A Battle Is Brewing: According to the Congressional newspaper, The Hill, the Aerospace Industries Association is out to stop Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) from making fixed-price contracting the norm for acquisition of major weapons systems. McCain believes the move would help control costs and has managed to convince enough Senate colleagues to get the fixed-price rule in the 2007 defense authorization bill. Roxana Tiron reports that AIA, on the other hand, believes that one way to keep costs down is to provide consistent funding, even invoking multiyear contracts—something Congress has been loath to do. Since the House version of the 2007 defense bill is mum on this issue, all will have to be worked out in conference.
Special-ops aviators, a physicist from the intelligence community, and an enlisted Marine with decades of deployments: U.S. Space Command’s military and civilian leaders who spoke May 7 were as likely to come from strictly space backgrounds as not. These are some of the day’s insights from inside the command, which…