[House Hearing, 115 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[H.A.S.C. No. 115-85]
HEARING
ON
NATIONAL DEFENSE AUTHORIZATION ACT
FOR FISCAL YEAR 2019
AND
OVERSIGHT OF PREVIOUSLY AUTHORIZED PROGRAMS
BEFORE THE
COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED FIFTEENTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
__________
SUBCOMMITTEE ON EMERGING THREATS AND CAPABILITIES HEARING
ON
A REVIEW AND ASSESSMENT OF THE
FISCAL YEAR 2019 BUDGET REQUEST
FOR DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY PROGRAMS
__________
HEARING HELD
MARCH 14, 2018
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
_________
U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
29-489 WASHINGTON : 2019
SUBCOMMITTEE ON EMERGING THREATS AND CAPABILITIES
ELISE M. STEFANIK, New York, Chairwoman
BILL SHUSTER, Pennsylvania JAMES R. LANGEVIN, Rhode Island
BRAD R. WENSTRUP, Ohio RICK LARSEN, Washington
RALPH LEE ABRAHAM, Louisiana JIM COOPER, Tennessee
LIZ CHENEY, Wyoming, Vice Chair JACKIE SPEIER, California
JOE WILSON, South Carolina MARC A. VEASEY, Texas
FRANK A. LoBIONDO, New Jersey TULSI GABBARD, Hawaii
DOUG LAMBORN, Colorado BETO O'ROURKE, Texas
AUSTIN SCOTT, Georgia STEPHANIE N. MURPHY, Florida
JODY B. HICE, Georgia
Peter Villano, Professional Staff Member
Lindsay Kavanaugh, Professional Staff Member
Neve Schadler, Clerk
C O N T E N T S
----------
Page
STATEMENTS PRESENTED BY MEMBERS OF CONGRESS
Langevin, Hon. James R., a Representative from Rhode Island,
Ranking Member, Subcommittee on Emerging Threats and
Capabilities................................................... 3
Stefanik, Hon. Elise M., a Representative from New York,
Chairwoman, Subcommittee on Emerging Threats and Capabilities.. 1
WITNESSES
Hahn, RADM David J., USN, Chief of Naval Research................ 9
Miller, Mary J., Performing the Duties of Assistant Secretary of
Defense for Research and Engineering, Office of the Under
Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering.............. 5
Russell, Dr. Thomas P., Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Army
for Research and Technology.................................... 8
Stanley, Jeffrey H., Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Air Force
for Science, Technology and Engineering........................ 10
Walker, Dr. Steven H., Director, Defense Advanced Research
Projects Agency................................................ 6
APPENDIX
Prepared Statements:
Hahn, RADM David J........................................... 62
Miller, Mary J............................................... 36
Russell, Dr. Thomas P........................................ 52
Stanley, Jeffrey H........................................... 67
Stefanik, Hon. Elise M....................................... 33
Walker, Dr. Steven H......................................... 44
Documents Submitted for the Record:
[There were no Documents submitted.]
Witness Responses to Questions Asked During the Hearing:
Mr. Lamborn.................................................. 89
Questions Submitted by Members Post Hearing:
Mr. Hice..................................................... 94
Mr. Lamborn.................................................. 94
Mr. Larsen................................................... 93
Ms. Speier................................................... 93
A REVIEW AND ASSESSMENT OF THE FISCAL YEAR 2019 BUDGET REQUEST FOR
DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY PROGRAMS
----------
House of Representatives,
Committee on Armed Services,
Subcommittee on Emerging Threats and Capabilities,
Washington, DC, Wednesday, March 14, 2018.
The subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 3:30 p.m., in
room 2118, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Elise M.
Stefanik (chairwoman of the subcommittee) presiding.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. ELISE M. STEFANIK, A REPRESENTATIVE
FROM NEW YORK, CHAIRWOMAN, SUBCOMMITTEE ON EMERGING THREATS AND
CAPABILITIES
Ms. Stefanik. The subcommittee will come to order.
Welcome to this important hearing entitled ``A Review and
Assessment of the Fiscal Year 2019 Budget Request for the
Department of Defense Science and Technology Programs.''
Defense Secretary Jim Mattis recently testified that,
quote: ``Our competitive edge has eroded in every domain of
warfare: air, land, sea, space, and cyber.'' End quote. And I
couldn't agree more. Our committee, and the Emerging Threats
and Capabilities Subcommittee in particular, has spent a
considerable amount of time reviewing and understanding
adversarial threats, most notably from China and Russia, while
also keeping an eye on emerging technology such as quantum
science, artificial intelligence [AI], nanotechnology,
synthetic biology, autonomy, and robotics.
We have seen troubling adversarial advances in warfighting
systems like hypersonics and directed energy, and adversarial
advances in enabling technologies, to include high-performance
computing and artificial intelligence. We have also learned
that many of our adversaries continue to increase their
research and development [R&D] budgets, and implement national-
level strategic plans.
Russia has increased their basic research budget by nearly
25 percent, and the Chinese have national-level plans for
science and technology, as well as an approach to lead the
world in AI by 2030.
All of these signs point to top-down government-driven
agendas that provide resources and road maps for strategic
collaboration between industry, academia, and civil society.
These efforts could propel Russia and China to continue to leap
ahead in many of the technology sectors we will talk about
today.
But adversarial dominance is not a foregone conclusion.
What we learn today and in future hearings must be translated
into action--to inform and reform the Department of Defense
[DOD] in support of national-level efforts in order that the
United States remains home to the world's leading experts,
researchers, and technological breakthroughs.
Artificial intelligence is one sweeping area that I am
particularly interested in from a national security
perspective. Next week, I plan to introduce standalone
legislation that will start the discussion on how we should
better organize our government to understand and leverage AI.
I look forward to working with my colleagues on the
committee, and also with the Department of Defense as we craft
solutions for this year's NDAA [National Defense Authorization
Act]. Given these challenges, I am very pleased to see a total
of $13.7 billion for science and technology [S&T] in the
Department of Defense budget request, an approximate $500
million increase, and 2.3 percent of the total defense budget.
But despite this increase, I remain concerned that our S&T
investments represent a small percentage of our overall defense
budget. To truly increase lethality and provide a superior
technological edge for our warfighters, we should ask ourselves
if 2.3 percent of the total defense budget is the correct
balance. A properly resourced science and technology enterprise
in the long run reduces risk, and when properly executed, can
generate efficiencies within the Department, something we need
to keep in mind amidst debates on sequestration and continuing
resolutions.
Now more than ever our S&T enterprise and investments play
a strategic role and are central to our national and economic
security. This hearing also marks our first open S&T event
since the National Defense Authorization Act directed the
reestablishment of the position of the Under Secretary of
Defense for Research and Engineering [R&E] within the
Department.
And as I have said in previous statements, I firmly believe
that the Under Secretary for R&E needs to be the prime mover to
drive change and foster innovation within the Department. A
primary mission of this office should be to provide distinct
direction and leadership to energize the defense industrial
base, the military services, combatant commanders, and the
Department of Defense labs. It must also guide newer
initiatives, such as the Strategic Capabilities Office, the
Defense Innovation Unit Experimental or DIUx, and even the
Algorithmic Warfare Working Group, and the Defense Digital
Service.
And while many of these new initiatives have created
tremendous momentum and energized the conversation about
changing ``the culture'' of the Department of Defense, much
more needs to be done to make these more than one-off quick
gains. If properly empowered and resourced, I also believe that
the Under Secretary for R&E will be in a unique position to
drive a national-level dialogue for S&T policy that will, in
addition to helping maintain a battlefield advantage, energize
our domestic industrial and innovation bases, and provide
technology jobs and opportunities across many of the sectors we
will talk about today.
So we have significant expectations, clearly, of Dr. Mike
Griffin and his office, but we do so while also offering our
support and confidence because the threats we face from our
adversaries demand that we energize and organize our government
to ensure that policy indeed keeps pace with technology.
So to help us with this important topic today, we welcome
five distinguished witnesses, starting with my left: Ms. Mary
Miller, Performing the Duties of the Assistant Secretary of
Defense for Research and Engineering [USD (R&E)]; Dr. Steven
Walker, Director of the Defense Advanced Research Projects
Agency, DARPA; Dr. Tom Russell, Deputy Assistant Secretary of
the Army for Research and Technology; Rear Admiral David Hahn,
Chief of Naval Research; and Mr. Jeff Stanley, Deputy Assistant
Secretary of the Air Force for Science, Technology, and
Engineering.
Welcome to all of our witnesses and we look forward to your
testimony. I want to welcome my friend and ranking member, Jim
Langevin, whose timing is indeed perfect.
And when he gets situated, I would like to recognize him
for any opening comments he would like to make.
Thank you, Jim, I know today has been a busy day for all of
us.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Stefanik can be found in the
Appendix on page 33.]
STATEMENT OF HON. JAMES R. LANGEVIN, A REPRESENTATIVE FROM
RHODE ISLAND, RANKING MEMBER, SUBCOMMITTEE ON EMERGING THREATS
AND CAPABILITIES
Mr. Langevin. Thank you, Madam Chair. It worked out well, I
actually literally just flew in a little while ago because of
the northeaster we received yesterday. I got snowed out and
wasn't able to get in until this afternoon.
So, anyway, welcome to our witnesses. Thank you all for
being here. And, regrettably, I understand Secretary Griffin
was unable to join us today, although I recognize that he was
just recently confirmed, and I understand his vision for
science and technology and innovation, as the first Under
Secretary of Research and Engineering, is paramount for the
subcommittee.
And I certainly look forward to engaging him in the very
near future. And I appreciate, though, that Ms. Miller is here,
that you are here representing the Office of the Secretary of
Defense, R&E enterprise, and it is good to see you again.
