration
and thermal stress as key areas of future investigation.
The Navy supports the President's budget. If additional funds were
available, investments could allow groundbreaking new research in
genetics, synthetic biology, neuroscience, and physiology to be applied
to the undersea domain. Examples of specific areas that could be
addressed include understanding how these extreme environmental
exposures affect the genes of the operators, analyzing the effects of
undersea operations on the gut microbiome, and determining the
effectiveness of virtual reality training for underwater missions.
Further investments would also enhance the unique Undersea Medicine
infrastructure of personnel and facilities in academia, industry and
the Navy laboratories.
______
QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MR. CASTRO
Mr. Castro. What additional paths do you see aside from ROTC
programs, to recruit young men and women into STEM jobs within the
Federal Government?
Mr. Welby. The Department has multiple avenues available to engage
with young men and women interested in working with DOD in STEM-related
positions. The Science, Mathematics And Research for Transformation
(SMART) Scholarship for Service Program provides students pursuing an
undergraduate or graduate degree in STEM disciplines the opportunity to
receive a full scholarship and employment by the Department upon degree
completion. In addition, the Department participates in the Federal-
wide Pathways Program, which provides opportunities for internships,
recent-graduate hiring, and the Presidential Management Fellows (PMF)
program. All three opportunities provide mechanisms for students to
engage with the DOD in STEM-related positions that can lead to hiring.
The DOD Labs also have their own programs that may lead to hiring.
For example, both the Army and the Navy labs have a science and
engineering apprentice program that may lead to a formal hiring
arrangement. In addition, the Labs are able to leverage their
flexibilities as Science and Technology Reinvention Laboratories
(STRLs) to hire through their specific authorities such as Direct Hire
Authority, non-competitive transition to full-time positions, and
others. In addition to the DOD Labs workforce initiatives, the Human
Capital Initiatives (HCI) office within OUSD(AT&L) focuses specifically
on the acquisition workforce. Broader workforce initiatives take place
in OUSD(P&R).
Finally, for recruitment, the DOD participates in multiple career
fairs, college campus recruiting events, and mentorship programs. All
of these activities are opportunities for the Department to promote
STEM-related positions and directly engage with interested students.
Mr. Castro. What additional paths do you see aside from ROTC
programs, to recruit young men and women into STEM jobs within the
Federal Government?
Ms. Miller. Hiring a diverse and highly-qualified STEM workforce is
critical; however, the harder challenge is ensuring the Army has a
STEM-literate workforce not just in STEM jobs but across the entire
ecosystem supporting the Warfighter. The Army provides various methods,
beyond R.O.T.C., that work to bring in outstanding talent--not just for
immediate hiring needs but also for our long-term workforce needs. We
use various ways to engage young men and women and introduce
opportunities within the Army so that we may attract the right talent
that is uniquely qualified for each requirement. These methods include
providing scholarships, mentorship, and unique hands-on experiences;
however selecting and recruiting specific personnel for our science and
technology laboratories is done directly at the laboratories
themselves. This is intentional so as to ensure that our labs have the
right people, at the right time and where they are needed so that our
labs and researchers are uniquely qualified for their areas of interest
and responsibility.
Some of the paths our laboratories use to bring in the right people
are the direct hiring authorities that allow us to recruit and bring
onboard some of the most highly qualified STEM talent entering the
workforce. We also have short term training initiatives that provide
existing personnel with the skills to fill jobs and recruit from
within. One program that we successfully use is the DOD Science,
Mathematics and Research for Transformation (SMART) Scholarship for
Service retention program. SMART has proven to be a very successful
model to recruit young talent to work for DOD. Additionally, we use
research grants to our academic institutions, inclusive of our
historically black colleges and universities as well as our minority
serving institutions, to work with us on some of our hardest technical
challenges. These research investments help introduce young and
promising students to the many opportunities available to them within
Science & Technology workforce. Lastly we invest in our future
researchers and leaders by providing them access to our research
facilities and STEM professionals at a young age through the Army
Educational Outreach Program (AEOP). AEOP is executed under a
cooperative agreement that brings together our Government, industry,
and academic partners to provide students access to our laboratories
and research centers for STEM enrichment activities, provide one-on-one
mentorship opportunities through apprentice programs and reward student
achievements in research through competitions, all while introducing
students to the world of DOD research. One of the main objectives of
AEOP is to build the diverse and highly qualified talent pool for which
our work depends.
Mr. Castro. What additional paths do you see aside from ROTC
programs, to recruit young men and women into STEM jobs within the
Federal Government?
Admiral Winter. In addition to science, technology, engineering,
and mathematics (STEM) opportunities available through the Navy Reserve
Officers Training Corps (ROTC), the U.S. Naval Academy and other
programs leading to a commission in the officer corps, there are
numerous enlisted ratings offered through Navy Recruiting Command,
focusing on STEM-related occupations.
To attract, recruit, develop, and retain bright, talented young men
and women into STEM fields within the civilian workforce, the
Department of the Navy (DON) administers and participates in a number
of programs overseen by the Office of Personnel Management (OPM), and
managed by the Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD), the Office of
Naval Research (ONR), and the individual naval laboratories and warfare
centers.
