UP FRONT.

• Author: Magnuson, Stew

Not the Cape Canaveral of Yesteryear

* The space business is taking off and so is Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida, part of the world's busiest space port.

Brig. Gen. Wayne R. Monteith, commander of the 45th Space Wing and director of the Eastern Range at Patrick Air Force Base, said in 2008 the facility carried out seven launches, which was about as much as it could handle. It is now driving toward 48 launches a year and can execute two launches in a little more than 14 hours.

"We are moving at the speed of business not the inertia of bureaucracy. We are delivering agile launch today," said Monteith at the Space Symposium. The wing changed the way it looks at safety and conducting operations, and eliminated inefficient processes. It has carried out rapid prototyping and rapid deployment of new systems, he said.

This year will see a 400 percent increase in launches since 2016 using 20 percent fewer people and 25 percent less instrumentation. Automation is key, he added.

After 2016's Hurricane Matthew, the base returned to operations in two days, 13 hours and 42 minutes, he said. "The only reason we couldn't do it quicker was that we had to clear catfish off the runway."

A Case of Too Much Innovation

* "If you go to rent a car, you might not know where the light switch is, or how to turn the windshield wipers on and off, but you sure know where the steering wheel is, you know where the brake pedal is, you know where the accelerator is," said Vice Adm. Thomas Moore, Naval Sea Systems Command commander.

But that is not the case when it comes to steering Navy ships, he said at the recent Navy League's annual show.

The 2017 USS Fitzgerald and USS McCain collisions prompted the Navy to look at how different types of ships are controlled, he said. The count came to 23.

"How did we get to this point?" he asked. Some of it was the drive toward innovation and trying to provide flexibility to the user. "I think there is a case where simpler would have been better," he said. "There are places on the ships today where we could look back and say, 'I didn't need to be as innovative as I thought I needed to be.'"

Read more on Navy innovation on page 6.

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