Elon, Pete, and the Drone Wars

By Richard Vigilante

71 days.

That’s how long it took Venom, a powerful, new, U.S. autonomous strike aircraft (aka a drone) to move from concept to flying prototype.

71 days. In traditional aerospace terms, that is almost indecent.

For decades, the path from concept to first flight has stretched across years. Requirements proliferated with each committee’s two cents. Design reviews accumulated. Tooling lead times expanded. Certification protocols hardened. Oversight layered on top. The system evolved to prevent embarrassment, not accelerate learning.

All that is going away. Elon Musk and Pete Hegseth are driving a radical improvement in how the U.S. military develops and acquires weapons, which, in turn, will radically change U.S. war fighting doctrine and ultimately transform U.S. manufacturing.

Musk’s contribution was to lead by explosive example: live-streaming of rockets that blew up. Early Falcon launches failed. Starship prototypes burst into fireballs. Commentators scoffed. Critics called it reckless. Elon called it learning.

Build. Launch. Fail. Redesign. Relaunch.

The explosions were data acquisition events. Every redesign compounded learning. Version one did not need to be perfect; it needed to teach.

Over at the Department of War, Pete Hegseth is pushing the same approach. Rapid, iterative development that expects failure and treats it as learning. Venom in 71 days is a harbinger.

Before we praise either man excessively, however, we should note one huge advantage both had over previous aerospace pioneers. No pilot. SpaceX’s experimental launches were all unmanned, as are drones.

With pilots in the cockpit, acceptable failure collapses toward zero. Testing stretches out. Certification hardens. Political tolerance narrows. Manned aircraft increase expenses exponentially, as so much of the aircraft’s capabilities are directed at preserving the pilot.

Unmanned systems alter that calculus. Failures become data rather than catastrophe. Early versions can be fielded sooner, evaluated in real-world conditions, and refined quickly. In effect, unmanned doctrine lowers the political and operational cost of iteration.

Print it!

Print it!

This change to iterative development, however, is possible only because of an equally momentous development in manufacturing. Aerospace manufacturing—like nearly all manufacturing—has been dominated by molds, dies, castings, and long retooling timelines. Retooling was such an expensive labor that the pressure to get it right the first time could be overwhelming.

Most of the Venom drone, however, was not molded, died, cast, or assembled. It was printed. It’s been more than 40 years since the first 3D printers were invented, building parts in plastic. Today, even high stress aerospace components can be printed directly from digital design files—often in titanium or other high-performance alloys.

Compressed development cycles require manufacturing methods capable of keeping pace.

Additive manufacturing, as it is now called, will increasingly make iterative development first plausible, and then imperative. As non-recurring engineering friction declines, small-batch production becomes economically viable. Early-stage systems can evolve without committing to massive tooling investment.

Additive and iterative promote each other. If defense doctrine increasingly favors iterative unmanned systems, demand rises for manufacturing methods that can accommodate rapid redesign. Additive manufacturing, meanwhile, will increasingly make iterative design the favored option.

Today, additive does not automatically win at extreme scale; casting and forging remain superior for very high volumes. For some manufactured systems, that may never change. But investors neglect the experience curve at their peril. Over time, expect the economic calculus to shift away from old style mass production and toward additive manufacturing as it grows in power and declines in price.

The additive ecosystem

The additive ecosystem

Investors should think of additive manufacturing as an ecosystem rather than a single hardware story. The economic value does not sit only in the printers. Here are some key layers. (They are not investment recommendations but a map of the terrain.)

Printer OEMs (Metal & Industrial Systems):

3D Systems

Stratasys

EOS GmbH

Velo3D

Desktop Metal

Materials & Powders:

Carpenter Technology Corporation

Höganäs AB

Design & Simulation Software:

Autodesk

Siemens

Aerospace & Defense Integrators:

Boeing

Lockheed Martin

Israel Aerospace Industries

Elbit Systems

Industrial transitions often reward more than just equipment manufacturers. Consumables, specialized materials, and design software can capture durable economics as production volumes increase.

As so often occurs, Israel offers a glimpse of the future. As a small country facing immediate threats, it cannot afford decade-long development cycles. It has always favored rapid field adaptation and tight feedback loops between battlefield performance and engineers.

Israel Defense Forces have relied heavily on unmanned systems for decades. Additive manufacturing fits naturally within that culture. Firms like Israel Aerospace Industries and Elbit Systems have increasingly used additive manufacturing. Israeli companies such as XJet (metal and ceramic) and Nano Dimension (additive electronics) are advancing that country’s additive ecosystem.

Defense as catalyst

Defense as catalyst

Defense adoption has historically accelerated the credibility—and revenue streams—of emerging technologies. Composite materials, advanced semiconductors, and precision GPS systems all gained commercial legitimacy after meeting military performance standards.

As unmanned doctrine pushes iterative + additive deeper into aerospace workflows, defense procurement becomes a catalyst. DOD procurement funds the learning curve. Soon everybody’s doin’ it.

At Gilder’s Technology Report —aka my day job—we like to get there before everybody’s doin’ it. Subscribe today.

Drones however are far from the ultimate weapon. In my next post I’ll explain why the drone itself may be a short lived threat, especially to the U.S. and Israel.

Comments boost writers’ morale and help keep us going. Don’t hesitate.