Abstract
America is losing its military edge over China. In 1960, Lockheed’s Skunk Works built the SR-71 Blackbird in 20 months. Today, the average major defense acquisition takes eleven years to deliver capability to the battlefield. Meanwhile, China increased military spending by 620 percent between 1996 and 2015, compared to the U.S.’s 57 percent. China also grew its modern diesel submarine fleet from 2 to 27 vessels, and expanded its ballistic missile arsenal from a handful to over 1,400 units with accuracy improving from hundreds of meters to five to ten meter margins. Think Tank RAND’s scorecard shows the U.S. advantage over China across ten major combat categories has imploded from seven to zero. Maintaining U.S. military superiority requires innovation on two facets. The first being the technology itself constantly advancing, and the second being the industrial base accelerating to deliver reliable technology in strategic windows. Project Loch Ness, aims to tackle the first problem by developing a novel propulsion system for stealth underwater vehicles. New Players in the Arsenal, analyzes the second facet, of how Silicon Valley style defense startups are disrupting the current American military industrial base. The projects work in tandem, technologically and institutionally, to develop a new system that competes with China.
Project Loch Ness investigates the possible advantages of magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) propulsion over conventional propellers for underwater stealth military operations. MHD drives core principle is the Lorentz force. Which states that any charged particle in an electromagnetic environment will be accelerated parallel to the Lorentz force, which is orthogonal to both the electric and magnetic fields. MHD drives have no moving parts, which drastically reduces acoustic signature, ideal for stealth missions. Since Mitsubishi’s Yamato-1 in the early 90’s, no sea vessels have been built using MHD drives, mainly due to very strong magnetic fields only being generated with heavy and clunky equipment. Therefore, MHD drives do not generate a lot of thrust and are quite inefficient. Then in 2023, DARPA released the new PUMPS program instilling confidence in the technology. MHD technology has many challenges, with one of the main ones being corrosion of electrodes. The saltwater environment coupled with intense electrolysis creates a vicious electrochemical corrosion environment. Creating very strong magnetic fields is also very difficult without special and expensive equipment. The figure of merit is a thrust to weight ratio, as the magnets are relatively very heavy. Results will attempt to determine whether MHD research is worth investing in, or if the technology is simply not feasible for stealth underwater operations.
The STS project investigates: what are the tradeoffs of the speed-first approach that defense startups bring to the U.S. defense industrial base? Using the SCOT framework, comparative case studies were conducted of a mature disruptor like Anduril, to a newer player like Mach Industries. Both companies deploy venture capital to build products ahead of government requests and frame their rhetoric about racing China, not other defense contractors. The speed at which each of these companies move is unbelievable. Anduril took CCA Fury from clean sheet to flight in 556 days and compressed software deployment from 180 days to 18 hours. Mach took its Viper cruise missile from design to flight test in 14 weeks. But speed has costs. Anduril drone boats aborted a Navy mission off the coast of California, its counter drone interceptor sparked a 22-acre wildfire in Oregon, and Ukrainian forces stopped using its drones in 2024 after poor battlefield performance. At Mach, a hydrogen engine exploded and hospitalized an employee. It is clear that the current post Cold War model is not feasible against China, but moving too quickly when lives are at stake is not a viable solution. Therefore, the defining challenge of this decade will be for American defense policy to develop an optimal hybrid model where speed and accountability both exist.
The two projects work together. A novel stealth propulsion system is only as valuable as the industrial base is capable of developing and fielding it, and an accelerated industrial base is only as good as the technology it produces. Future work on Project Loch Ness should look at ways the technology can be scaled, possibly without MHD. Future work on this STS research should examine whether hybrid structures like Golden Dome are optimal.
Notes
School of Engineering and Applied Science
Bachelor of Science in Aerospace Engineering
Technical Advisor: Daniel Quinn
STS Advisor: Kent Wayland
Technical Team Members: Eric Avellone, Kellylyn Brinkac, Cameron Dearman, Will Hixson, Tyler
Kaczmarek, William McGee, Samantha Ritchie, Amitav Suchdev, Albert Tang