Today we begin consideration, fiscal year [FY] 2019 budget
request for S&T across the Department of Defense, the total is
$13.7 billion up from $13.2 billion requested in FY 2018. The
amount requested for advanced development and prototyping is
$20.8 billion, $3 billion more than requested in FY 2018, for a
total of $34.5 billion requested for R&E activities.
This budget request comes on the heels of the recently
released National Defense Strategy [NDS] that highlights
specific technological advancements that the U.S. needs to
leverage to maintain its warfighting edge. Many of these are in
areas this subcommittee supported over the years, including
artificial intelligence, directed energy, hypersonics, 3-D
printing, and autonomous systems.
The NDS also highlights long-term strategic competition
with China and Russia and the need for an unparalleled national
security innovation base. It is no secret that China is
employing measures that encroach upon, poach from, and steal
from us to further their objectives to be an R&E powerhouse and
degrade our warfighting edge.
This is utterly alarming and greatly affects our national
security. Unfortunately, China is not the only nation
conducting such activities. They are, however, one of the few
state actors that has coupled such tactics with considerable
money and other resources behind a national strategy that
involves a whole-of-government effort and leverages society to
promote indigenous innovation. If the U.S. is to remain a
global leader in technology, then we just can't play defense,
we must also play offense.
Our efforts to deter and counter China and other actors
that threaten our ability to maintain our technological edge
are absolutely critical, as are investments in science and
research, prototyping, and other development efforts to advance
warfighting capabilities and to promote deterrence. No less
important are investments in STEAM [science, technology,
engineering, the arts, and mathematics] education and in
programs that develop junior talent into future tech leaders.
And the implementation of strategic policies that promote a
sound economic and political environment on U.S. soil where
global collaboration, discovery, innovation, public
institutions, and industry can thrive.
We must also balance participation in the global S&T and
innovation environment with protection of national security
interests. Clearly, this cannot be done through DOD alone,
however. DOD has a significant role to play as a customer and
driver of S&T innovation. DOD S&T ecosystem includes science
technology and reinvention laboratories that house some of our
Nation's greatest assets and people. It also includes DARPA,
which is invested in some of the pie-in-the-sky ideas that came
to fruition and change how we fight and how we live.
They have absolutely lived up to what our expectations are
to invest in those high-risk, high-payoff initiatives, and
avoid technological surprise wherever possible. Over the course
of many years, Congress has worked tirelessly to provide
authorities and legislation that enable these institutions to
be utilized to the fullest potential by the Department. Tools
such as the Rapid Innovation Fund and Small Business Innovation
Research [SBIR] program have been provided to DOD to leverage
commercial innovation and have proven beneficial to that end.
DIUx and other entities have stood up to enable the
Department to make use of commercial technology and tech
advancements. However, I believe DOD can make better use of
these tools as well. DOD also administers the research and
education program for historically black colleges and
universities and national defense education programs, which I
am pleased to say, received funding increases this year,
although I believe those increases should be bigger. These
programs enhance DOD's S&T efforts and produce top talent for
the future workforce.
The NDS framework and the recent reorganization by DOD by
Congress to separate program acquisition and sustainment [A&S]
from research and engineering provide the Department an
opportunity to rethink how it approaches delivering the most
advanced capabilities to the warfighter in the near, mid, and
long term, and to bridge the ``valley of death.''
In the era of strategic state competition, it is time to
get creative, and we must outsmart our competitors and our
adversaries. Today I look forward to hearing about how the NDS
is shaping DOD's R&D landscape; how the budget request reflects
an investment being made that serves DOD's interest as both the
consumer and driver of technology advancements; and how DOD is
leveraging its ecosystem to the fullest extent so that we may
remain the global technology leader.
With that, I want to thank you, Madam Chair, for putting
this hearing together. And with that, I yield back.
Ms. Stefanik. Thank you, Jim. We now turn to our witnesses.
Thank you for being here today. Your written statements were
submitted for the record, so please summarize your opening
comments within 5 minutes or less. And I will start with
Assistant Secretary Miller. You have 5 minutes.
STATEMENT OF MARY J. MILLER, PERFORMING THE DUTIES OF ASSISTANT
SECRETARY OF DEFENSE FOR RESEARCH AND ENGINEERING, OFFICE OF
THE UNDER SECRETARY OF DEFENSE FOR RESEARCH AND ENGINEERING
Ms. Miller. Chairwoman Stefanik, Ranking Member Langevin,
and distinguished members of this subcommittee, thank you for
this opportunity to discuss the state of the Department's
science and technology program for fiscal year 2019.
I am proud to be here today representing the newly
confirmed Under Secretary of Defense for Research and
Engineering, Dr. Mike Griffin, and the scientists and engineers
within the DOD S&T enterprise. We are in an era of constant
competition. We see nations like China and Russia investing
heavily in research, trying to close the technology gap with
the U.S. We see high-end military technology that has diffused
to many countries that would have been unable to develop it
themselves, even reaching some nonstate actors.
In a world with near equal access to technology, speed is
becoming the discriminator. Not just speed of discovery, but
speed of delivery. How fast we can develop, adopt, or leverage
technology to meet the warfighters' needs, and get it into
their hands will determine our ability to outpace our
adversaries.
Under Dr. Griffin's leadership, I look forward to
instilling within the Department a culture that embraces a more
agile approach to development and delivery. You have been
briefed countless times that our adversaries have spent decades
watching us, how we conduct our warfare, how we fight. They
have seen our equipment, watched our tactics, techniques, and
procedures, and determined our concepts of operations. They
have assessed both our strengths and vulnerabilities and
strategically invested in capabilities to mitigate our
advantages and exploit areas of perceived weakness.
China, for example, has sustained increased defense
spending since the early 2000s, with the fundamental goal of
dominating the next generation of military and civilian
technologies by 2050, making them both a military and an
economic superpower that prioritize the research and
development in areas that they believe will help them achieve
this goal. Areas such as advanced materials and manufacturing,
hypersonics weapons, advanced computing, artificial
intelligence, and robotics, to name a few.
Similarly, Russia has reemerged on the world stage and is
pursuing force modernization while actively seeking to
manipulate and dominate the global information environment.
Meanwhile, North Korea conducts cyber operations to achieve a
range of offensive effects with little or no warning, and
continues to flaunt their emerging ballistic missile
capabilities on a frequent basis. These threats span the air,
land, sea, space, and cyber domains, which have all experienced
dramatic capability advancements throughout the world. These
advancements, coupled with our adversaries' commitment to a
pace of prototyping, experimentation, and fielding that far
outstrips our own, present a formidable challenge to our U.S.
forces operating around the globe.
In this competitive environment, the Department must pay
much more attention to future readiness, and ensure our
conventional overmatch remains over time. We must be willing
and able to tap into commercial research, recognize its
military potential, and develop new capabilities and
operational and organizational constructs to employ them faster
than our competitors. This would not be possible without our
DOD scientists and engineers who are doing groundbreaking and
innovative work. They are embracing these hard challenges our
military faces every day, seeking to better understand the
warfighters' problems and working diligently on affordable and
effective solutions.
The Department is addressing critical technology and
capability gaps through a combination of adaptation of existing
systems, such as efforts conducted through the Strategic
Capabilities Office, and the development and introduction of
innovative new technologies through our DOD labs and centers,
DARPA, and DIUx.
We recognize that our adversaries present us with a
challenge of a sophisticated, evolving threat. We are prepared
to meet that challenge and restore the technical overmatch of
the United States Armed Forces through focus and innovation.
Thank you for your strong interest in, and support of, the
Department's science and technology efforts as we work to
discover, design, and deliver technology capabilities our
warfighters will need now and in the future. I appreciate this
opportunity to testify on this important issue, and I look
forward to your questions. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Miller can be found in the
Appendix on page 36.]
Ms. Stefanik. Thank you. Dr. Walker.
STATEMENT OF DR. STEVEN H. WALKER, DIRECTOR, DEFENSE ADVANCED
RESEARCH PROJECTS AGENCY
Dr. Walker. Can you hear me? Is it on? Okay.
Thank you, Chairwoman Stefanik and Ranking Member Langevin,
for having me here today. For 60 years DARPA has held to the
singular enduring mission to develop breakthrough technologies
and capabilities for national security. The genesis of that
mission and of DARPA itself dates back to a commitment that
President Eisenhower made that the United States would always
be the initiator of strategic surprise.
Working with innovators inside and outside of government,
DARPA has repeatedly delivered on that mission, transforming
revolutionary concepts and even seeming impossibilities into
practical capabilities for the U.S. and allied warfighter. In
the six decades since DARPA was established the world has
changed dramatically. These changes include some remarkable and
even astonishing scientific and technological advances, that if
wisely and purposefully used, have the potential not only to
ensure ongoing U.S. military superiority and security, but also
to catalyze societal and economic advances.
At the same time, the world is experiencing deeply
disturbing geopolitical shifts that pose real threats to U.S.
preeminence and stability. These dueling trends of
unprecedented opportunity and risk deeply informed DARPA's
strategic investments decision moving forward.
My priorities for investment are very much aligned with
President Trump's National Security Strategy and with Secretary
Mattis' National Defense Strategy. So my priorities for
investment in the future are defending the homeland, number
one, from varied threats, to include developing cyber-
deterrence capabilities, bio-surveillance and bio-protection
technologies, and the ability to sense and defend against
weapons of mass terror.
Number two. Deterring and prevailing against peer
competitors in Europe and Asia will require new thinking. The
U.S. can no longer be dominant across all scenarios, but it
needs to be highly lethal in select ones. Realizing new
capabilities across all the physical domains will be important,
and hypersonics will be a key technology there, but we also
have to look at space and the electromagnetic spectrum domains.
