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the following is a conversation with
keoki Jackson he's the CTO of Lockheed
Martin a company that through his long
history has created some of the most
incredible engineering Marvel's human
beings have ever built including planes
that fly fast and undetected defense
systems that intersect nuclear threats
that can take the lives of millions and
systems the venture out into space the
moon Mars and beyond in these days more
and more artificial intelligence has an
assistive role to play in these systems
I've read several books reparation for
this conversation is a difficult one
because in part Lockheed Martin builds
military systems that operate in a
complicated world that often does not
have easy solutions in the grey area
between good and evil I hope one day
this world will rid itself of war in all
its forms
but two paths to achieving that in a
world that does have evil is not obvious
what is obvious is good engineering and
artificial intelligence research has a
role to play on the side of good
Lockheed Martin and the rest of our
community are hard at work at exactly
this task we talk about these and other
important topics in this conversation
also most certainly both keoki and I
have a passion for space us humans
venturing out toward the Stars we talk
about this exciting future as well this
is the artificial intelligence podcast
if you enjoy it subscribe on YouTube
give it five stars on iTunes supported
on patreon or simply connect with me on
Twitter at Lux Friedman spelled Fri D M
am and now here's my conversation with K
okie Jackson
I read several books on Lockheed Martin
recently my favorite in particulars by
Ben rich called skunkworks
personal memoir it gets a little edgy at
times but from that I was reminded that
the engineers of Lockheed Martin have
created some of the most incredible
engineering Marvel's human beings have
ever built throughout the centuries
throughout the 20th century and the 21st
do you remember a particular project or
system and Lockheed or before that at
the space shuttle Columbia that you were
just in awe at the fact that us humans
could create something like this you
know that's a that's a great question
there's a lot of things that I could
draw in there when you look at the skunk
works and Ben Rich's book in particular
of course it starts off with basically
the start of the jet age and the p80
I had the opportunity to sit next to one
of the Apollo astronauts Charlie Duke
recently at dinner and I said hey what's
your favorite aircraft and he said well
was by far the f-104 starfighter which
was another aircraft that came out of
Lockheed there what was the first Mach 2
jet fighter aircraft they called it the
missile with a man in it
and so those are the kinds of things I
grew up hearing stories about you know
of course the sr-71 is incomparable as
you know kind of the epitome of speed
altitude and just the coolest looking
aircraft ever so so there's a
connoisseur that's a flame that's a yeah
intelligence surveillance and
reconnaissance aircraft that was
designed to be able to outrun basically
go faster than any air defense system
but you know I'll tell you I'm a space
junkie junkie that's why I came to MIT
that's really what took me ultimately to
Lockheed Martin and I grew up in so
Lockheed Martin for example has been
essentially at the heart of every
planetary mission like all the Mars
missions we've had a part in and we've
talked a lot about the 50th anniversary
of Apollo here in the last couple of
weeks right but
remember 1976 July 20th again national
space days the landing of the Viking the
Viking Lander on the surface of Mars
just a huge accomplishment and when I
was a young engineer at Lockheed Martin
I got to meet engineers who had designed
you know various pieces of that mission
as well so that's what I grew up on is
these planetary missions the start of
the Space Shuttle era and ultimately had
the opportunity to see Lockheed Martin's
part and we can maybe talk about some of
these here but Lockheed Martin's part in
all of these space journeys over the
years do you dream and I apologize for
getting philosophical at times or
sentimental I do romanticize the notion
of space exploration
so do you dream of the day when us
humans colonize another planet like Mars
or a man a woman a human being steps on
Mars absolutely and that's a personal
dream of mine I haven't given up yet on
my own opportunity to fly into space but
but as you know from the Lockheed Martin
perspective this is something that we're
working towards every day and of course
you know we're we're building the Orion
spacecraft which is the most
sophisticated human-rated spacecraft
ever built and it's really designed for
these deep-space journeys you know
starting with the moon but ultimately
going to Mars and being the platform you
know from a design perspective we call
the Mars base camp to be able to take
humans to the surface and then after a
mission of a couple of weeks bring him
back up safely and so that is something
I want to see happen during my time at
Lockheed Martin so I'm pretty excited
about that
and I think you know once we prove
that's possible you know colonization
might be a little bit further out but
it's something that I'd hoped to see so
maybe you can give a little bit an
overview of the Lockheed Martin's
partner with a few years ago with Boeing
to work with the DoD and NASA to build
launch systems and rockets with the ula
what's beyond that
what's lakis mission timeline and
long-term dream in terms of space
you mentioned the moon I've heard you
talk about asteroids as Mars what's the
timeline
what's the engineering challenges and
what's the dream long term yeah I think
the dream long term is to have a
permanent presence in space beyond
low-earth orbit ultimately with a
long-term presence on the moon and then
to the planets to Mars and rage
interrupt and that's a long term
presence means sustained and sustainable
presence and an economy a space economy
that really goes alongside with human
beings being and being able to launch
perhaps from those so like hop you know
it says that there's a lot of energy
that goes in those hops right so I think
the first step is being able to get
there and to be able to establish
sustained basis right and and build from
there and a lot of that means getting as
you know things like the cost of launch
down and you mentioned United Launch
Alliance and so I don't want to speak
for ula but obviously they're they're
working really hard to on their next
generation of space launch vehicles to
you know maintain that incredible
mission success record that ula has but
ultimately continue to drive down the
cost and make the flexibility the speed
and the access ever greater so what's
the missions that are in the horizon
that you could talk to so I hope to get
to the moon absolutely absolutely I mean
I think you know this or you may know
this you know there's a lot of ways to
accomplish some of these goals and so
that's a lot of what's in discussion
today but ultimately the the goal is to
be able to establish a base essentially
insist lunar space that would allow for
ready transfer from orbit to the lunar
surface and back again and so that's
sort of that near-term and I say
near-term in the next decade or so
vision
starting off with you know stated
objective by this administration to get
back to the moon in the nineteen or the
2024 2025 timeframe which is is right
around the corner here so how big of an
engineering challenge is that I think
the big challenge is not so much to go
but to stay right
and so we demonstrated in the 60s that
