The Death Star Boondoggle

With the Star Wars Blu-ray box set due for release on Friday, there has been a flood of new articles about George Lucas’ movie cycle. The best thing we’ve read is USAF Lt. Col. Dan Ward’s Don’t Come to the Dark Side: Acquisitions Lessons from a Galaxy Far, Far Away, a detailed analysis of how the Star Wars Death Stars were inevitably doomed by the Empire’s quest for a foolproof defense system and applies that lesson to contemporary technological development:  “any enormous project that is brain-meltingly complex, ravenously consumes resources, and aims to deliver an Undefeatable Ultimate Weapon is well on its way to becoming a Death Star.”

Wulf also decimates Darth Vader’s management style and proclaims relatively simple droids like R2-D2 as the real heroes of both the movies and future weapons development. As Luke Skywalker could certainly tell you, an underfunded and technology-deprived enemy might just get off a lucky shot and take down your overly complex weapons system.

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3 Comments

  1. Airborne248 says:

    Where was this guy when they were building the Bradley?

  2. Ted says:

    As a Star Wars fan I must point out one mistake that Col WARD (not Wulf as stated above) made, he said that the Death Star II did not fire its primary weapon at all. In fact it did, twice, at large ships.

    Anyway good article.

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