They are going to be very important for that fight.
Number three. Effectively prosecuting stabilization efforts
across the globe requires us to get better at fighting
differently and in different environments. Capabilities to
address gray zone conflict, and 3-D [three-dimensional] city-
scale warfare, along with the development of rigorous and
reliable models to predict adversarial moves will be critical.
Last, but definitely not least, is number four,
foundational research in science and technology. This will
underlie all of DARPA's grounded pursuits, and is what makes
possible never-before-seen capabilities. We must continue to do
what I think DARPA does better than anyone, and that is to
follow where technology can lead us to solve the country's
toughest challenges.
One of the foundational technology paths we are on
currently is to help re-create advanced electronics. DARPA has
had a key role over the years in advancing the state of the art
in advanced electronics, especially in semiconductors. Today
the advanced electronics industry is at an inflection point;
design and fabrication [of] semiconductors is becoming ever
more difficult and costly.
China, which is significantly behind the U.S. now, has
decided to invest huge sums of government-directed private
capital to acquire today's onshore semiconductor design and
manufacturing capabilities. In 2018, DARPA launched the
electronic resurgence initiative, or ERI, which aims to create
leap-ahead technology that will develop new materials, new
circuit design tools, and new system architectures and
manufacturing capabilities for the U.S. semiconductor industry
and for our defense sector, to keep us out in front.
As DARPA looks to its next 60 years, it promises to
continue to be a bold, risk-tolerant investor in high-impact
technologies so the Nation can be the first to develop and
adopt the novel capabilities made possible by such work. With
the continued support of Congress, and especially this
committee, as well as the backing of the Pentagon and my S&T
partners on this panel, we will succeed. Thanks.
[The prepared statement of Dr. Walker can be found in the
Appendix on page 44.]
Ms. Stefanik. Thank you, Dr. Walker.
Dr. Russell.
STATEMENT OF DR. THOMAS P. RUSSELL, DEPUTY ASSISTANT SECRETARY
OF THE ARMY FOR RESEARCH AND TECHNOLOGY
Dr. Russell. Chairman Stefanik, Ranking Member Langevin,
and distinguished members of the subcommittee, I would like to
thank you for the opportunity to discuss the United States
Army's program for science and technology for fiscal year 2019.
This committee plays a vital role in supporting Army S&T, as
the program seeks to ensure the Army can operate and dominate
in complex environments.
These environments pose a variety of challenges
characterized by adaptive adversaries employing conventional,
unconventional, and hybrid methods designed to challenge U.S.
national security. The Army and the joint future operational
environment will demand a land power dominance with increased
flexibility, adaptability, and speed of responsiveness.
As a means to address current capability shortfalls and
outpace anticipated threats, the Army S&T strategy pursues a
foundational technology development for future, and leverages
organic capacity and the capacity of our partners. Army S&T is
the only portfolio focused in the Army's future investments. It
makes investments today in fundamental science and technology
initiatives that will ensure breakthroughs that will yield
affordable, decisive, and advantages for the future.
The S&T portfolio is now being rebalanced to meet the
Army's needs to prepare for and deter possible near-peer
threats in the mid and far term. Based on the Chief of Staff of
the Army's guide, the S&T community with our stakeholders,
reviewed the entire S&T portfolio and concluded that the
existing portfolio was out of balance, with too great of a
focus on the near term, and technology developments focused on
the counterinsurgency fight versus the near-peer threats.
The Secretary and the Chief of Staff's modernization
initiatives have further focused the S&T program on the Army's
top priorities, while maintaining vital long-term research into
the cutting edges of military relevant science. As a result,
greater than a billion dollars in S&T funding was redirected
from near-term efforts and projects to mid-term projects,
reducing investments in counterinsurgency programs, and
increasing and accelerating investments in technologies to
prepare for and deter possible near-peer threats.
This portfolio rebalance is impacting budget years 2019
through 2023, which will allow S&T to maintain a balanced
portfolio investment to guide breakthrough science and research
and technology innovation. The Army's S&T program fully
supports the six key modernization priorities: long range
precision fires, next generation combat vehicles, future
vertical lift, network/C3I [command, control, communications,
and intelligence], air and missile defense, and soldier
lethality.
S&T also pursues the broader basic and applied research
that will create new capabilities and prevent technological
surprise, including, but not limited to eight key technology
investments: directed energy, artificial intelligence,
robotics, internet of things, virtual reality, energetic
materials, and ultra-design materials.
In addition, state-of-the-art technical facilities are
essential to ensuring that the Army's S&T enterprise is
positioned for discovery and maturation of critical
technologies. An enterprise-wide approach to modernize is
centered on three primary thrusts: organic technical
infrastructure, informing construction of our partner
facilities, and infrastructure collaboration such as the ARL
[U.S. Army Research Laboratory] open campus business model.
Our S&T strategy provides the unifying framework for Army
labs and our industry and academic partners to collaboratively
mature new technologies. In addition to the 12,000 scientists
and engineers in our S&T enterprise, the Army labs and the
research development engineering centers are critical assets
for the Army. They have delivered key capabilities and support
of ongoing combat operations and will continue to do so in the
future.
I welcome your questions.
[The prepared statement of Dr. Russell can be found in the
Appendix on page 52.]
Ms. Stefanik. Thank you, Dr. Russell. Rear Admiral Hahn.
STATEMENT OF RADM DAVID J. HAHN, USN, CHIEF OF NAVAL RESEARCH
Admiral Hahn. Well, good afternoon, and thank you for
having me. Chairwoman, Ranking Member, and members of the
subcommittee, thank you for your leadership. So the opening
comments of the Chair I think provide a pretty good summary of
the state of affairs. And I think the significant term there is
the advantage has eroded.
Those who have gone before you in the seats that you sit
in, in what used to be called the Naval Affairs Committee, back
in the year 1946 were going through a similar conversation
about how do we sustain science and technology and all that we
had learned throughout the conflict of World War II to ensure
that we don't repeat those same lessons going forward.
So that group, the Naval Affairs Committee, stood up the
Office of Naval Research. And I find the words in the
legislation that created the Office of Naval Research continues
to provide us our mission statement today. So I think it is
important that we think about that for a moment. And I am going
to read those words to you because that is what gives us our
charge.
So in your legislation, it says that my charge is to plan,
foster, and encourage scientific research, in recognition of
its paramount importance, as related to the maintenance of
future naval power, and the preservation of national security.
So those words echo the theme that as a maritime nation without
naval power in the present and in the future, we will find
ourselves at a disadvantage.
The National Defense Strategy lays out pretty clearly, I
think, that naval power is going to be very important in this
great power competition that we find ourselves in yet again. So
it is my charge to figure out how naval power is going to get
generated through the elements of science and technology.
I think it is pretty clear to the members of the committee
that naval power comes from a combination in balance of
capacity, capability, and lethality, and science and technology
are at the heart of every one of those elements of naval power.
Your United States Navy and Marine Corps is going to play the
away game every single time.
So my charge is to make sure that we are the first to field
to take advantage of the speed of technology that is being
created each day and to figure out a way to get that into
programs of record where that capability gets to scale, and do
it in a more and more lethal and a more and more creative way
every single day, leveraging all those pieces of the puzzle
that got put together back again in our experience in World War
II, and that we leverage going forward to today.
And you mentioned the three legs of that stool: it is
academia, it is our industry partners, and it is our government
workforce that understands how naval warfighting looks, and
what technologies will apply to the naval warfight in the
future. And those are the ones we invest in and try to carry
forward.
So there is good news here, right? Your leadership and your
investment in a continued and steady way across the years has
created a workforce of over 4,000 in my part of the enterprise
and an analogous number and the same kind of talent across this
whole team here. And it is our job to keep that team moving in
the same direction, to leverage each other's investments and
make the best of it.
So I am happy to take all the questions. I look forward to
the dialogue. And I couldn't be more proud than to sit here
with the members of my team. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Admiral Hahn can be found in the
Appendix on page 62.]
Ms. Stefanik. Thank you. Mr. Stanley.
STATEMENT OF JEFFREY H. STANLEY, DEPUTY ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF
THE AIR FORCE FOR SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY AND ENGINEERING
Mr. Stanley. Chairwoman Stefanik, Ranking Member Langevin,
members of the subcommittee and staff, I am pleased to have the
opportunity to testify on the Air Force's FY 2019 science and
technology program. Challenges and threats to our national
security are evolving rapidly. In some cases our near-peer
competitors are matching or exceeding our Nation in
capabilities.
The Air Force has taken action on multiple fronts to change
the way we leverage science and technology. The Secretary of
the Air Force recently commissioned a broad-reaching initiative
to assess our science and technology investment strategy to
ensure our dominance across air, space, and cyber. Because of a
variety of factors, the Defense Department is no longer driving
the industrial base like it did 10 or 20 years ago.
The Secretary's initiative is looking across industry,
academia, the national laboratories, and other agencies to see
where we need to invest in technology, and how we might change
our processes and business approach. Change is necessary. And
the Air Force is committed to ensuring our warfighters have the
best technological advantage we can give them.
Additionally, we have pivoted in several game-changing
technology areas to amplify the enduring attributes of air
power: speed, range, flexibility, and precision. To do this,
the Air Force is partner with our other services and agencies
to accelerate the delivery of these technologies. We partner
with DARPA on our hypersonics developments and initiated two
follow-on developments. We recently completed a directed energy
flight plan and are in lockstep with the Navy and the Army to
demonstrate mature high-energy lasers, high-powered microwaves
for base defense, aircraft self-protection, and other tactical
situations.
Attritable systems like the low-cost attritable aircraft
technology effort will change future air battles. Teaming with
commercial industry, the Air Force has leveraged several
advances in additive and 3-D manufacturing technologies,
research into limited-life design methodologies, and advanced
composites to create a family of vehicles like LCAAT [Low Cost
Attritable Aircraft Technology], which are not only lethal but
impose costs on our adversaries.