you could send somebody up to a couple
of days of mission and bring them home
again successfully now we're talking
about doing that I'd say more time I was
saying adust real scale but a sustained
scale right so permanent habitation you
know regular reuse of vehicles the
infrastructure to get things like fuel
air consumables replacement parts all
the things that you need to sustain that
kind of infrastructure so those are
certainly engineering challenges there
are budgetary challenges and those are
all things that we're gonna have to work
through you know the other thing and I
shouldn't I don't want to minimize this
I mean I'm excited about human
exploration but the reality is our
technology and where we've come over the
last you know forty years essentially
has changed what we can do with robotic
exploration as well and you know to me
it's incredibly thrilling this seems
like old news now but the fact that we
have Rovers driving around the surface
of Mars and sending back data is just
incredible the fact that we have
satellites in orbit around Mars that are
collecting weather you know they're
looking at the terrain they're mapping
all these kinds of things on a
continuous basis that's incredible and
the fact that you know it's you got the
time lag of course going to the going to
the planets but you can effectively have
virtual human presence there in a way
that we have never been able to do
before
and now with the advent of even greater
processing power better AI systems
better cognitive systems and decision
systems you know you put that together
with the human
Keith and we really opened up the solar
system in a whole different way and I'll
give you an example
we've got osiris-rex which is a mission
to the asteroid Bennu so the spacecraft
is out there right now I'm basically a
year mapping activity to map the entire
surface of that asteroid in great detail
you know all autonomously piloted right
with the idea then that this is not too
far away it's gonna go in it's got a
sort of fancy vacuum cleaner with a
bucket it's gonna collect the sample off
the asteroid and then send it back here
to earth and so you know we have gone
from sort of those tentative steps in
the 70s you know early landings video of
the solar system so now we've sent
spacecraft the Pluto we have gone to
comets and brought and an intercept at
comets we've brought stardust date you
know you know material back
so that's we've gone far and there's
incredible opportunity to go even
farther
so it seems quite crazy that this is
even possible
that can you talk a little bit about
what it means to orbit an asteroid and
with a bucket to try to keep pick up
some soil samples yeah so part of it is
just kind of the you know these are the
kinds of techniques we use here on earth
for high speed high speed high accuracy
imagery stitching these scenes together
and creating essentially high accuracy
world maps right and so that's what
we're doing obviously on a much smaller
scale with an asteroid but the other
thing that's really interesting you put
together sort of that neat control and
you know data and imagery problem but
the stories around how we design the
collection I mean as essentially you
know this is the sort of the human
ingenuity element right that essentially
you know had an engineer who had a
one-day cycle starts messing around with
parts vacuum cleaner bucket you know
maybe we could do something like this
and that was what led to what we call
the pogo stick collection right we're
basically I think comes down it's only
there for seconds does that collection
grabs the essentially blows them the
regolith material into the collection
hopper and off it goes
it doesn't really land almost it's it's
a very short landing Wow that's that's
incredible so what is uh in those talk a
little bit more about space eh what's
the role of the human in all of this
what are the challenges what are the
opportunities for humans as they pilot
these these vehicles in space and for
humans that may step foot and on either
the Moon or Mars yeah it's a great
question because you know I just have
been extolling the virtues of robotic
and you know Rovers autonomous systems
and those absolutely have a role I think
the thing that we don't know how to
replace today is the ability to adapt on
the fly to new information
and I believe that will come but we're
not there yet there's a ways to go and
so you know you think back to Apollo 13
and the ingenuity of the folks on the
ground and on the spacecraft essentially
cobbled together a way to get the carbon
dioxide scrubbers to work those are the
kinds of things that ultimately young
and I'd say not just from dealing with
anomalies but you know dealing with new
information you see something and rather
than waiting twenty minutes or half an
hour an hour to try to get information
back and forth but be able to
essentially Ravech there on the fly
collect you know different samples take
a different approach choose different
areas to explore those are the kinds of
things that that human presence enables
that is still a ways ahead of us on the
AI side yeah there's some interesting
stuff we'll talk about on the teaming
side here on earth that's that's pretty
cool to explore and it's okay so let's
not leave the space piece out so what is
teaming what does AI and humans working
together in space look like yeah one of
the things we're working on is a system
called Maya which is you can think of it
it's what's an AI assistant and in space
exactly and you think of it as the Alexa
in space right but this goes
hand-in-hand with a lot of other
developments and so today's world
everything is essentially model-based
model-based systems engineering to the
actual digital tapestry that goes
through the design the bill the
manufacturer the testing and ultimately
the sustainment of the system and so our
vision is really that you know when our
astronauts are there around Mars you're
going to have that entire digital
library
of the spacecraft of its operations all
the test data all the test data and
flight data from previous missions to be
able to look and see if there are
anomalous conditions until the humans
and potentially deal with that before it
becomes a bad situation and help the
astronauts work through those kinds of
things and it's not just you know
dealing with problems as they come up
but also offering up opportunities for
additional exploration capability for
examples so so that's the vision is that
you know these are going to take the
best of the human to respond to to
changing circumstances and rely on the
best of AI capabilities to monitor these
you know this almost infinite number of
data points and correlations and data
points that humans frankly aren't that
good at it's how do you develop systems
in space like this whether it's a alexa
in space or in general any kind of
control systems any kind of intelligent
systems when you can't really test stuff
too much out in space it's very
expensive to test stuff here so how do
you develop such systems yeah that's
that that's the beauty of this digital
twin if you will and of course with
Lockheed Martin we've over the past you
know five plus decades been refining our
knowledge of the space environment of
how materials behave dynamics that
controls the you know radiation
environments all of these kinds of
things so we're able to create very
sophisticated models they're not perfect
but they're they're very good and so you
can actually do a lot I spent part of my
career you know simulating communication
spacecraft
you know missile warning spacecraft GPS
spacecraft in all kinds of scenarios and
