IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - September 2019 - 60

TABLE 3. Definitions of the Different Classes Of RXD Events Used.
RXD Class
Science

Investigations in pure and applied mathematics and theoretical studies concerning natural phenomena (R).
Experimental validation of theory and accumulation of data concerning natural phenomena (R).
Combined theoretical and experimental studies of new or unexplored fields of natural phenomena (R).

Technology

Development of a new material necessary for the performance of a function (XD).
Conception and/or demonstration of the capability to perform a specific elementary function, using new or untried
concepts, principles, techniques, materials, etc. (XD).
Theoretical analysis and/or experimental measurement of the characteristics or behavior of materials, equipment, etc.,
as required for design (XD).

Engineering

First demonstration of the capability to perform a specific elementary function, using established concepts, principles,
materials, etc. (XD design).
Development of a new manufacturing, fabrication or materials-processing technique (XD mfg.).
First development of a complete system component, equipment or major element of such equipment, using
established concepts, principles, materials, etc. (AD)

prime contractor. Such involvement, in the context of
modern aerospace development, implies a high
degree of access to data, going deeper than what
might exist in a government project office alone. The
sample data request template found in the 1969 Hindsight report requires that teams note publications relevant to an event, and requires that they list which
publications the personnel consulted.5

Key Assumption 1: 20-Year Time Horizon
The authors deliberately state that they were examining
a 20-year time horizon. That timeline makes sense for
some practical reasons. The authors wanted to assess
how investments in basic science affected engineering
developments. Government support of R&D had been
permanently and significantly increased after the end of
World War II. Twenty years had passed from this point
to the analysis period of the mid-1960s. Whereas little
public R&D funding existed before WWII, Congress
appropriated billions of dollars of R&D funding afterwards. Some scholars, such as G. Pascal Zachary, treat
WWII as the milestone which led to modern science policy. Despite their reasoning, the Project Hindsight
authors knew that the time assumption might induce
bias into the analysis. They considered the implications
of a longer time horizon, but attempted to justify the

5
The authors describe their information collection approach: "Once a
contribution has been judged to be significant, it is assigned to one of the
team members for further study. He identifies the individuals who were the
principal contributors, the organizations with which they were working at
the time the work was done, the date when the feasibility or practicability
of the idea was first demonstrated, the nature of the work (science or technology), the objective of the work, the approximate cost, the funding sources, etc. This material is written up in a uniform format and becomes part of
our permanent data bank of utilized science and technology. We believe we
have demonstrated that, with reasonable effort, one can trace the origin of
a contribution to a specific time and to particular people."

20-year horizon.6 We will later discuss criticisms of the
Hindsight approach generally.

Key Assumption 2: Research and Exploratory
Development (RXD) Event Framework
After the study teams identified innovations in weapons
systems, they deconstructed each innovation. Through
interviews, the teams identified research and exploratory
development (RXD) events key to the innovation and relevant. Example events include the invention of transistors
and the creation of a new type of mechanism or gear. Once
a team identified that an RXD event had occurred, they
classified it into one of the RXD categories of science,
technology, or engineering as shown in Table 3.

Hindsight's Conclusions
The Hindsight report identifies 710 RXD events that contributed to the weapon systems' developments. Its
authors do not claim to have identified all innovation
events, but believe that their sample was representative
and captured the majority of inputs.7 In examining the
historical frequency and impact of RXD events, the
authors treated each event equivalently; the conclusions
are independent of the significant impact of some
events (like transistors).
6
"We were aware of this bias from the beginning of the study, but since
what we were interested in was the utilization of knowledge generated in
the past 15-20 years, it seemed not to cast doubt on the soundness of
the method" [7:3]. "It is important to note that this technique is selective
in identifying the contributions from recent science and technology. The
many important contributions which pre-date the World War II period are
not included; nor are the countless results of research that, although indistinguishable to themselves, contribute to the pool of general knowledge of
scientists and engineers from which ideas are drawn" [7:2].
7
"The list of Events for each system is not exhaustive, but rather contains
those Events which the team judged to be most important. The teams
estimate that they studied between 30% and 90% of the Events (depending
on the system) which, in a more extensive study, would be found worthy of
analysis" [7, p. 4].

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SEPTEMBER 2019

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