The space industry landscape continues to change and we are
aggressively pursuing low-cost access to orbit for payloads and
microsatellites with programs like EAGLE [ESPA Augmented GEO
Laboratory Experiment], which will launch next month. It is not
only the technologies in which the Air Force invests that is
important, but the pace at which the Air Force innovates and
responds.
Global competition has changed the speed at which the world
around us operates. The Air Force recognizes that it is not the
country that innovates the best, but rather innovates and
applies technology the fastest.
I want to thank the Congress for the recent NDAA language
regarding prototyping. Prototyping allows us to bridge the gap
between science and technology and programs of record, and
deliver capabilities at the speed the warfighter needs.
Lastly, the global competition for technology and the pace
of technology development directly translates to the workforce.
The workforce for science, technology, and engineering
continues to be our most important resource. This is a national
issue. And the demand for technical talent is far outpacing
degree production in the United States.
We are appreciative of the continued support from Congress
through flexible personnel authorities. The Air Force continues
to utilize these authorities to ensure we attract and retain
the world-class workforce capable of providing these
revolutionary capabilities for our warfighters.
In summary, as the Air Force budget request highlights, the
Air Force senior leadership is committed to science and
technology and driving innovation across our enterprise. I
thank the committee for the opportunity to testify today, and
look forward to your questions.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Stanley can be found in the
Appendix on page 67.]
Ms. Stefanik. Thank you, Mr. Stanley. Before we get to
questions, I ask unanimous consent that non-subcommittee
members be allowed to participate in today's briefing after all
the subcommittee members have had any opportunity to ask
questions. Is there objection?
Without objection, non-subcommittee members will be
recognized at the appropriate time for 5 minutes.
Moving along to questions. As I mentioned in my opening
statement, I plan to introduce standalone legislation next week
on artificial intelligence, and I understand that the
Department is currently working an AI strategy being led by the
Under Secretary for R&E's office.
So, Ms. Miller, can you provide this committee with an
update on that initiative and are there ways that we can be
helpful with this and similar efforts?
Ms. Miller. Yes, ma'am. So I guess it was last September,
we decided that, you know, we needed to start pulling together
what everybody was doing in the world of artificial
intelligence within the Department of Defense. And we had an
opening conference and invited people within the Department
that were working in artificial intelligence and some external
folks to come in and tell us where they are.
We were surprised by the breadth that this area has
expanded because everybody has a way to use artificial
intelligence, they can envision it. We started doing weekly
meetings with people within the Department of Defense, over 40
organizations, over 150 people, typically, any given week, that
come to talk about what they are doing and how they are
investing and what their needs are.
Through this effort we have been trying to shape an
understanding of what we are spending our resources in and then
to try to organize those efforts into something that would
apply to the National Defense Strategy, and where we need to
go. You have to understand what people are doing and then
figure out how you need to shape it into the end state of what
the Department needs.
So we have got five aspects that we are looking--five goals
that we are looking at. One is foundational. We need to
establish a workforce that is--understanding artificial
intelligence. We need to complete partnerships. We need to
understand and acquire data so you can actually train your
intelligent agent. We need to develop standards and the policy
to be able to use artificial intelligence, in many of the ways
that the Department would need.
Our second goal is to be able to attain technical
superiority. So, the foundations of what AI is. Machine
learning that we are working on. Data analytics. Robotics.
Advanced computing that allows us to exercise artificial
intelligence. And how humans and AI can work together to give
better capabilities to the warfighter.
We have looked at how we can apply third goal. How we apply
AI to business functions. Because the Secretary of Defense has
made business reform his number three priority in the
Department. The more we can save through our business reform,
the more we can spend on achieving and attaining that lethality
that he desires for the Department of Defense. So we are
looking at how do you apply AI to not only training and
education, but finances, the medical field, and what we do in
contracts, acquisition, and legal activities.
And looking at affected intelligence analysis. You have
heard about Project Maven, that is clearly kind of our set of
how data analytics and artificial intelligence can better
inform a warfighter. So we have this whole intel [intelligence]
side of this as well. And ultimately we are trying to get to
lethality, and that is where we take artificial intelligence
and applying it to what we are doing in command and control and
communications and survivability in the breadth of what the
Department is doing.
Ms. Stefanik. I want to give the other witnesses an
opportunity to answer questions as well on this topic. Dr.
Walker, can you--thank you. Ms. Miller.
Ms. Miller. Uh-huh.
Ms. Stefanik. Dr. Walker, can you discuss your AI efforts
within DARPA, and then understanding we are in an unclassified
forum, are there any adversarial concerns regarding AI that are
on your radar that you can share with us today?
Dr. Walker. Sure. DARPA has been involved in AI since 1960,
when we wrote the first--our information office director wrote
the first paper, Man-Computer Symbiosis, so we have had a hand
in much of the development along the way. We are really focused
now, much of the commercial sector is applying what we call
machine learning, which is sort of what we look at as second-
generation AI.
What we are focused on now is third generation, and that
is, you know, machine learning requires, you know, large data
sets, you train--it really should be called machine training.
You are training a machine over a large data set to recognize
patterns, et cetera. What we are focused on is third-generation
AI where you are--and the environment is changing, and so the
data set is changing, and how does the machine react to that?
Can it still give you a good answer? And so we have a program
called Explainable AI that is not just spitting out an answer
with a probability of correctness, but actually looking at--the
machine gives you an answer and it tells you how it got to that
answer, why it came up with that answer. That is one example of
a program in our third-generation effort.
Another one is lifelong learning for machines. And so when
a piece of data changes, the environment changes, how does the
machine respond to that and how does it get back up on a
correct answer? In terms of your second part of your question,
what is the adversary doing, it is well known that adversaries,
as well as others, are able to manipulate images and videos
using AI techniques.
We have a program called Metaphor, which is looking at
applying AI techniques to understand when images, when videos
have been tampered with, to provide some truth-telling in that
scenario.
Ms. Stefanik. Thank you. Mr. Langevin.
Mr. Langevin. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman. I certainly look
forward to cosponsoring the legislation that you are
introducing. And, you know, I also hope we are--we talk about
standards that we are also proceeding with well-thought-out
caution as well that we understand where this is going and
doesn't get too far ahead of us that we can't control it, as we
saw recently with the experiment that got shut down with the
Facebook AI talking to each other, and started talking to each
other in a language that we didn't know what it was. And they
had to shut it down. And, again, understanding where this is
going and proceeding, we both, you know, trying to innovate as
much as possible, but also make sure it doesn't get away from
us.
I am going to switch over to another area, just more
broadly to all witnesses. How has the National Defense Strategy
shaped how we think about RDT&E [research, development, test
and evaluation], and how does the fiscal year 2019 budget
request reflect a new approach that is different from the third
offset strategy developed in the DOD under former Secretary of
Defense Ash Carter. And what is the status of long-range
research and development planning activities?
I want to start with Ms. Miller.
Ms. Miller. So I would tell that you the National Defense
Strategy, we were part of the development of that and had a lot
of discussions primarily on where the Department needs to go to
modernize, and what we needed to think in that area. We have
started to resonate and it can't be just about systems anymore,
it needs to be about missions that have to be accomplished. And
in that context, when you look at what is out there today and
what needs to be out there in the future to accomplish the
mission, that is where you start to see science and technology
play a larger role, and you will start to see investments that
will be mission oriented to give us options. The Secretary of
Defense has asked for many options to prosecute these missions,
and that is what we will bring forward.
Regarding the long-range research and development program
plan, we intended all along to do this on a quadrennial basis
to get people together, to think outside of the box, and to not
be constrained by how we currently fight. And we do intend to
do that, it will probably be 3 years from now.
Mr. Langevin. Thank you.
Dr. Walker. All right. To follow on to Ms. Miller, for me,
DARPA is looking at the NDS very closely, especially in the
area of lethality, and applying--trying to think through how to
deter and prevail our peer competitors in key areas of the
globe. One of the areas that we have been working in and will
continue in a bigger way to work is hypersonics, to enable that
greater lethality. We are working with our partners to do that,
and I hope to talk a little more about that, but I want to give
them a chance.
Dr. Russell. So the question was also about the long-range
research development planning. I think you will see in the Army
S&T program it has really been rebalanced to look towards a
near-peer threat, and it is really a threat-based approach,
looking at what are the challenges we face in a land battle.
And the focus has been driven towards six modernization
priorities. And the six modernization priorities were designed
around the ideas of the fundamental functions of warfighting on
land, which is how do I move, shoot, communicate, and protect.
And in those areas there are applications or science
technology programs which are looking at, how do I extend the
range of artillery, how do I extend the missile range so that
we can actually have a longer range precision fires, and as
well as a multidomain, so looking at land-based anti-ship
missiles. In the defensive area, we are all working areas of
high-energy lasers and so there is some activities looking at
mobile SHORAD, which is short range air defense, as well as
high-energy lasers for tactical vehicle demonstrators for IFPC
[Indirect Fire Protection Capability] Block 2. I just want to
end there and give my colleagues a chance to answer as well.
Admiral Hahn. Gentleman, Mr. Langevin, thank you for the
question. The National Defense Strategy brings into pretty
sharp focus for us that we are in a high-end fight, that is
where we need to focus the efforts of our technology
implementation onboard our platforms. It also puts a premium on
speed. So I associate myself with all the remarks that you
heard about this topic so far, but it is the speed of moving
that technology at scale to the platform so we get it in the
hands of the sailors or Marines or the airmen. That is what
this National Defense Strategy has done. It juiced this whole
process. We are thinking differently about how we create
pathways to move this technology through the snake, if you
will, to get it all the way to the end point.