all kinds of environments so this is
really just taking that to the next
level the interesting thing is that now
you're bringing into that loop a system
depending on how its developed that may
be non-deterministic it may be learned
as it goes in fact we anticipate that it
will be learning as it goes and so that
brings a whole new level of interest I
guess into how do you do verification
and validation of these
non-deterministic learning systems in
scenarios that may go out of the bounds
or the envelope that you have initially
designed to so had this system in its
intelligence has the same complexity
some of the same complex as a human does
than the it learns over time it's
unpredictable in certain kinds of ways
in the so you still you also have to
model that when you're thinking about
saying you're in your thoughts as
possible to model the the majority of
situations the the important aspects of
situations here on earth and in space
enough to test stuff yeah that's this is
really an active area of research and
we're actually funding University
Research in a variety of places
including MIT this is in the realm of
trust and verification and validation of
I'd say autonomous systems in general
and then as a subset of that autonomous
systems that incorporate artificial
intelligence capabilities and this is
not an easy problem we're working with
startup companies we've got internal R&D
but our conviction is the autonomy in
more and more AI enabled autonomy is
going to be in everything that Lockheed
Martin develops and fields and it's
going to be retrofit autonomy and Nai
are gonna be retrofit into existing
systems they're going to be part of the
design for all of our future systems and
so maybe I should take a step back and
say the way we define autonomy so we
talk we talk about autonomy essentially
system that composes selects and then
executes decisions with varying levels
of human intervention and so you could
think of no autonomy so this is
essentially human doing the task you can
think of effectively partial autonomy
where the human is in the loop
so making decisions in every case about
what the autonomous system can do either
in the cockpit or remotely or remotely
exactly but still in that control loop
and then there's what you'd call
supervisory autonomy the autonomous
system is doing most of the work the
human can intervene to stop it or to
change the direction and then ultimately
fall at full autonomy where the human is
off the loop altogether and for
different types of missions want to have
different levels of autonomy so now take
that spectrum and this conviction that
autonomy and more and more AI are in
everything that we develop I the kinds
of things that Lockheed Martin does you
know a lot of times our safety of life
critical kinds of missions you think
about aircraft for example and so we
require and our customers require an
extremely high level of confidence one
that you know we're going to protect
life to that we're going to have that
these systems will behave in ways that
their operators can understand and so
this gets into that whole field again
you know they're being able to verify
and validate that the systems have been
and that they will operate the way
they're design and the way they're
expected and furthermore that they will
do that in ways that can be explained
and understood and that is an extremely
difficult challenge yes so here's a
difficult question I don't mean to bring
this up but I think it's a good case
study that people are familiar with the
Boeing 737 max commercial airplane has
had two recent crashes where their
flight control software system failed
and it's software so I don't mean to
speak of all Boeing but broadly speaking
we have this than the autonomous vehicle
space - semi autonomous we have millions
of lines of code software making
decisions there is a little bit of a
clash of cultures because software
engineers don't have the same culture of
safety often
that people who build systems like at
Lockheed Martin uh do where it has to be
exceptionally safe you have to test this
on so how do we get this right when
software is making so many decisions
yeah and this there's a lot of things
that have to happen and by and large I
think it starts with the culture right
which is not necessarily something that
a is taught in school or B is something
that would come here depending on what
kind of software you're developing it
may not be relevant right if you're
targeting ads or something like that so
and by and large say not just Lockheed
Martin but certainly the aerospace
industry of the whole has developed a
culture that does focus on safety safety
of life operational safety mission
success but as you know these systems
have gotten incredibly complex and so
they're to the point where it's almost
impossible you know state space has
become so huge that it's impossible to
or very difficult to do a systematic
verification across the entire set of
potential ways that an aircraft could be
flown all the conditions that could
happen all the potential failure failure
scenarios now maybe that's soluble one
day maybe when we have our quantum
computers at our fingertips we'll be
able to actually simulate across an
entire you know almost infinite state
space but today you know there's a
there's a lot of work to really try to
bound the system to understand
predictable ways and then have this
culture of continuous inquiry and
skepticism and questioning to say did we
really consider the right realm of
possibilities have we done the right
range of testing do we really understand
you know in this case you know human and
machine interactions the human decision
process alongside the machine processes
and so that's that culture that we call
it the culture of
success in lockheed-martin that really
needs to be established and it's not
something you know that it's something
that people learn by living in it and
it's something that has to be
promulgated you know and it's done you
know from the highest levels at a
company of Lockheed Martin like Lockheed
Martin yeah and the same as being faced
at certain on his vehicle companies
where that culture is not there because
it started mostly by software engineers
so that's what they're struggling with
is there lessons that you think we
should learn as an industry in a society
from the Boeing 737 max questions these
crashes obviously are their tremendous
tragedies their tragedies for all of the
people the the crew the families the
passengers the people on the ground
involved and you know it's also a huge
business and economic setback as well I
mean you know we've seen that it's
impacting essentially the trade balance
of the US so these are these are
important questions and these are the
kinds that you know we've seen similar
kinds of questioning at times you go
back to the Challenger accident and it
is I think always important to remind
ourselves the humans are fallible the
systems we create as perfect as we
strive to make them we can always make
them better and so another element of
that culture of mission success is
really that commitment to continuous
improvement if there's something that
goes wrong a real commitment to root
cause and true root cause understanding
to taking the corrective actions and to
making the system future systems better
and certainly we want we strive for you
know you know no accidents and if you
look at the record of the commercial
airline industry as a whole and the
commercial aircraft industry as a whole
you know there's a very nice decaying
exponential two years now where we have
no commercial aircraft accidents at all
right and our fatal accidents and all
