ST: Separation anxiety: The wall between military and commercial technology

Technology managment is going to become a big issue within the USA. Eventually citizens are going to realize our tax dollars subsidize US based companies turning into global corporations who take US developed technologies and give them to foreign countries. Not ITAR technologies, but still technologies that took a great deal of expense and effort to develop. Not directly to the government, but to their people. Which in turn takes our jobs. Now their citizens have the know how to build and design US developed technologies. Free of charge.

Separation anxiety: The wall between military and commercial technology
Seattle Times 01/22/06
author: Dominic Gates
(Copyright 2006)

...
The underlying issue is whether Boeing's plan to outsource high-tech 787 composites manufacturing could put U.S. government technology in the hands of either enemies or potential future economic competitors.

...

Boeing can't take the technology-export issue lightly because it previously ran afoul of the restrictions.

Internal documents show the Department of Commerce found export-license irregularities during the 1990s in Boeing's sharing of composites technology with its Japanese partners on the 777, which has a tail made from composites.

Commerce closed that previously undisclosed investigation last year and issued a warning letter to Boeing. Neither the company nor the Commerce Department would discuss details.

And last summer, the State Department prepared civil charges against Boeing alleging 94 violations of the Arms Control Act because the company sold commercial jets without obtaining an export license for a tiny gyrochip that has defense applications.

...

On the new 787 program, Boeing is taking composites technology much further than it did on the 777. The whole 787 airframe, like that of the B-2, will be made from plasticized carbon-fiber composites rather than the conventional aluminum.

Boeing developed new manufacturing methods, molding enormous single-piece fuselage barrels out of composite plastic. When production starts, those fuselage sections will be made in Italy and Japan.

...

Technology with both commercial and military applications -- so-called dual-use items -- is generally exportable with a Department of Commerce license.

...

In a plant across from the Flight Museum, Boeing has worked for more than a year with its Japanese and Italian partners to perfect the pioneering robotic production of 787 wings and large, single-piece fuselage barrels.

...

He sees the export laws as outdated, reflecting a control system designed for the Cold War rather than the new reality of economic globalization.

"At some point people need to lift their eyes from their military concerns and look around at how the global market has changed," Thompson said.

The military part doesn't bother me as much as the carefree attitude corporations take with technology and manufacturing processes, and how we just teach anybody with a factory and cheap labor what took us many years to develop on our own. Foreign countries gain the benefits without the costs. Shame on us for not recognizing this issue and addressing it in a way that safeguards America's investment and its future.

Aerospace | Defense | Technology | Engineering | Business | Public Policy