{"podcast":{"title":"The Defense Tech Podcast with Fexingo: Government Contracting, Aerospace, and Military Tech","slug":"the-defense-tech-podcast-with-fexingo-government-contracting-aerospace-and-military-tech-7871833","podcast_index_feed_id":7871833,"rss_url":"https://feeds.fexingo.com/business/the-defense-tech-podcast.xml","website_url":"https://www.fexingo.com/","image_url":"https://audio.fexingo.com/business/the-defense-tech-podcast/cover.png","author":"Fexingo","episode_count":120,"summary":"Defense contracting isn't just F-35s and carrier groups. Lucas and Luna break down the actual economics of military tech: how aerospace primes like Lockheed, RTX, and Northrop Grumman manage multi-year fixed-price development contracts, what the DoD’s new CMMC cybersecurity rules mean for small subcontractors, and why the Navy’s Columbia-class submarine program is a case study in industrial-base risk. Each episode starts with a real number — a contract award value, a quarterly P&L line from a defense prime, a Pentagon budget line item — and builds a conversation around it. Lucas, a former defense correspondent, brings the policy and accounting; Luna, a tech-market analyst, connects the programs to publicly traded supply chains and venture-backed startups trying to break into classified markets. No classified information, no defense-blog speculation — just the business logic behind the weapons systems you read about in the news. Why does a missile cost $4 million? How does a shipbuilder hedge against steel tariffs? And what happens when a startup wins a Small Business Innovation Research grant for a prototype that the Air Force actually wants to buy? This is the business of nationa…","last_synced_at":"2026-07-19T08:17:05.344517+00:00","page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-defense-tech-podcast-with-fexingo-government-contracting-aerospace-and-military-tech-7871833"},"episode":{"title":"How the Pentagon Is Buying Hypersonics Like Software","slug":"how-the-pentagon-is-buying-hypersonics-like-software","published_at":"2026-06-15T07:56:31+00:00","page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-defense-tech-podcast-with-fexingo-government-contracting-aerospace-and-military-tech-7871833/how-the-pentagon-is-buying-hypersonics-like-software","show_page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-defense-tech-podcast-with-fexingo-government-contracting-aerospace-and-military-tech-7871833","url":"https://audio.fexingo.com/business/the-defense-tech-podcast/episode-0052.mp3","audio_url":"https://audio.fexingo.com/business/the-defense-tech-podcast/episode-0052.mp3","summary":"The Pentagon's 2026 hypersonic weapons push has hit a wall: traditional cost-plus contracting is too slow for the speed of flight-test iteration. Lucas and Luna dig into the new 'Other Transaction Authority' experiment at the Missile Defense Agency — a $2.1 billion prototyping deal with three competing teams that lets engineers swap guidance software mid-contract. They discuss what this means for primes like Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman, why the model borrows from Silicon Valley's agile playbook, and whether a program that started in March 2026 can deliver an operational hypersonic interceptor by 2029. For defense entrepreneurs and operators, this is the acquisition reform to watch. #Hypersonics #Pentagon #MissileDefenseAgency #OtherTransactionAuthority #DefenseAcquisition #AgileDevelopment #LockheedMartin #NorthropGrumman #HypersonicInterceptor #Prototyping #DefenseContracting #MilitaryTech #GovernmentContracting #Aerospace #Business #Technology #FexingoBusiness #BusinessPodcast Keep every episode free: buymeacoffee.com/fexingo","meta_description":"The Pentagon's 2026 hypersonic weapons push has hit a wall: traditional cost-plus contracting is too slow for the speed of flight-test iteration. Lucas an…","key_points":[],"chapters":[],"topics":[],"duration_seconds":621,"processing_state":"not_requested","actions":[{"name":"request_transcript","method":"POST","url":"https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/the-defense-tech-podcast-with-fexingo-government-contracting-aerospace-and-military-tech-7871833/episodes/how-the-pentagon-is-buying-hypersonics-like-software/transcription-requests","description":"Idempotently request low-priority transcript generation for this episode."},{"name":"read_markdown","method":"GET","url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-defense-tech-podcast-with-fexingo-government-contracting-aerospace-and-military-tech-7871833/how-the-pentagon-is-buying-hypersonics-like-software.md","description":"Read the agent-friendly Markdown representation of this episode resource."}]}}