so that didn't happen by accident it was
through the regulatory agencies FAA the
airframe manufacturers really working on
a system to identify root causes and
driving them out so maybe we can take a
step back and many people are familiar
but Lockheed Martin broadly what kind of
categories of systems are you involved
in building you know Lockheed Martin we
think of ourselves as a company that
solves hard mission problems and the
output of that might be an airplane or
spacecraft or a helicopter or a radar or
something like that but ultimately we're
driven by these you know like what what
is our customer what is that mission
that they need to achieve and so that's
what drove the sr-71 right how do you
get pictures of a place where you got
sophisticated air defense systems that
are capable of handling any aircraft
that was out there at the time right so
that you know that's what you'll did an
sr-71 was build a nice flying camera
exactly and make sure it gets out and it
gets back right and that led ultimately
to really the start of the space program
in the u.s. as well so now take a step
back to Lockheed Martin of today and we
are you know on the order of 105 years
old now between Lockheed and Martin the
two big heritage companies of course
were made up with a whole bunch of other
companies that came in as well General
Dynamics yeah kind of go down the list
today were you can think of us in this
space of solving mission problems so
obviously on the aircraft side tactical
aircraft building the most advanced
fighter aircraft that the world has ever
seen you know we're up to now several
hundred of those delivered building
almost a hundred a year and of course
working on the things that come after
that on the space side we are engaged in
pretty much every venue of space
utilization and exploration you can
imagine so I mentioned things like
navigation timing GP
communication satellites missile warning
satellites we've built commercial
surveillance satellites we've built
commercial communication satellites we
do civil space so everything from human
exploration to the robotic exploration
in the outer planets and keep keep going
on the space front but I don't you know
a couple other areas I'd like to put out
we're heavily engaged in building
critical defensive systems and so a
couple that I'll mention the aegis
combat system this is basically the
integrated air and missile defense
system for the u.s. and allied fleets
and so protects you know Carrier Strike
groups for example from incoming
ballistic missile threats aircraft
threats cruise missile threats and kind
of go down the list of the the carriers
the fleet that itself is the thing that
is being protected the carriers aren't
serving as a protection for something
else well that's that's a little bit of
a different application we've actually
built the version called Aegis ashore
which is now deployed in a couple of
places around the world so that same
technology I mean basically it can be
used to protect either an ocean-going
fleet or a land-based
activity another one the Thad program
so Thad this is the theater high
altitude area defense this is to protect
you know relatively broad areas against
sophisticated ballistic missile threats
and so now you know it's deployed with a
lot of us capabilities and now we have
international customers that are looking
to buy that capability as well and so
these are systems that defend not just
defend militaries and military
capabilities but defend population areas
we saw you know maybe the first public
use of these back in the in the first
Gulf War with the Patriot systems and
these are these are the kinds of things
that Lockheed Martin delivers and
there's a lot of stuff that goes with it
so think about the radar systems and the
sensing systems that cue these the
command and control systems that decide
how you pair a weapon against an
incoming threat and then all the human
and machine interfaces to make sure that
they can be operated successfully in
very strenuous environments yeah there's
a there's some incredible engineering
that I never find like you but like you
said so maybe if we just take a look at
Lockheed history broadly maybe even
looking at skunk works what are the
biggest most impressive milestones of
innovations if you look at stealth I
would have called you crazy if you said
that's possible at the time and
supersonic and hypersonic so traveling
it first of all traveling at the speed
of sound is pretty damn fast and the
supersonic and hypersonic three four or
five times the speed of sound
that seems I would also call you crazy
if you say you can do that so can you
tell me how it's possible to do these
kinds of things and is there other
milestones and an innovation that's
going on you can talk about yeah well
let me start you know on the skunkworks
saga and you kind of alluded to it in
the beginning and skunk works is as much
idea as a place and so it's driven
really by Kelly Johnson's 14 principles
and I'm not gonna list all 14 of them
off but the idea and this I'm sure will
resonate with any engineer who's worked
on a highly motivated small team before
the idea that if you can essentially
have a small team of very capable
capable people who want to work on
really hard problems you can do almost
anything especially if you kind of
shield them from bureaucratic influences
if you create very tight relationships
with your customers so that you have
that team and shared vision with the
customer those are the kinds of things
that enable the skunkworks to do these
these incredible things and you know we
listed off a number that you can you
brought up stuff and I mean this this
whole you know I wish I could have seen
been rich with a ball-bearing you know
rolling across the desk to a general
officer and saying would you like to
have an aircraft that has the radar
cross-section of this ball bearing
probably one of the great you know the
least expensive and most effective
marketing campaigns in the history of
the industry so just for people the not
familiar I mean the way you detect
aircraft does I mean I'm sure there's a
lot of ways but radar for a longest time
yeah there's a big blob they peers in
the radar how do you make a plane
disappear so it looks as big as a ball
bearing what's involved in technology
wise there what's the broadly sort of it
the stuff you speak about I'll stick to
what's in been Rich's but obviously the
geometry of how radar gets reflected and
the kinds of materials that either
reflect or absorb arcum kind of a couple
of the critical elements there I mean
it's a cat-and-mouse game right I mean
you know radars get better stealth
capabilities kids better and so it's a
it's a really game of continuous
improvement and innovation there I'll
leave it at that
yeah so the idea that something is
essentially invisible it says quite
fascinating but the other one is flying
fast so speed of sound is 750 60 miles
an hour with this little SuperSonics 3
you know Mach 3 something like that yeah
we talked about the supersonic obviously
and we kind of talked about that is that
realm from Mach 1 up through about Mach
5 and then hypersonic so you know high
supersonic speeds would be past Mach 5
and you got to remember I know
Lockheed Martin and actually other
companies have been involved in
hypersonic development since the late
60s you know you think of everything
from the x-15 to the Space Shuttle as
examples of that I think the difference
now is if you look around the world
particularly the threat environment that
we're in today you're starting to see
you know publicly folks like the
Russians and the Chinese saying they