So that is what has got us thinking hard every day and
looking for new opportunities. And I would just close with the
fact that instead of being a, let's go manage risk, this is
more of an opportunity-based focus. Let's find the
opportunities. Let's figure out how we take them, put them into
evidence, and create that deterrence so that when they look at
us, they understand, here is what you are up against.
Thank you.
Mr. Stanley. Sir, I just amplify what Admiral Hahn just
talked about is the speed. The NDS is clear on the use of
experimentation prototyping and advocating for that. And I
think in the Air Force we have wholly embraced prototyping as a
way to speed delivery to the warfighter, and I think that is
going to be key in the future.
Mr. Langevin. Thank you. And hopefully we will go to a
second round.
Ms. Stefanik. Ms. Cheney.
Ms. Cheney. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman, and thank all the
witnesses for being here today.
Dr. Walker, I wanted to ask you, you mentioned in both your
written testimony, and here today that we are no longer
dominant, I think you used the phrase, ``across all
scenarios.'' And I wondered if you can elaborate on that a
little bit, and talk specifically about, have decisions been
made that we won't attempt to achieve dominance, that we
determine that there are certain areas where we simply are
going to accept a lack of dominance, accept being second to
someone else.
Dr. Walker. I think what I meant by that was--really in the
context of lethality trying to think through new warfighting
constructs that would allow us to really be more effective, to
have multiple constructs that we can set up against our
adversaries so that they are surprised, they are not
anticipating the next fighter aircraft or the next tank they
know that we are building. But we are putting systems together
in new ways that will surprise them in the end. And so trying
to think through not the next system, as Mary said, not
developing necessarily the next system, but develop--focus on
the mission and understand how we can put multiple systems
together in different ways and surprise the adversary.
Ms. Cheney. Maybe we will have an opportunity to follow up
in a closed setting about that particular issue.
Dr. Walker. Sure.
Ms. Cheney. And in particular areas where we may now decide
that we are going to seek dominance.
And in my second question, I am not quite sure to whom I
should direct this, but it is about hypersonics and the extent
to which our obligations under the INF [Intermediate-Range
Nuclear Forces] Treaty are having an impact as we are looking
at design, as we are looking at testing.
To what extent are those imposing restrictions on our
testing of that system could--I am not sure whose question that
is.
Dr. Walker. I think we are certainly conscious of the INF
Treaty. We are developing hypersonic systems that would be
compliant with that.
Ms. Cheney. And so I guess the converse of that would be if
we were no longer the sole nation guided by, bound by the INF
Treaty, we would have a wider range of testing, we might be
interested in doing with respect, and able to do with respect
to hypersonics?
Dr. Walker. That is fair.
Ms. Cheney. Okay. Thank you very much. I yield back.
Ms. Stefanik. Mr. Larsen.
Mr. Larsen. Thank you, Madam Chair. Ms. Miller, the budget
for science and technology represents about 2.3 percent of the
total budget, is that about right?
Ms. Miller. Yes.
Mr. Larsen. Is that enough? You have to answer more quickly
than that, I only have 5 minutes.
Ms. Miller. I will tell you that, yes, we could do with
more. Right now you have an increasing top line, thanks to the
administration.
Mr. Larsen. Right.
Ms. Miller. Looking favorably on the Department of Defense.
The majority of that money did not go into the science and
technology, it went into getting us whole for readiness, and
that was the priority. As we invest in science and technology,
we need to have the money to take it out of science and
technology into programs of record, and we have been having
that conflict of maintaining a ready force and being able to
pull technology into new systems.
Mr. Larsen. And I understand Secretary Mattis' concerns on
readiness and the O&M [operations and maintenance], but it
seems that we have been ringing the bell a little bit, and
we've heard about it here today about the investments our
competitors are making. And yet, I know there is more money in
some parts of the science and technology budgets, but not in
all parts. And I think there is a percentage that it may be
lower than it was in the 2000s when I first came here. I have
got to double check that number, it is a long time ago, and my
memory is getting bad, but it might be lower as a percentage.
So I guess I just want to--if we are truly concerned about
this, it seems, since we have lifted the top lines, that
science and technology needs to have a higher priority at the
Department than it is getting.
Ms. Miller. I would say the fact that we have an Under
Secretary for Research and Engineering who is 3 weeks and 1 day
in the job, as we build the next budget, you will certainly see
his influence.
Mr. Larsen. I will make a note of that.
Admiral Hahn, can you talk about the impetus for the
establishment of the Robotarium at Georgia Tech?
Admiral Hahn. You have that right, the Robotarium.
Mr. Larsen. Okay.
Admiral Hahn. So, clearly, if we can provide an
opportunity, a sandbox, if you will, where we can get vehicles
in a setting where they can be operated safely by a number of--
a number of folks remotely who may be coming from different
spots in the United States, either locally or all the way
across CONUS [contiguous United States], to be able to iterate
our way through the use of robotics in a variety of scenarios
across a number of domains, we are going to learn faster. So
the Robotarium investment created that ecosystem, if you will.
Mr. Larsen. That is at Georgia Tech, and that is--so is it
just ONR [Office of Naval Research] money, or is it university
money?
Admiral Hahn. Now, there is some National Science
Foundation money there as well. Other contributions are
invested in there, and it is probably not the only place we
should be doing that, frankly, because this is an area where we
get the smart people really helping us iterate our way through
how are we going to work through this manned, unmanned teaming?
How do we get vehicles working together? So any opportunity to
make that a more prevalent sort of a sandbox approach in other
places is certainly welcome.
Mr. Larsen. Yeah, it is something that has interested me,
so I'm glad to hear you are interested in maybe replicating the
concept or growing the concept, and it is worth exploring.
Dr. Walker, as far as DARPA's--not your specific plans, but
are you still--do you still see yourselves as the 10- to 30-
year look part of our research team in the Department of
Defense?
Dr. Walker. Yes, we do.
Mr. Larsen. Longer term.
Dr. Walker. Yes, we do.
Mr. Larsen. And do you feel that you can take enough risk
in order to make mistakes in order to be successful on a long-
term look, or do you feel pulled back at all?
Dr. Walker. No, I do feel like we have a risk-tolerant
culture, we don't set out to fail, but we do fail along the
way. And we know we are having impact when we do because we are
reaching.
Mr. Larsen. Uh-huh. Yeah. And I think that is enough for
me. That's great. Appreciate it. Thank you.
Ms. Stefanik. Mr. Lamborn.
Mr. Lamborn. Thank you. Thank you all for what you are
doing.
Ms. Miller, I have a question for you first. Last year I
worked on the provision that would allow the new IP [internet
protocol] office to address IP data rights on SBIR transitions,
including serving as a liaison between DOD and SBIR companies
when IP issues arise.
Could I please have an update on how we are implementing
this provision?
Ms. Miller. Sadly, I will have to take that for the record.
The SBIR office will become part of the USD(R&E), it currently
has not been attached to that. It belonged to the small
business office, and so I don't have that information with me.
[The information referred to can be found in the Appendix
on page 89.]
Mr. Lamborn. Okay. Then please take that for the record.
And hopefully you can answer this part as well. I am also
interested in your implementation of NDAA section 1710, which
started a pilot program to streamline the commercialization of
SBIR and STTR [Small Business Technology Transfer program]
products and services, including encouraging a multiple award
contract for these products and services. Can you give me an
update on that?
Ms. Miller. Again, I will have to take that for the record,
sir. I am not prepared to discuss it.
[The information referred to can be found in the Appendix
on page 89.]
Mr. Lamborn. Okay. I will look forward to that and thank
you for offering to do that.
And then, Dr. Walker and Mr. Stanley, I have a question on
space situational awareness and battle management command and
control. What is being done to fix these two things, these two
important issues, and how quickly will we close the gaps?
Dr. Walker. Well, sir, on battle management command and
control, we are about to start a new program called Black Jack,
which is looking at developing a large constellation of LEO
[low Earth orbit] satellites that will provide the ability to
command and control, ISR [intelligence, surveillance, and
reconnaissance], and other missions. We are going to do this by
leveraging the commercial sector and plugging into what they
are doing.
And so this program is starting--it is starting with the
Air Force. AFRL [Air Force Research Laboratory] is a full
partner, and the Air Force Space Command is very interested in
the concept for trying to integrate space and the tactical
warfight in a much bigger way than we do today.
Mr. Lamborn. That is good to hear.
Mr. Stanley. Sir, as you know, space has become a very
contested territory for us. We have set priorities in our
investment in building a resilient multilayer space
architecture. One of the prototyping programs we are doing
right now is called Global Lightning, which is utilizing
commercial satellites to do our space situational awareness and
communication structure. It is a prototyping program right now
to demonstrate the feasibility. Those are the kinds of efforts
we have underway to build that resilient architecture we will
need in the future.
Mr. Lamborn. That is really great to hear. I am glad that
you all are working diligently on that and I appreciate it. And
I will take some answers from you on the record when you are
able to get back to us, and I appreciate it.
I yield back the balance of my time.
Ms. Stefanik. Mr. Veasey.
Mr. Veasey. Thank you, Madam Chair.
I wanted to ask specifically about some of the technologies
that you are concerned about that our adversaries may have and
how you feel that we are being able to, I guess, rise to the
challenge of being able to bring us up to speed technological-
wise on some of our systems.
I know, for instance, that there has been a lot of
discussion and talk out there that the Chinese and Russians,
that they are able to get certain systems up and going while we
are still sort of working on things and still going through the
technology aspects of that. I didn't know if you had any sort
of insight on that at all?
Yes.
