I don’t condone what’s happened in the Air Force of late – this launch-code fiasco, or the “comfort capsules” bought with funds intended for counter-terrorism. As a warfighter, it makes me madder than hell that some USAF general officers think it’s right to spend millions of dollars on their personal comfort during travel to war zones when that money could be better spent on the procurement of more MRAPs, for example.

Personal bias aside, however, the Air Force is just the current target of the media “watchdog” spotlight. They largely have themselves to blame. I would imagine their senior leaders are hoping for the uncovering of some travel scandal or credit card fraud in another government agency so that they can catch a break. I hope these latest incidents lead to some introspection and at least a moderate change in AF culture. *Sigh* If only it were that easy…

It’s more than just suck-it-up.

Fail-safe theory has been developed and the entire investment based on 2-concurrent points of agreement: 2 launch keys.

There are some ways to improve the control of the launch keys against human failure without having to rebuild our entire system. We don’t want to have to move to 3 launch keys. That’s expensive.

The cheapest way to improve the integrity of the system is not through fear and punishment of the suck-it-up approach. Too much is at stake. The system has to work come hell or high water. The cheapest change in to regulate better the work cycles and the sleep cycles of the personnel.

There are some things we can push into a system and suck-it-up (SIU) works well in many systems. We don’t want to push SIU into brain surgery, or the operating rooms, and we don’t want to push SIU into the natural and essential sleep cycles required for a fresh state of mind. It does not work that way.