have hypersonic weapons capability that
could threaten us and allied
capabilities and also basically you know
the claims are these could get around
defensive systems that are out there
today and so there's a real sense of
urgency you hear it from folks like the
Undersecretary of defense for research
and engineering dr. Mike Griffin and
others in the department of defense that
hypersonics is is something that's
really important to the nation
in terms of both parody but also
defensive capabilities and so that's
something that you know we're pleased
it's something Lockheed Martin's you
know had a heritage in we've invested
Hardie dollars on our side for many
years and we have a number of things
going on with various US government
customers in that field today that we're
very excited about so I I would
anticipate we'll be hearing more about
that in the future from our customers
and I've actually haven't read much
about this probably you can't talk about
much of it at all but on the defensive
side it's the fascinating problem of
perception of trying to detect things
that are really hard to see can you
comment on how hard that problem is and
how how hard is it to stay ahead even if
we go back a few decades stay ahead of
the competition well maybe I again you
got to think of these as ongoing the
capability development and so think back
to the early days of missile defense so
this would be in the 80s the SDI program
and in that timeframe we proved in
Lockheed Martin proof that you could hit
a bullet with a bullet essentially and
which is something that had never been
done before to take out an incoming
ballistic missile and so that's led to
these incredible hit-to-kill kinds of
capabilities pac-3 that's the Patriot
advanced capability model 3 the Lockheed
Martin builds the THAAD system that I
that I talked about
so now hypersonics you know they're
different from ballistic systems and so
we got to take the next step in
defensive capability I can leave that
there but I can only imagine you know
let me just comment sort of Resident
Engineer it's sad to know that so much
that Lockheed has done in the past is
classified or today you know and it's
shrouded in secrecy it has to be by the
nature of the application so like what I
do so we what we do here at MIT would
like to inspire young
years young scientists and yet in a
lucky case some of that engineering has
to stay quiet how do you think about
that how does that make you feel is
there a future where more can be shown
or is it just the nature the nature of
this world that has to remain secret
it's a good question I think the public
can see enough of including students who
may be in grade school high school
college today to understand the kinds of
really hard problems that we work on and
I mean look at the f-35 right and you
know obviously a lot of the detailed
performance levels are sensitive and
control but you know we can talk about
what an incredible aircraft this is you
know supersonic super cruise kind of a
fighter a a you know stealth
capabilities it's a flying information
you know system in the sky with data
fusion sensor fusion capabilities that
have never been seen before
so these are the kinds of things that I
believe you know there was these are
kinds of things that got me excited when
I was a student I think these still
inspire students today and the other
thing and say I mean you know people are
inspired by space people are inspired by
aircraft our employees are also inspired
by that sense of mission and I will just
give you an example I had the privilege
to work and lead our GPS programs for
some time and that was a case where he
actually worked on a program that
touches billions of people every day and
so when I said I worked on GPS everybody
knew what I was talking about even
though they didn't maybe appreciate the
technical challenges that went into that
but I'll tell you I got a briefing one
time from a major in the Air Force
and he said I go by callsign GIMP GPS is
my passion yeah I love GPS and he was
involved in the operational test of the
system he said when I was out in Iraq
and I was on a helicopter Black Hawk
helicopter and it was bringing back you
know sergeant and handful of troops from
a deployed location and I you know I
said my job is GPS I asked that sergeant
he's you know beaten down and kind of
half asleep and I said what do you think
about GPS and he brightened up his eyes
lit up and he said well GPS that brings
me and my troops home every day
I love GPS and that's the kind of story
where it's like okay I'm really making a
difference here in the kind of work so
that that mission piece is really
important the last thing I'll say is
that and this gets to some of these
questions around advanced technologies
it's not you know they're not just
airplanes and spacecraft anymore for
people who are excited about advanced
software capabilities about AI about
bringing machine learn the things that
we're doing to you know exponentially
increase the mission capabilities that
go on those platforms and those are the
kinds of things I think are more and
more visible to the public yeah I think
autonomy especially in flight is super
exciting do you do you see if a day here
we go back into philosophy future when
most fighter jets will be highly
autonomous to a degree where a human
doesn't need to be in the cockpit in
almost all cases well I mean that's a
world that to a certain extent we're in
today now these are remotely piloted
aircraft to be sure but but we have
hundreds of thousands of flight hours a
year now in remotely piloted aircraft
and then if you take the f-35 there I
mean there are huge layers I guess in
levels of autonomy built into that
aircraft
so that the pilot is essentially more of
a mission manager rather than doing the
data you know the second second elements
of flying the aircrafts on in some ways
it's the easiest aircraft in the world
to fly and kind of funny story on that
so I don't know if you know how aircraft
carrier landings work but basically
there's what's called a tail hook and it
catches wires on the deck of the carrier
and that's what brings the the aircraft
to a screeching halt Britain and there's
typically three of these wires so if you
miss the first the second one you catch
the the next one right and you know we
got a little criticism I don't know how
true this story is what we got a little
criticism the f-35 is so perfect it
always gets the second wires we're
wearing out the wire I guess it always
hits that one so that but that's the
kind of autonomy that just makes these
that essentially up levels what the
human is doing two more that mission
managers so much of that landing by that
thirty-five is autonomous well it's just
you know the control systems are such
that you really have dialed out the
variability and what that comes with all
the environmental condition wearing it
out so my point is to certain extent
that world is here today do I think that
we're gonna see a day anytime soon when
there are no humans in the cockpit I
don't believe that but I do think we're
gonna see much more human machine
teaming and we're gonna see that much
more at the tactical edge and we did a
demo you asked about what the skunkworks
is doing these days and so this is what
something I can talk about but we did a
demo with the Air Force Research
Laboratory or laboratory we called it
have Rader and so using an f-16
as an autonomous wingman and we
demonstrated all kinds of maneuvers and
verus mission scenarios with the
autonomous f-16 being that so-called
loyal or trusted wingman and so those
are the kinds of things that you know
