Keoki Jackson: Lockheed Martin | Lex Fridman Podcast #33

Lex Fridman talks with Keoki Jackson, CTO of Lockheed Martin, about the company's engineering legacy from the SR-71 to the Orion spacecraft. They explore the future of human and robotic space exploration, including Mars base camp and asteroid sample missions like OSIRIS-REx. A large portion covers autonomy and AI in safety-critical systems, the challenge of verifying non-deterministic learning systems, and lessons from the Boeing 737 MAX crashes. The conversation closes on nuclear and cyber deterrence, the military-industrial complex, and competition from SpaceX.

• Lockheed Martin is building Maya, an AI assistant described as the Alexa in space to monitor spacecraft and assist astronauts on Mars missions.
  00:15:11
• The OSIRIS-REx mission uses an autonomously piloted spacecraft with a pogo-stick vacuum collector to grab a sample from asteroid Bennu and return it to Earth.
  00:10:25
• Lockheed Martin's conviction is that autonomy and AI will be retrofit into existing systems and designed into all future systems.
  00:19:22
• The Auto GCAS autonomous ground collision avoidance system on the F-16 has already saved seven aircraft and eight pilots, prompting integration into the F-35.
  00:46:36
• DoD Directive 3000.09 governs human control over autonomous and semi-autonomous weapon systems, requiring testing, training, and human-machine interfaces.
  00:55:31
• By last count over 70 nations now have ballistic missile capability, up from a handful during the Cold War, with similar growth in space-based capabilities.
  01:00:16

• The F-104 Starfighter was the first Mach 2 jet fighter aircraft, nicknamed the missile with a man in it.
  00:02:36
• The SR-71 was an intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance aircraft designed to outrun any air defense system.
  00:03:38
• Ben Rich pitched stealth to a general by rolling a ball bearing across a desk, asking if he wanted an aircraft with that radar cross-section.
  00:33:34
• The Orion spacecraft is described as the most sophisticated human-rated spacecraft ever built, designed for deep-space journeys to the Moon and Mars.
  00:05:10
• A nanosecond is to a second as a second is to 32 years, illustrating the speed advantage AI brings to battlefield decisions.
  00:53:58
• The F-35 was reportedly so precise at carrier landings it always caught the second arresting wire, wearing it out.
  00:43:31
• Lockheed Martin has built several hundred F-35 fighters and is building almost a hundred a year.
  00:43:00
• Lockheed Martin, working with Stanford and Stellar Solutions, built the first CubeSat launched out of the US, called QuakeSat, around 2000.
  01:09:10
• Lockheed Martin is roughly 105 years old, formed from the Lockheed and Martin heritage companies plus others like General Dynamics.
  00:32:00

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