Aging infrastructure is endangering US military’s capacity to innovate
Inspection of aircraft bolts in a lab at Goldwater Air National Guard Base. (Photo: US Air Force)
The Pentagon could face serious challenges in developing and accessing cutting-edge solutions due to infrastructural issues at its facilities.
Despite planning to invest more than US$5.5 billion in innovation over FY2024, the House Armed Services Committee Democratic representative John Garamendi (California) highlighted during a recent hearing that laboratory issues were “certainly a major part of the [department’s facilities] problem”.
The DoD and its services currently operate more than 50 laboratories and testing centres across 22 US states. Some of those units have been located in more than 60-year-old buildings and installations which have not been properly maintained over the
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