we've shown what is possible now given
that you've up leveled that pilot to be
a mission manager now they can control
multiple other aircraft they can almost
as extensions of your own aircraft
flying alongside with you so that's
that's another example of how this is
really coming to fruition and then yeah
I mentioned the the landings but think
about just the implications for humans
and flight safety and this goes a little
bit back to the discussion we were
having about how do you continuously
improve the level of safety through
automation while working through the
complexities that Automation introduces
so one of the challenges that you have
in high-performance fighter aircraft is
what's called G lock so this is G
induced loss of consciousness so you
pull 9 G's you're wearing a pressure
suit that's not enough to keep the blood
going to your brain you have a blackout
right right and of course that's bad if
you happen to be flying low you know
near the deck and you know earng
obstacle or terrain environment and so
we developed the system and our
Aeronautics division called Auto G caso
autonomous ground collision avoidance
system and we built that into the f-16
it's actually saved seven aircraft eight
pilots already and a relatively short
time it's been deployed it was so
successful that the Air Force said hey
we need to have this in the f-35 right
away so we've actually gone done testing
and that now on the f-35 and we've also
integrated an autonomous air collision
avoidance system so I think the
air-to-air problem so now it's the
integrated collision avoidance system
but these are the kinds of capabilities
you know I wouldn't call them a high I
mean they're very sophisticated models
you know of the aircraft dynamics
coupled with the terrain models to be
able to predict when essentially the
pilot is doing something that is going
to take the aircraft into or the pilots
not doing something in this case but
those it just gives you an example of
how autonomy can be really a lifesaver
in today's world it's like a autonomous
emerges automated emergency braking in
cars but is there any exploration of
perception of for example detecting G
lock that the pilot has is out so as
opposed to perceiving the external
environment to infer that the pilot is
out but actually perceiving the Pala
directly yeah this is one of those cases
where you'd like to you know not take
action if you think the pilots there and
it's almost like systems that try to
detect if a drivers falling asleep on
the road right with limited success so I
mean this is what I call the system of
last resort right where if the if the
aircraft has determined that it's going
into the terrain
get it out of there and and this is not
something that we're just doing in the
in the aircraft world and I wanted to
highlight we have a technology we call
matrix but this is developed at sikorsky
innovations the whole idea there is what
we call optimal piloting so not optional
piloting or unpiloted but optimal
piloting so an FAA certified system so
you have a high degree of confidence
it's generally pretty deterministic so
if we know that I'll do in different
situations but effectively be able to
fly mission with two pilots one pilot no
pilots and and have if you can think of
it almost as like a dial of the level of
autonomy that you want but able so it's
running in the background at all times
and able to pick up tasks whether it's
you know sort of autopilot kinds of
tasks or more sophisticated path
planning kinds of activities to be able
to do things like for example land on an
oil rig
you know in the North Sea in bad weather
zero zero conditions and you can imagine
of course there's a lot of military
utility to capability like that you know
you could have an aircraft that you want
to send out for a crewed mission but
then in the at night if you want to use
it to deliver supplies in an unmanned
mode that that could be done as well and
so there's there's there's clear
advantages there but think about on the
commercial side you know if you're an
aircraft taking you're gonna fly out to
this oil rig if you get out there and
you can't land then you gotta bring all
those people back reschedule another
flight pay the overtime for the crew
that you just brought back because they
didn't get where they're gonna pay for
the or for the folks that are out there
and the oil rig this is real economic
you know these are dollars and cents
kinds of advantages we're bringing in
the commercial world as well so this is
a difficult question from the a space
that I would love it if we're able to
comment so a lot of this autonomy in AI
you've mentioned just now as this
empowering effect that one is the last
resort it keeps you safe the other is
there's a with the teaming and in
general assistive assistive AI and I
think there's a there's always a race so
the world is full of the world is
complex it's full of bad actors so
there's there's often a race to make
sure that we keep this this country safe
right but with AI there is a concern as
a slightly different race there's a lot
of people in the eye space they're
concerned about the AI arms race that as
opposed to you the United States
becoming you know having the best
technology and therefore keeping us safe
we even we loose ability to keep control
of it so this the AI arms race getting
away from all of us humans so do you
share this worry do you share this
concern when we're talking about
military applications that too much
control and decision-making capabilities
giving too
after AI well I don't see it happening
today and in fact this is something from
a policy perspective you know it's
obviously a very dynamic space but the
Department of Defense has put quite a
bit of thought into that and maybe
before talking about the policy I'll
just talk about some of the why and you
alluded to it being a sort of a
complicated and a little bit scary world
out there but there's some big things
happening today you hear a lot of talk
now about a return to great powers
competition particularly around China
and Russia with the US but there are
some other big players out there as well
and what we've seen is the deployment of
some very I'd say concerning new weapon
systems you know particularly with
Russia and breaching some of the irbm
intermediate range ballistic missile
treaties that's been in the news a lot
you know the building of Islands
artificial islands in the South China
Sea by the Chinese and then arming those
Islands the annexation of Crimea by
Russia and the invasion of Ukraine and
so there's there's some pretty scary
things and then you add on top of that
the North Korean threat has certainly
not gone away there's a lot going on in
the Middle East with Iran in particular
and we see this global terrorism threat
has not abated right so there are a lot
of reasons to look for technology to
assist with those problems whether it's
AI or other technologies like hypersonic
search which we discussed so now let me
give just a couple of hypotheticals so
people react sort of in the second
timeframe right you know your photon
hitting your eye - you know movement is
you know on the order of a few tenths of
a second kinds of processing times
roughly speaking you know computers are
operating in the Nano
second timescale right so just to bring
home what that means a nanosecond to a
second is like a second to 32 years so
seconds on the battlefield in that sense
literally our lifetimes and so if you
can bring in autonomous or AI enabled
capability that will enable the human to
shrink maybe you've heard the term the
Gouda loop so this whole idea that a
typical battlefield decision is