Dr. Walker. Sir, the one technology that keeps coming up in
my mind that I get concerned about is biology just because of
the--I mean, there are several reasons, but the fast pace of
tech development in that field. We at DARPA started a
biological technologies office about 4 years ago because of
this very issue. One of our core missions is to prevent
technological surprise, and so we want to be ahead of the game.
So we have, just as an example, a program called Safe Genes,
which is looking at understanding how gene editing actually
works and then developing capabilities to reverse it as well as
prevent it from occurring in the wild if we need to because our
adversaries have done something.
And so this is a program. It is an unclassified program. It
is a basic research program at this point. But, again, it is
DARPA trying to understand the technology so that we are not
surprised by it.
Admiral Hahn. If I could just pile onto that real quick,
sir. It is not any specific technology that causes me concern,
because every technology that we are interested in, China is
interested in. They leverage much of our basic research,
everything that is done out in the open. What bothers me more
are the lack of structural impediments that they have to move
those technologies from a university setting or a commercial
setting into a military application. There are no structural
impediments. In fact, they have lubricated that system to a
point where, if there is direction to move it, it goes.
We don't enjoy that same kind of streamlined system by
design. I am not saying we need to change our design in that
manner the way China has, but we certainly do need to think
through structurally how are we going to do this differently so
that the great work that is done in sort of the S&T side of the
business and that we see every single day in our personal
lives, when it comes time to apply it to naval warfighting or
the rest of the fight, the joint fight, we have got good
pathways to get it there. So that is the part that worries me
is our ability or inability to move at speed.
Mr. Veasey. When it comes to creativity, how are they doing
on that? Because I know in the past that has always, you know,
been an issue with China is that, yes, they are able to produce
technologies and they are able to copy technologies. But as far
as creativity is concerned, sometimes they lack in that area.
Are you starting to see them catch up in the area of
creativity?
Admiral Hahn. The short answer is yes. So the creativity
factor is there. It is not lost on me that the same places that
educate many of their scientists and researchers are, in fact,
the places here in the United States that educate ours. Their
sophistication about military applications, the CONOPS, or the
concepts of operations that those would fit into are not that
much different from ours. So this notion in the National
Defense Strategy to start to create dilemmas, create surprises
like Dr. Walker indicated, that is becoming more and more
important as we consider the use of technology and how we apply
it and put it in evidence every single day.
Mr. Veasey. Thank you.
Dr. Russell, did you have anything?
Dr. Russell. I guess I will just add on the--where they are
just copying what we are doing. I think in the area of quantum
there are some areas where you can see that they--the Chinese,
in particular, have actually been able to do satellite
communications. But we have not done that in this country,
which is a step beyond where we are at today. So it is not
purely that some of our near-peer adversaries are just
mimicking or replicating the work that we are doing today, but
they are beginning to lead in several of these areas. And I
think it is--part of it is driven by what Admiral Hahn
mentioned, is there is a lack of barriers to be able to
transition and move technologies that we face here in this
country today.
Mr. Veasey. Thank you.
I yield back, Madam Chair. Thank you.
Ms. Stefanik. Mr. Knight.
Mr. Knight. Thank you, Madam Chairman. Thank you for
allowing me to ask a couple questions. I am not on this
committee. But any time Dr. Walker is in the room, I want to
come in and chat about hypersonics.
So my first questions, Mr. Larsen put a couple words out
there that I think we should all be very aware of, and that is
risk tolerance. I think that what we have done over the last
maybe 30 years has gone into a society that we don't want to
take risk. Unless it is perfectly ready to go, we don't do it.
So my question is about some of these more advanced
projects that we are working on, like hypersonics, which we
have been doing for 60-plus years, but we are now calling them
advanced, and X-Plane programs that we have kind of let go
beyond the last couple decades, and now we are trying to revamp
them. And I know NASA [National Aeronautics and Space
Administration] has got their New Horizons projects.
But let me ask the panel: Where you do stand on X-Planes?
Where do you stand on kind of prototyping and getting something
from a prototype to an action, to a weapon or an airplane or
something very quick and that might take some risk also?
Ms. Miller. So I will start and say in the 3 weeks 1 day
that my boss has been on the job, he has certainly made it
clear that he embraces the authorities that are given to him to
do prototyping and experimentation and to do it with a purpose.
When he was in his confirmation hearing, he talked about the
major prototyping efforts that used to happen in the past and
how we learned so much from those and how they did, in fact,
give us capability that we could operationalize very quickly.
I anticipate that we will see more of that as we all
embrace the use of prototyping to help speed capability to the
warfighter to make sure we get it right.
Mr. Stanley. Sir, as you well know, the Air Force was built
on prototyping. And we are getting back to our roots right now.
As you mentioned, the two hypersonic prototyping programs as a
follow-on to our partnership at DARPA right now. In addition to
those, we have a low-cost attritable aircraft program that is a
prototype out there.
We had the Spectral Halo program, Global Lightning program.
And what has made us be able to do this in the past couple
years is, first, the section 804 language that increased the
prototyping mind-set. And then, secondly, we have got a BA4
line specifically set aside for Air Force prototyping that we
have really leveraged. And based on our new warfighting
construct, we have tried to allow that line to be our
exploration line to see the art of the possible.
Mr. Knight. Let me follow that up real quick.
Do we screw it up here in Congress? Because we get projects
out there like the Airborne Laser or some project like that
that shows great promise and shows great action, and then
funding is cut on a program that was about $12 million, or
something happens that we don't take that to the next step and
say this is something that we can absolutely use in the future.
I just worry about, every time we stop a project, that data
stops right there. And then when we pick it up a decade later,
we have to pick up data that is already a decade old. And other
countries can pick up that data, whether it be hypersonics or
lasers, or whatever we are talking about, use that data or
steal that data, which many countries are good at that. And
then they are three steps ahead because they have used our
three steps of R&D to get them to maybe operation.
So, you know, these are blanket statements, but I think
everyone understands where I am trying to go with this.
Congress needs to be good at saying, ``Go do this. We are going
to fund it. Make sure it works, and keep going.'' Because
whatever it is, I could pick 20 projects out of my head right
now that have gone to a data collecting position and never to
the next step.
So I will leave you with my last 22 seconds.
Hypersonics. Are we moving fast, Dr. Walker.
Dr. Walker. We are. We are about to, I should say. The new
budget has given us a lot more money in the Air Force to
basically take what we have been doing and what we are going to
fly next year and prototype it into operations.
So I am excited by the new budget and the ability to do
that. The services are looking at hypersonics and looking at
incorporating that into a new construct for fighting wars in
the Pacific and elsewhere. And I think we will be moving out,
especially, as Mary said, under the new USD (R&E), who is an
aerospace engineer and has stated publicly that hypersonics is
his number one priority.
Mr. Knight. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you.
Ms. Stefanik. Thanks.
You'll have to take the rest for the record.
We have time for the second round of questions. Votes have
been delayed a bit, and I know members have additional
questions.
My question, Mr. Stanley, you mentioned additive
manufacturing in your opening statement, and that is a
technology that is of particular interest in my district. And
it is an increasingly important transformative capability for
the Department, especially as we are able to use critical
materials titanium and other metals.
So first I want to ask Ms. Miller what is the Department's
approach to additive manufacturing? What is being done to
support the adoption of these capabilities?
Ms. Miller. Well, we have a national manufacturing
institute that was focused on additive manufacturing America
makes, and that was started in--I think it was in 2012. You
know, the national manufacturing institutes were set up for 5
years of government funding, and then they were meant to be
self-sustaining.
In that particular effort, Mr. Stanley might be able to
follow on, because the Air Force did pick up and add resources
to them, because we are finding great benefit of that
particular manufacturing institute. Additive manufacturing, as
all the services will tell you, has been something that is part
of our discovery of how it can benefit across the many
disciplines that we have.
Ms. Stefanik. And before I turn to Mr. Stanley, who I am
going to follow up with, are there ways for the Department to
validate or ensure that the manufacturing processes are uniform
to guarantee trust, inflate safety, or other critical parts?
Ms. Miller. That is an effort that the services are
deliberately making to understand that if we can 3-D print
something, but we need to know that every time we print it, it
is going to be the same and have the right attributes. I know I
personally was at AFRL last year and saw them working on how
they do it that. It is an area of research. And, yes, we need
to do it.
Ms. Stefanik. Mr. Stanley.
Mr. Stanley. Ma'am, additive manufacturing is a key
fundamental building block for our systems going forward, as
you have quite eloquently talked about. In addition, we are
putting a lot of resources behind that certification process of
these additive manufacturing designs and products that we are
spitting out.
So that is an important piece. We have got to come to
agreement amongst the services, amongst the other agencies, the
FAA [Federal Aviation Administration] included, on how we
certify additive manufacturing parts for airworthiness and
flight safety.
Ms. Stefanik. Do the other services want to add here?
Admiral Hahn. Certainly do.
So inside the Navy, we are taking an all-the-above kind of
strategy to work additive and advanced manufacturing mechanisms
where they make sense. So if we can push a 3-D printer out to
the edge and have a sailor or Marine print a part that is
appropriate to relieve a logistic supply problem, that is
great. But the hardest thing is going to be to get to
airworthiness or, near and dear to my heart, something that I
would put on a submarine and take that ship down to test depth
and depend on that.
And at the science level of this, we need to understand
what is happening at the microstructure when we now take that
same material that we know exactly what happens, or pretty well
what happens, when we forge it or we cast it. But now we create
a little molten pool at the micro level and create a part for
it. That is much, much different. So that is significant
research that needs to be done. We are doing it together, which
is the good news. And we are doing it nationally, which is the
better news. And once we get that, then we unlock the design
space, because once you capture that digitally, then you can
understand how now I can remove weight from that part, I can
get the exact attributes I am after, and I can manufacture it
differently, cheaper, with more fidelity, more repeatability
using these advanced manufacturing techniques. So it will
unlock quite a bit, and we need to get an advantage there and
then keep it.
