[wolfgke]

> Skunk works can sustain, at max manpower. It is bureaucratic waste with minimum productive output. My 2c.

Isn't the idea of skunkwork projects exactly to avoid bureaucratic waste for the sake of radical innovation?! Let me give three quotes from https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Skunkworks_projec...:

"A skunkworks project is a project developed by a relatively small and loosely structured group of people who research and develop a project primarily for the sake of radical innovation."

"Everett Rogers defined skunkworks as an "enriched environment that is intended to help a small group of individuals design a new idea by escaping routine organizational procedures.""

"[T]he term [skunkworks] was generalized to apply to similar high-priority R&D projects at other large organizations which feature a small elite team removed from the normal working environment and given freedom from management constraints.".

In this sense, the projects you are talking about surely cannot be skunkwork projects, but are just ordinary cooperate projects with a huge conservative cooperate-bureaucratic structure.

[stan_rogers]

Yes, and that's exactly what the post you are responding to said. Read it again: it says that the money is far more than skunkworks could possibly spend, so it's far more likely that the evaporating money is being boiled away by ordinary bureaucratic waste with nothing to show for it.

[wolfgke]

I am no native speaker of English, but at

> Skunk works can sustain, at max manpower. It is bureaucratic waste with minimum productive output.

to me, "it" seems to refer to "[s]kunk work" and referring to skunk work with respect to "max manpower" does not sound like skunk work to me, but throwing lots of cooperate ressources (instead of a small elite team) at the project.

[mkl]

"It" here refers to "F35 budget". The punctuation is not ideal; I think it would be clearer something like this:

> With the F35 budget well over a trillion dollars (this is 2-3 orders of magnitude larger than needed to fund maximum number of projects Skunk works can sustain, at max manpower), it is a bureaucratic waste with minimum productive output.

[stan_rogers]

The word "Skunk" does not start a new sentence. It is in the middle of this phrase: "this is 2-3 orders of magnitude larger than needed to fund maximum number of projects Skunk works can sustain". I'll agree that the punctuation isn't ideal; that phrase should have been preceded by a comma.

[ptero]

The poster you are responding to is correct. Sorry, I could have been clearer in wording and "it"s.

Skunkworks is great, but works while it is small and nimble. Fund it fully. But this could cost billions, tens of billions at most. Not trillions that have been spent on F-35.

[chiefalchemist]

Isn't the idea of skunkwork projects exactly to avoid bureaucratic waste for the sake of radical innovation?

In the true sense of the word, yes. However, the MIC and the budgets that support it have their own working definition. It's not about the ends/results, It's about the means (swallowing more and more budget).