25 man-years is not that much, if we really valued it. If the process is modular, 100 persons do 25 man-years in 3 months. Now, I have no idea by what method this was performed, but surely it has to at least be modular over different programs, so that we could, if we really cared about it, have a formally proven whole distribution in a few years.

It is by no means out of reach.

But you are right that it would take all the required man-years away from developing time, so we can be quite confident that it will not be adopted, it would slow down developing time too much to justify the cost for most developers.

But the Pentagon worries about what would happen if America came up against a major power, a "near-peer" rival (as it calls China and Russia), able to intercept space assets with missiles and "space mines", or to disable them with lasers and electronic jammers. "There are a lot of vulnerabilities," admits an American general, "There are backups, but our space architecture is very fragile."

The precise nature of these weaknesses is a well-guarded secret. But wargames simulating a future conflict over Taiwan often end up with the "Red Force" (China) either defeating the "Blue Force" (America) or inflicting grievous losses on it by launching an early attack in space, perhaps by setting off one or more nuclear explosions above the atmosphere. "I have played Red and had a wonderful time," says the general, "It is pretty easy to disrupt Blue. We should not expect an enemy to play by established norms in space. They will play dirty pool."