Ms. Stefanik. Dr. Russell.
Dr. Russell. Yeah, I agree with most of my colleagues--with
all my colleagues. One thing I might add to it, it gives us the
ability to be more adaptive to the threat. So as an example, we
have a program currently in the Army. Instead of making small
UASes [unmanned aerial systems], instead of producing 700
UASes, what you might do is produce different capabilities and
then have the ability in theater to produce a smaller UAS
capability that would adapt to the threat that you are actually
seeing. So instead of going to an industry and say, well, we
need 400 or 700 UASes to support the mission, you actually
produce them in real time and be an adaptable to the threats
that you are seeing.
Ms. Stefanik. Ms. Miller, one more follow-up.
You mentioned the national manufacturing institute. How are
you leveraging the private sector research and the innovation
that is happening in additive manufacturing?
Ms. Miller. Well, through that particular institute, we do
have--you know, it was kind of--the national manufacturing
institutes are almost a pilot for that private-Federal
partnership, and it has been very effective. We have, I think,
over 45 industries that are part of that consortium in working
with the government and trying to create that national
capability. So I think we are leveraging them fairly
effectively in that particular space, and actually the rest of
the institutes as well.
Ms. Stefanik. Thank you.
Mr. Langevin.
Mr. Langevin. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Again, thanks to our witnesses.
Admiral Hahn, let me go back to something you said, I found
it interesting, in that you talk about China's agility, that
they don't have the same kind of limitations that we have
because of the structure that exists. Not to replicate what
they have, but how can we make our system more agile?
Especially when you are talking about technology, it seems like
those types of limitations really, on us now, very--have us
proceeding with our hands tied behind our back if we can't move
with the kind of agility that needs to be when it comes to
technological advance.
Admiral Hahn. So this is the 64 million or billion or
trillion dollar question, I think. And it goes back to, I
think, a little bit of Mr. Knight's thread as he kind of walked
through the question, are we messing this up. And not that the
Congress is messing it up, that we are together, I think,
messing this up, in that we don't recognize the continuum of
activity that must occur to pull one of these things through.
We are going to fail sometimes, which needs to be okay. Because
I failed doesn't mean that the funding is going to go away.
Because I failed doesn't mean that we are going to stop the
project. We got to continue on.
We are going to move through different levels of expertise
and different phases of this as we move ahead. And many times
when that happens, at least inside of the services, we change
the people who are involved. And the expertise goes from, oh,
that is the science part. Now it is into the engineering part.
Well, not really. It is all a blend, right? And more and more
as we find these threads that we need to pull, we need to
maintain our focus on it.
So I am particularly encouraged with some of the things
that I see happening in the Navy. The CNO [Chief of Naval
Operations] and the Secretary [of the Navy] as well as the new
ASN(RDA) [Assistant Secretary of the Navy for Research,
Development, and Acquisition], Mr. Geurts, have put a laser
focus on some of these things that are important to bringing
some lethality and some of this technology into the fleet and
force. One of those areas is directed energy with our Navy
family of lasers.
And in and amongst that, we are taking more than one
approach. We are not putting all our chips into that technical
approach. We have three or four involved with that. We
recognize that we are going to learn as we go. We have broken
the problem into pieces so that a state of the practice fiber
laser is being used to integrate onto a DDG-51, a destroyer
combat system. That is a hard problem in and of itself. If I
combine a state-of-the-art laser, then I am doubling or
tripling my problem.
So we are thinking through ways that we can divide the
problem, but keep the focus and set up a series of, if you
will, frog races, where these things are going to bump along at
the pace that technology moves. Some may be better than others.
But at the end point, as soon as it is ready, we want to have
figured out the way to get it onto the ship, the plane, or the
submarine, or in the hands of that Marine and not have the
funding fall apart as we go through.
So I applaud the Air Force for their dedication to this BA4
activity that they protect as sacred to prototype and figure
out a way to get that stuff fielded.
So that is the right answer. And, you know, we are trying
to replicate that. We require your advocacy and help to keep
those things going, because a lot of times it is the certainty
and the continuum of funding across this set of activities that
becomes the impediment.
Thank you.
Mr. Langevin. Thanks for the answer, Admiral. And I think
we have to have this philosophy that it is okay to fail as long
as there is good lines of communication between the R&D
community and the Congress, we can take these leaps together.
And as long as we are not failing, then the--I like the Elon
Musk philosophy with his people that if they are not failing,
they are not trying hard enough. And we need to be okay with
failing sometimes as long as we are doing it the right way and
there is good communication.
Let me just--it is kind of a related point. Ms. Miller, as
I stated in my opening statement, I believe the reorganization
provides an opportunity to rethink how DOD delivers most
advanced capabilities to the warfighter in the near, mid, and
long term. So related to all of this, for instance, it provides
an opportunity for the Department to bridge the ``valley of
death,'' so--that so many technologies and companies fall
victim to, as well as provide an opportunity for greater
leveraging of the DOD S&T ecosystem like labs.
Can you please describe how R&E will work with the
acquisition and sustainment side of the Department and how
DOD's S&T ecosystem is being leveraged to its greatest
potential?
Ms. Miller. Yes, sir.
With regards to the R&E and the A&S partnership, and it
does remain a partnership by necessity, the USD(R&E) was given
the authority to take that risk, to move fast, to fail and
learn and try and use prototyping and experimentation to better
inform, one, what the technology risk is and to drive it down
where we can, and to inform requirements.
Because as you well know, acquisition is based on the
requirements and getting those requirements right. And one of
the things that all of the services I think would agree with me
when I say, sometimes we get requirements that were given to
acquisition that aren't really what the warfighter wants. And
the experimentation venues that the Under Secretary was given,
the ability to do prototyping experimentation or helping to
refine that before we get launched.
So we will do those risky things and try to drive down risk
and inform the requirements before we launch formalized
programs of record. And then we go into those programs of
record, and we have a better chance of success. The partnership
is there. We need the acquisition guides to be the sounding
board for when we are really crazy and we can't get the program
there. And we need to be the guys always telling acquisition
you have got to take it to get that next step beyond where you
are. Don't just settle for an incremental change. And I think
you are going to see that.
Mr. Langevin. Good. Very good. Thank you.
I yield back.
Ms. Stefanik. Mr. Larsen, do you have additional questions?
Mr. Larsen. Thank you.
First, Ms. Miller, I apologize. I did not see that you are
a Washington Husky. But I am glad you are, so--yeah. And on
that point, my other son--my one son is there. The other son is
actually in the engineering school at a different school. But
it brings up the point about the workforce and the STEM
[science, technology, engineering, mathematics] workforce the
pipeline create. And some universities, including ``the W''
[University of Washington] now have changed. They haven't
changed the requirements so much to get into engineering, but a
lot of the larger state schools--you got to apply to the
school, get in the school, and then, while you are there, get
the grades to apply into the engineering school or the business
school or so on.
And some of the larger schools are changing that because,
for whatever reason, it is providing them more opportunity for
domestic students to get into these schools.
And so this really gets into the question about the
availability of the pipeline, the availability of the
workforce, if it is necessary to have U.S. citizens or not, and
what that means for you in terms of recruiting for the
workforce that you need to continue to do the work that you are
doing. So it is all kind of related, but I just wanted to--it
is really about that availability and what things can you do to
open up that pipeline. And have you thought through that?
Ms. Miller. We have been thinking through it. It is a
concern for all of us because a STEM-literate citizenry is not
only important to the Department of Defense, it is important to
the Nation writ large. And so, actually, the services and OSD
[Office of the Secretary of Defense] and the defense industrial
base have been doing what they can to incentivize this STEM
pipeline, as you put it. All of the services reach down into
the early grades on up to get that resonance of wanting to be
in STEM.
What we have been trying to do is champion additional
incentives to keep U.S. citizens working into the higher
academia, like Ph.D. programs, so that they will work in areas
of national defense. This is an area where, in many
disciplines, we get foreign nationals that will be doing that
work and doing that Ph.D. thesis. And the U.S. citizens are
going out and getting jobs. And it does not help us when we see
reports where, gee, you can get out with a bachelor's and start
to work right away, and you can make more money than somebody
who can get a Ph.D. and took 7 years to get there. That is not
helpful to us.
However, it is up to us to one, we give them good problems
to solve in the Department of Defense, because we have very
challenging problems. But we need to help them make sure that
that is the choice that they want to make. So we are offering
scholarships to help incentivize them to go into discipline
areas that will help us. And we are looking at how we can make
it more enticing to keep them in that.
Mr. Larsen. Yeah. Are you exploring at all the ability--you
have a flexibility to bring people in and out. So on the
National Guard side, you got cyber warriors, you know, folks
who can give you a weekend a month and 2 weeks a year, and you
can bring them in, you can bring them out when you need them,
as opposed to making them commit to wear the uniform for 3
years.
Ms. Miller. Yes. We are absolutely looking at the
flexibilities of being able to bring people from academia,
industry into the government and send them back out again.
Sadly, if you are a government employee, when you go out,
you sometimes have limitations. And there have been--some of
the language that had been provided is being interpreted in a
way that folks don't have the flexibility to come in and out
and not be held--I guess prevented from working in that
discipline. And that is something we are working on. How do we
make sure that we do not disadvantage people that want to come
work in the Department.
But the way the world is right now, people want to change
jobs frequently. They want the experience. And we want to
maximize our ability to do that.
Mr. Larsen. Yeah. That is fine.
Thank you. I yield back. Go, Dogs.
Ms. Stefanik. That is it for our questions. And in closing,
I want to thank the witnesses. I want to thank the members,
both the subcommittee members and the non-subcommittee members,
for their excellent questions.