characterized by observe so information
comes in orient how does that what does
that mean in the context decide what do
I do about it and then act take that
action if you can use these capabilities
to compress that Oda loop to stay inside
what your adversary is doing that's an
incredible powerful force on the
battlefield that's a really nice way to
put it at the role of AI and competing
in general has a lot to benefit from
just decreasing from thirty two years to
one second as opposed to on the scale of
seconds and minutes and hours making
decisions that humans are better at
thinking and it actually goes the other
way too so that's on the short timescale
so humans kind of work in the you know
one second two seconds to eight hours
after eight hours you get tired you know
you gotta go to the bathroom whatever
the case might be so there's this whole
range of other things think about you
know surveillance and guarding you know
facilities think about moving material
logistics sustainment a lot of these
what they called old dirty and dangerous
things that you need to have sustained
activity but it's sort of beyond the
length of time that a human can
practically do as well so there's this
this range of things that are critical
in military and defense applications
that AI and autonomy are particularly
well suited to now the interesting
question that you brought up is okay how
do you make sure that stays within human
control net so that was the context for
now the policy and so there is a DoD
directive called 3009 because that's the
way we name stuff in this world and and
but it you know and I'd say it's well
worth reading it's only a couple pages
long but it makes some key points and
it's really around you know making sure
there's human agency and control over
use of semi autonomous and autonomous
weapon systems making sure that these
systems are tested verified and
evaluated in realistic real world type
scenarios making sure that the people
are actually trained on how to use them
making sure the systems have
human-machine interfaces that can show
what state they're in and what kinds of
decisions they're making making sure
that you establish doctrine and tactics
and techniques and procedures for the
use of these kinds of systems and so
right and by the way I mean the this
none of this is easy but it I'm just
trying to lay kind of the picture of how
the US has said this is the way we're
going to treat AI and autonomous systems
that it's not a free-for-all and like
there are rules of war and rules of
engagement with other kinds of systems
think chemical weapons biological
weapons we need to think about the same
sorts of implications and this is
something that's really important for
Lockheed Martin I obviously we are 100%
complying with our customer and the
policies and regulations but I mean AI
is an incredible enabler say within the
walls of Lockheed Martin in terms of
improving production efficiency and
doing helping engineers doing generative
design improving logistics driving down
energy costs I mean there's so many
application
but we're you know we had we're also
very interested in so many elements of
ethical application you know within
Lockheed Martin so we need to make sure
that things like privacy is is taken
care of that we do everything we can to
drive out bias in AI enabled kinds of
systems that we make sure that humans
are involved in decisions that were not
just delegating accountability to
algorithms and so it for us you know it
all comes back I talked about culture
before and it comes back to sort of the
Lockheed Martin culture and our core
values and so it's pretty simple for us
and do what's right respect others
perform with excellence and now how do
we tie that back to the ethical
principles of will govern how AI is used
within Lockheed Martin and we actually
have a world so you might not know this
but they're actually awards for ethics
programs Lockheed Martin's had a
recognized ethics program for many years
and this is one of the things that our
ethics team is working with our
engineering team on
one of the miracles to me perhaps a
layman again I was born in the Soviet
Union so that I have echoes at least in
my family history of World War two and
the Cold War give a sense of why human
civilization has not destroyed itself
their nuclear war so nuclear deterrence
and the thinking about the future
there's this technology of a role to
play here and what is the long-term
future of nuclear deterrence look like
yeah it's you know this is one of those
hard hard questions and I should note
that Lockheed Martin is you know both
proud and privileged to play a part in
multiple legs of our nuclear and
strategic deterrent systems like the
Trident submarine launched ballistic
missiles you know you talk about you
know is there still a possibility the
human race could destroy itself I'd say
that possibility is real but
interestingly in some sense I think the
strategic deterrence have prevented the
kinds of you know incredibly destruct
the world wars that we saw in the first
half of the 20th century now things have
gotten more complicated since that time
and since the Cold War is more of a
multipolar great powers world today just
to give you an example back then you
know there were you know in the in the
Cold War timeframe just a handful of
nations that had ballistic missile
capability by last count and this is a
few years old there's over 70 nations
today that have that similar kinds of
numbers in terms of space-based
capabilities so so the world has gotten
more complex and more challenging and
the threats I think have proliferated in
ways that we didn't expect
you know the the nation today is in the
middle of a recapitalization of our
strategic deterrent I look at that as
one of the most important things that
our nation can do what is involved in
deterrence is it is it being ready to
attack or is it the defensive systems
that catch attacks a little bit of both
and so it's a complicated game
theoretical kind of program but
ultimately we are trying to prevent the
use of any of these weapons and the
theory behind prevention is that even if
an adversary uses a weapon against you
you have the capability to essentially
strike back and do harm to them that's
unacceptable
and so that will deter them from you
know making use of these weapon systems
the deterrence calculus has changed of
course with you know more nations now
having these kinds of weapons but I
think you know from my perspective it's
very important you know to maintain a
strategic deterrent you have to have
systems that you will know you know will
work when they're required to work you
know that they have to be adaptable to a
variety of different scenarios in
today's world and so that's what this
recapitalization of systems that were
built over in previous decades making
sure that they are appropriate not just
for today but for the decades to come so
the other thing I'd really like to note
is strategic deterrence has a very
different character today you know we
used to think of weapons of mass
destruction in terms of nuclear chemical
biological and today we have a cyber
threat we've seen examples of the use of
cyber weaponry and if you think about
the possibilities of using cyber
capabilities or an adverse
attacking the us to take out things like
critical infrastructure electrical grids
water systems those are scenarios that
are strategic in nature to the survival
of a nation as well so that is the kind
of world that we live in today and you
know part of my hope on this is one that
we can also develop technical or
technological systems perhaps enabled by