OPM provided federal agencies the means to solicit and select high
school, undergraduate, and graduate students into the Pathways Programs
via USAJOBS. The DON participates in the Pathways Internship and Recent
Graduates Programs overseen by the Department of Defense (DoD) per the
memorandum of understanding with OPM. While the Pathways Programs have
served as a pipeline, they have presented some challenges. Hence, we
are anxiously awaiting the publication of the federal register update
that will allow the implementation of National Defense Authorization
Act (NDAA) 2015 Section 1105, Temporary Authorities for Certain
Positions at Department of Defense Research and Engineering Facilities,
and NDAA 2016 Section 1104, Modification to Temporary Authorities for
Certain Positions at Department of Defense Research and Engineering
Facilities. Section 1105 establishes a pilot program for direct hiring
authority for the laboratory directors of specified laboratories for
STEM undergraduate or graduate students on a temporary or term basis,
for up to three percent of a laboratory's scientific and engineering
positions. This authority will provide flexibility for students and for
the Navy sponsoring activities to recruit and temporarily employ the
``best and brightest.'' Section 1104 of the NDAA 2016 provides
additional flexibility which allows for the non-competitive conversion
to permanent appointments upon successful completion of undergraduate
and graduate education.
The DON also uses the DOD Science, Mathematics & Research for
Transformation (SMART) Scholarship Program, a scholarship-for-service
program through which the DOD provides scholarship funds for
undergraduate and graduate STEM students at over 200 universities and
colleges, including Historically Black Colleges and Universities and
other Minority-Serving Institutions (HBCU/MIs). SMART students are
mentored by scientists and engineers while working in the DOD
laboratories and facilities during the summer months. Students gain
valuable experience that often leads to an opportunity for full-time
post-graduate employment with those laboratories and facilities.
ONR funds two internship programs, the Science and Engineering
Apprenticeship Program (SEAP) for high school students and the Navy
Research Enterprise Internship Program (NREIP) for college and graduate
students. Both programs offer summer internships that allow students to
perform hands-on research alongside Navy scientists and engineers at 36
participating laboratories and warfare centers across the country. In
2015, SEAP funded over 300 high school students for 8-week internships
and NREIP funded over 425 undergraduate and 125 graduate students for
10-week internships. These programs offer invaluable real-world STEM
research experience as mentors provide meaningful work that fosters the
interns' interest in working for the DON upon graduation.
The Naval Research Laboratories and Navy Warfare Centers also
benefit from post doctoral candidate fellowships offered through the
National Research Council and American Society of Engineering Education
(NRC and ASEE). These one-to-two-year appointments allow recent Ph.D.
graduates invaluable opportunities to perform research at our
laboratories. These opportunities, coupled with the direct hire
authority enacted by Congress for advanced degrees, will enable us to
hire researchers with skills and interests that align with DON needs.
This continuum of programs was strategically designed to attract,
recruit, and develop students from across the education spectrum. We
must remain pro-active in these efforts. Therefore, we continually
assess the performance of each of these programs and the quality of the
students we are attracting, to ensure the programs and students meet
the current and long-term STEM workforce requirements.
Mr. Castro. How does the Air Force STEM Outreach Office work to
attract more minorities and women into STEM?
Dr. Walker. In FY15, targeted programs impacted over 11,000
children from underrepresented schools. Also in FY15, we impacted over
1,700 female students through programs specifically targeting this
audience. The Air Force conducts 2000+ STEM outreach events per year,
leveraging local, state and federal organizations to reach 200,000
students and teachers across the United States, mostly concentrated
around 29 Air Force installations.
In FY16, our base-level K-12 STEM programs have planned over 180
activities targeted to underrepresented groups. We have also undertaken
an initiative to find more ways to coordinate with the AF Diversity
Office to enhance and increase the effectiveness of the programs
directed at underrepresented groups. We recently supported the POTUS-
sponsored program, My Brothers' Keeper, Week at the Labs, in which our
Air Force locations opened our doors to minority children for half-day
programs of tours and events.
Mr. Castro. What additional paths do you see aside from ROTC
programs, to recruit young men and women into STEM jobs within the
Federal Government?
Dr. Walker. One path the Air Force uses is the scholarship for
service Science, Mathematics And Research for Transformation (SMART)
Program. Over the past 9 years, the Air Force has sponsored 640
scholars in the SMART Program. There are 337 individuals that have
completed their service commitment and 87 percent of them continue to
work for the Air Force. The Air Force also has numerous internship
programs that are used to attract and recruit STEM talent to an Air
Force career.
Mr. Castro. What additional paths do you see aside from ROTC
programs, to recruit young men and women into STEM jobs within the
Federal Government?
Dr. Prabhakar. The Department has multiple avenues available to
engage with young men and women interested in working with DOD in STEM-
related positions. The Science, Mathematics And Research for
Transformation (SMART) Scholarship for Service Program provides
students pursuing an undergraduate or graduate degree in STEM
disciplines the opportunity to receive a full scholarship and
employment by the Department upon degree completion. In addition, the
Department participates in the Federal-wide Pathways Program, which
provides opportunities for internships, recent-graduate hiring, and the
Presidential Management Fellows (PMF) program. All three opportunities
provide mechanisms for students to engage with the DOD in STEM-related
positions that can lead to hiring.
The DOD Labs also have their own programs that may lead to hiring.
For example, both the Army and the Navy labs have a science and
engineering apprentice program that may lead to a formal hiring
arrangement. In addition, the Labs are able to leverage their
flexibilities as Science and Technology Reinvention Laboratories
(STRLs) to hire through their specific authorities such as Direct Hire
Authority, non-competitive transition to full-time positions, and
others. In addition to the DOD Labs workforce initiatives, the Human
Capital Initiatives (HCI) office within OUSD(AT&L) focuses specifically
on the acquisition workforce. Broader workforce initiatives take place
in OUSD(P&R).
Finally, for recruitment, the DOD participates in multiple career
fairs, college campus recruiting events, and mentorship programs. All
of these activities are opportunities for the Department to promote
STEM-related positions and directly engage with interested students.