The top contract categories: Research and development--slicing the transformation pie

The bellwether for the Bush administration's campaign to transform the military into a more high-tech, more mobile and more agile force is the Pentagon's research and development budget. Money spent researching new solutions to age-old military problems is the seed com that produces cutting-edge technologies such as the unmanned combat aircraft that recently distinguished themselves in Afghanistan.

Just last May, for example, project managers at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency and Boeing announced the first flight of the X-45A, the first of a new family of unmanned aerial vehicles designed to fly at 40,000 feet and drop 2,000 pounds of precision-guided bombs. The X-45 is scheduled to join the Air Force and Navy inventories between 2006 and 2008. Other transformational programs deemed ripe for exploitation include satellite surveillance systems, global positioning satellite targeting, stealth aircraft, tactical unmanned aerial vehicles and especially advanced information systems and sensors to provide commandand-control, communications and intelligence capabilities.