Week 4 of 52 - The Department of Mad Scientists: How DARPA Is Remaking Our World, from the Internet to Artificial Limbs

In the seventies and eighties, every child I knew wanted to be an astronaut; watching Mr Wizard & playing with rockets, sitting in the cold watching Hallie’s Comet bisecting the sky.
We drempt of finding new stars, of walking among them, of discovering new worlds & new civilizations.
To boldly go where no one had gone before.

wait, Hold on.
That’s Star Trek Next Generation.
Oh. shit…
Watched that show week after week & I never really got that bit.

We thought we were the first.
The first to dream of what came next.
How smart we were integrating new technologies into our everyday life.
Our computers & mobile communications.
Our GPS & real-time web.

What we’ve missed was this; every single one of our dreams (as well as most of the new billionaires’ inventions) have been built from the spoils of this crazy notion that research & development were paramount to us as a nation. And that government, specifically the Department of Defense, should take some of that lovely, Congressionally approved budget, & make the opportunity for the impossible to be possible.  

In 1958, a civilian from the corporate world stepped into the DOD & immediately set about creating a r&d lab that could make sure that America wasn’t in a race with anyone, but was instead, setting the standards.

In other words, although DARPA (originally ARPA) was approved based on the embarrassment of Sputnik, it would never be in the business of recreating or improving upon what others were doing. They would be working on creating new solutions for problems that they had yet to create.
And they would work with a sizable budget without the need to get project based approval from anyone else.

The Project Managers go straight to the Director & if the pitch was well received, the project would be given the green light.
Immediately.
Often with a budget in excess of 1 million dollars.
Often in less than an hour from sketches to funding.

One of DARPA’s most recent directors likened the best of his people to Sci-Fi authors.
Dreamers unhindered by concern of if something were plausible.
Think Jules Vern’s submarine -sure, we know its possible now, but at the time, the idea was more than just a little bit crazy.

These sci-fi worthy dreamers come into DARPA knowing that they only have 2-4 years to get something done. And once an idea has been born, will not take no for an answer.

They are the people who take $148 million & ask a single group to create a viable renewable fuel source in 2 years instead of taking that same amount and asking 12 groups to come up with a “plan” to create the same in a similar amount of time.

They get shit done.

With minimal overhead, & in all fairness, with surprisingly marketable results. In other words, it’s some of our goverment’s best spent money. With only 1% of 1% of the DOD’s budget, DARPA does in fact create game changing technologies every year.

They do it by being the home for dreamers
and by getting the bureaucrats the fuck out of their way.

And have been doing so since 1958.

I wish I could say that this book was a riveting good read, but in reality it works best as recruiting material. And I can’t really fault it for that. I did get that little flutter of excitement I haven’t had since I was a little girl. When the world’s possibilities were the stuff of science fiction.