And I want to reiterate the quote that I included in my
opening statement from Jim Mattis, who recently testified.
Quote, ``Our competitive edge has eroded in every domain of
warfare: air, land, sea, space, and cyber.''
From my perspective, it is our responsibility as
policymakers and as a Congress to ensure that we don't lose a
competitive edge in any domain or in any technology,
particularly as we look at what 21st century warfare looks like
in the next 10, 20, 30 years.
And I also wanted to reiterate Dr. Walker's comment where
he stated one of the founding missions of DARPA was to ensure
that the U.S. is always the initiator of strategic surprise.
That is something that we need to continue to focus on as
policymakers when it comes to our S&T portfolio.
So thank you very much for the testimony today.
And with that, this hearing is adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 5:02 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]
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A P P E N D I X
March 14, 2018
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PREPARED STATEMENTS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD
March 14, 2018
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[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
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WITNESS RESPONSES TO QUESTIONS ASKED DURING
THE HEARING
March 14, 2018
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RESPONSES TO QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MR. LAMBORN
Ms. Miller. Although the legislation does require USD (A&S) to
establish ``an appropriate leadership structure and office within which
a cadre of Intellectual Property Experts shall be managed,'' the
Department is still in the planning process, and has not yet formed
such an entity. The establishment of this office has been deferred
while the Department's leadership addresses the creation of the Under
Secretaries for Research & Engineering and Acquisition and Sustainment.
[See page 18.]
Ms. Miller. The pilot authority of Sec. 1710 of the FY18 NDAA will
allow organizations across the Department to easily leverage SBIR and
STTR developed technologies, supplies, or services. In implementing the
pilot, we first coordinated with Services and Agencies to identify
where multiple award agreements were already in use to support SBIR and
STTR technology development and transition. Our guidance for
implementation of a DOD-wide pilot was modelled on these programs to
allow incorporation of lessons from the field. In early June,
implementation instructions were distributed throughout the Department
to encourage additional use of multiple award contracts to covered
small business concerns for the purchase of technologies, supplies, or
services developed in the SBIR or STTR Program. In addition to the Sec.
1710 pilot program, the SBIR and STTR programs have multiple tools
available to support technology transition. These include Phase III of
the SBIR and STTR programs where no SBIR funds are provided by
government or prime contractors to complete critical development or
testing of these technologies in preparation for transition. The Rapid
Innovation Fund (RIF) program provides another avenue to enable
transition of technologies from the SBIR and STTR programs to meet
warfighter needs. Additionally, the Commercialization Readiness Program
(CRP) is used the provided dedicated support to improve transition
outcomes for many technologies. Finally, the department was also
successful in the use of the Phase Flexibility pilot authority (also
known as Direct to Phase II), which unfortunately expired at the end of
FY17. Phase flexibility provided the ability to shorten the development
cycle for critical technology solutions. In today's environment, rapid
delivery of technical capabilities to the warfighter is critical. This
authority has shortened the development time for technologies to
transition to Phase III funding. This encourages companies with more
mature technologies to participate in the program, further enhancing
the technical solutions available to DOD. This provision should be
reauthorized and made a permanent part of the program. The third phase
of the SBIR and STTR programs, referred to as Phase III or the
``commercialization phase'', as well as the Rapid Innovation Fund (RIF)
program provide resources that are critical for the successful
transition of new technologies into the Department. While not every
research project can (or should) transition, for those technologies
that are ready and provide needed capabilities, the additional funding
available through Phase III and RIF allows further maturation of
technologies as well as needed testing and evaluation. [See page 18.]
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QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MEMBERS POST HEARING
March 14, 2018
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QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MR. LARSEN
Mr. Larsen. Please provide what percentage of the topline request
S&T has compromised (6.1-6.3) for FY19 and the previous four fiscal
years.
Ms. Miller. Fiscal Year 2019: 2.0 percent Fiscal Year 2018: 2.1
percent Fiscal Year 2017: 2.0 percent Fiscal Year 2016: 2.1 percent
Fiscal Year 2015: 2.1 percent
Mr. Larsen. During the hearing, we spoke of the need to expand on
the successful Robotarium concept (open access, collaboration with NSF,
partnership with academia, swarms of autonomous vehicles).
What would the total cost to the ONR be (assuming a 50/50 cost
share with NSF) be to establish a Multi-Domain Robotarium incorporating
UUVs, USVs, and UASs, and what would the value be of such an
initiative?
Admiral Hahn. The Robotarium concept presents an opportunity for
researchers to conduct experiments with distributed and interconnected
autonomous systems, which are expected to play an increasingly
important role in future defense operations. These types of systems may
enable new capabilities across a wide range of defense applications
including tactical sensing and prediction of ocean and littoral
environments, surveillance, reconnaissance/search, mine
countermeasures, force protection, logistics, and humanitarian and
expeditionary operations. For the defense research enterprise, the
Robotarium addresses an important challenge of scaling up innovation
and reducing the cost of entry in order to accelerate advances in
technology and fundamental understanding of scalable, collaborative
autonomous systems. Rather than having individual researchers or
institutions invest time and resources on hardware development and
maintenance, the Robotarium provides a remotely accessible multi-
robotic testbed. This enables researchers to upload new software and
automatically conduct experiments to test and compare methods, gain new
knowledge, and advance robotics technology. The total potential cost
depends on the scale and capability of the completed work and
experimentation space. A range for the endeavor would be $2-10 million
depending on the size, scope and complexity. One of the big challenges
that will drive the costs is the extent of investment to simulate the
effects of genuine undersea mission, sensor, and communications
payloads such as sonar and acoustic communications. If more realistic
sized vehicles that are used by the military and realistic conditions
are needed, the cost could easily increase an order of magnitude.
Additionally, operating costs are not included in this estimate.
______
QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MS. SPEIER
Ms. Speier. The Administration's FY 19 budget proposes to reduce
funding for the Defense Science and Technology (S&T) program by $350
million or approximately 2.5 percent from FY 2017 enacted. Requested
funding is also below what is proposed in both the House and Senate FY
18 Defense Appropriations bills. Given that a priority of the National
Defense Strategy is to maintain the Department technological advantage,
it is puzzling why the budget requests fewer resources for the Defense
S&T program. As is stated in FY 19 budget documents, the Defense S&T
program ``invests and develops capabilities that advance the technical
superiority of the U.S. military to counter new and emerging threats.''
Please explain the rational for requesting fewer resources for Defense
S&T given that the Department received significant relief from the
budget caps.
Ms. Miller. The Department's President's Budget (PB) request for
S&T (includes Base, OCO, and Amendments) has grown as compared to the
previous year's PB request. The PB request for FY 2017 was $12.7B, FY
2018 was $13.2B, and FY 2019 was $13.7B. The growth between FY 2017 and
FY 2018 is 4.6%, and between FY 2018 and FY 2019 is 3.2%. The S&T
request for FY 2017-FY 2019 has been constant at 2% of the DOD PB
Requested Topline (includes Base, OCO, and Amendments). The DOD PB
Request represents the best balance of requirements against resources.
It should be noted that efforts in other RDT&E lines (i.e., 6.4-6.7)
also contribute to the ability to maintain the Department's
technological advantage.
______
QUESTION SUBMITTED BY MR. LAMBORN
Mr. Lamborn. Regarding DIUx, how does DOD plan to improve outreach
to innovative companies outside of the Silicon Valley, Boston, and
Austin?
Ms. Miller. Since June 2016, more than 650 companies from 43 states
have submitted proposals in response to DIUx's solicitations. Outreach
is key, and DIUx has a multi-prong strategy for nationwide outreach to
key groups in order to feature streamlined business processes and the
DOD challenges. Targeted efforts for engagement include: presentations/
panel participation at key national technology/innovation events;
placement and interviews in targeted trade and mainstream publications;
outreach to incubators, accelerators, and venture capitalists across
the country; coordination and visits to State economic development
entities including local chambers of commerce, civic associations, and
SBIR/STTR entities on local bases; connection to the citizen soldiers,
sailors, airmen, and Marines who serve as technology industry leaders
and entrepreneurs when they're not on duty as reservists/National
Guard.
______
QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MR. HICE
Mr. Hice. Dr. Walker, in looking at the DOD's research and
development plan, do you believe that our universities could be
involved in long-term research and building up the bench strength of
scientists and engineers for American hypersonics technical know-how?
How do you engage with the university community to address the long-
term research and skilled workforce needs in hypersonics?
Dr. Walker. Universities cannot only be involved in strengthening
our nation's hypersonics workforce, they provide a critical role in
establishing and maintaining a robust pipeline of qualified and
energized young scientists and engineers to support one of DOD's top
modernization priorities. There are multiple opportunities to engage
and align university resources with DOD needs. The first is through
Multi-disciplinary University Research Initiatives (MURI), executed by
the DOD's service research offices--such the Air Force Office of
Scientific Research (AFOSR), Office of Naval Research (ONR), and Army
Research Office (ARO). MURIs can be focused on hypersonic technology
development areas such as aerodynamics and aeroheating; structures and
materials; airbreathing and rocket propulsion; guidance, navigation,
and control; and rapid/robust design, integration, optimization, and
uncertainty. Secondly, DARPA engages universities through its basic
research programs through its Defense Sciences Office (DSO), that
address technology development areas such as basic material science for
hypersonic systems. Finally, DARPA and the services can work together
in sponsoring hypersonic flight research experiments that engage the
university community and offer a unique opportunity to rapidly build
experience in our young workforce. This is exemplified by the DARPA/
AFOSR hypersonic Boundary Layer Transition (BoLT) project which is
sponsoring two university-led teams to conduct ground and flight
experiments to advance our fundamental understanding of boundary layer
transition physics for a new class of hypersonic geometry.