Just a small aside, Huntsville, AL seems to make perfect sense to me to build a new facility. It has a huge built in base as it supposedly already has one of the highest concentration of STEM majors in the USA and the cost of living is 55% lower than SF (https://www.nerdwallet.com/cost-of-living-calculator/compare...). If you are going to make government wages your dollar will go a lot farther there.
It has the highest concentration of STEM majors because the govt keeps building and recruiting there. And I would add that I agree yes - robotics labs in high school, etc. Very solid STEM.
Issue is recruiting people outside the govt network. The exceptions prove the rule, but it is a very hard sell to get people from Big Tech who aren't Eric Schmidt or the newest CS grads from MIT to move to these places. Tell me the 23 year old who all things equal to include a comparable salary will choose rural AL over SF?
As a result, it perpetrates the issue of insular govt technical hires that heavily orient around weapon systems and similar, and are out of step with the new practices, which means less talent comes in and then dicy implementations like PlatformOne are the result.
If you want govt tech to be continually dictated by the clowncar of govt contracting and general DoD grift, then Huntsville makes perfect sense as you say. Space Force is HQ'd in rural AL for similar reasons.
There is a reason why Kessel Run (USAF) is in Boston, Army Futures is in Austin, and smaller elite units have outposts in SV.
Edit - and fwiw, the fact that the defense tech startups out of SV can hire those 23 y/o or ex-Google types without a lot of issue is a good indicator to track.
