The whole space industry is undergoing a massive change as the old methods of achieving progress in space — largely led by government funding and prime contractors — are supplanted by a bottom-up ecosystem led by commercial companies and private investors.
The Aerospace Corporation has been making space work since before Apollo, and we've learned to lean into change. So it should come as no surprise that our CEO Steve Isakowitz is in agreement with intelligence startup turned billion-dollar defense contractor Palantir on the need to move faster. A piece to this effect, co-authored by the two leaders, appeared today in RealClearDefense.
Isakowitz and Palantir CTO Shyam Sankar warn that if the U.S. doesn't embrace innovation and commercial space and defense, it will be left behind by those that do. But if it were as simple as pressing a button, everyone would do that; instead, it's a complex, difficult, and long-term exercise in casting off decades of tradition and outdated processes.
As prologue to their own recommendations, they call back to Gen. Bernard Schriever, whose push to build the first ICBM required fundamental changes of a similar type.
"Schriever paired this talent-first mindset with approaches that favored concurrent over serial work and a focus on speed and rapid testing that dramatically compressed development timelines," they write. "He championed new models for collaboration between the military, industry, and scientific advisors that served as a basis for future complex defense efforts that helped win the Cold War."
Their advice today echoes those changes: broaden the talent base, rethink careers and credentials, connect expertise across domains, create new on-ramps into government systems, and remove barriers that stifle creativity and innovation.
"It’s time to broaden the aperture and allow greater competition backed by private investors rather than the taxpayer. We must focus less on process and more on people and products, freeing a new generation of mavericks to put their best work forward and see it rapidly adopted into operations."