a and athon imme that will allow us to
contain and to fight back against these
kinds of new threats that were not
conceived when we first developed our
strategic deterrence yeah I know that
Lockheed is involved in cyber I saw I
studied that you mentioned that it's an
incredibly a nuclear almost seems easier
than cyber because there's so many
attack by there's so many ways that
cyber can evolve it's such an uncertain
future but talking about engineering
with the mission I mean in this case
that you're engineering systems that
basically saved the world
well like like I said we were privileged
to deuce to work on some very
challenging problems for for very
critical customers here in the US and
with our allies abroad as well
Lockheed bills both military and
non-military systems and perhaps the
future of Lockheed may be more in
non-military applications if you talk
about space and beyond I see that as a
preface to a difficult question so
President Eisenhower in 1961 in his
farewell address talked about the
military-industrial complex and that it
shouldn't grow beyond what is needed so
what are your thoughts on those words on
the military-industrial complex on the
concern of growth of their developments
beyond what may be needed that what
where it may be needed is a critical
phrase of course
and and I think it is worth pointing out
as you noted that Lockheed Martin we are
in a number of commercial businesses
from energy to space to commercial
aircraft and so I wouldn't and I
wouldn't neglect the importance of those
parts of our business as well I think
the world is dynamic and you know there
was a time it doesn't seem that long ago
to me it was I was a graduate student
here at MIT and we were talking about
the peace dividend at the end of the
Cold War if you look at expenditure on
military systems as a fraction of GDP
were far below peak levels of the past
and to me at least it looks like a time
where you're seeing global threats
changing in a way that would warrant
you know relevant relevant investments
in defense defensive capabilities the
other thing I'd note for military and
defensive systems it's it's not quite a
free market right we don't sell to you
know people on the street and that
warrants a very close partnership
between I'd say the customers and the
people that design build and maintain
these systems because of the very unique
nature the the very difficult
requirements the very great importance
on you know safety and then you know
operating the way they're intended every
time and so that does create and it's
frankly it's one of Lockheed Martin's
great strengths is that we have this
expertise built up over many years in
partnership with our customers to be
able to design and build these systems
that meet these very unique mission
needs
yeah because building those system is
very costly it's very little room for
mistake I mean it's yeah just been
Rich's book and so on just tells the
story it's never I can just reading it
if you're an engineer it's reads like a
thriller okay
let me let's go back to space for say
I guess I'm always happy to go back to
space so a few quick may be out there a
fun questions maybe a little provocative
what are your thoughts on the efforts of
the new folks SpaceX and you know musk
what are your thoughts about what Elon
is doing you see Miss competition
do you enjoy a competition Oh what are
your thoughts yeah first of all
certainly you on
I'd say SpaceX and some of the and some
of those other ventures are definitely a
competitive force in the in the space
industry and do we like competition yeah
we do
and we think we're very strong
competitors I think it's yeah
competition is what the US is founded on
and in a lot of ways and always coming
up with a better way and I I think it's
really important to continue you know
have fresh eyes coming in new innovation
I do think it's important to have level
playing fields and so you want to make
sure that that you're not giving
different requirements to different
players but you know I tell people you
know I spent a lot of time he places
like MIT I'm going to be at the MIT
beaver work Summer Institute over the
weekend here and I tell people this is
the most exciting time to be in the
space business in my entire life and it
is this explosion of new capabilities
that have been driven by things like the
you know the massive increase in
computing power things like the massive
increase in comms capabilities advanced
and additive manufacturing are are
really bringing down the barriers to
entry in this field and it's driving
just incredible innovation and it's
happening at startups but it's also
happening at Lockheed Martin may not
realize this but Lockheed Martin working
with Stanford actually built the first
cubes that was launched here out of the
u.s. that was called quakes and we did
that with stellar solutions this
right around just after 2000 I guess and
so we've been in that you know from the
very beginning and you know I I talked
about some of these like you know Maya
and Orion but you know we're in the
middle of what we call smart sets and
software-defined satellites that can
essentially restructure and re map their
purpose their mission on orbit to give
you almost unlimited flexibility for
these satellites over their lifetimes so
those are just a couple of examples but
yeah this this is a great time to be in
space absolutely
so Wright brothers flew for the first
time 116 years ago so now we have
supersonic stealth planes and all the
technology we've talked about what
innovations obviously you can't predict
the future but do you see Lockheed in
the next hundred years if you take that
same leap how will the world of
technology engineering change I know
it's an impossible question but nobody
could have predicted that we could even
fly a hundred and twenty years ago so
what do you think is the edge of
possibility that we're going to be
exploring the next I don't know that
there is an edge I you know we've been
around for almost that entire time right
the Lockheed brothers and Glenn L Martin
starting their companies you know
basement of a church and a old you know
service station we're very different
companies today than we were back then
right and that's because we've
continuously reinvented ourselves over
the all of those decades I think it's
fair to say yeah I know this for sure
the world of the future it's going to
move faster it's going to be more
connected it's going to be more
autonomous and it's going to be more
complex than it is today
and so this is the world you know as a
CTL Lockheed Martin that I think about
what are the technologies that we have
to invest in whether it's things like AI
and autonomy you know you can think
about quantum computing which is an area
that we've invested in to try to stay
of these technological changes and
frankly some of the threats that are out
there I mean I believe that we're going
to be out there in the solar system that
we're gonna be defending and defending
well against probably you know military
threats that nobody has even thought
about today we are going to be we're
going to use these capabilities to have
far greater knowledge of our own planet
the depths of the oceans you know all
the way to the upper reaches the
atmosphere and everything out to the Sun
into the edge of the solar system so so
that's what I look forward to and I I'm
excited I mean just looking ahead in the
next decade or so to the steps that I
see ahead of us in that time I don't
think there's a better place to end K
okay thank you so much
Lexus been a real pleasure and sorry it
took so long to get up here glad we're
able to make it happen
you