I haven't had the chance to dig through various publication (GAO, DHS, or press), nor have I had the time to do a historical search on FedBizzOpps to understand the procurement history of the Strip Search Machines. So, I thought I would throw out some questions that perhaps some other of you have thought about and researched.

1. Why are there two completely different types of machines? Clearly, there was one set of specifications. But, they went with two different manufactures, two completely different designs using two completely different technologies.

2. Did they down-select from more than two different types of technologies? Are there other types of scanners that could have satisfied their requirements?

3. Why didn't they down-select to just one type of machine? Two machines require two sets of operations and maintenance manuals and spare parts. There are two types of training programs required. There are two completely different sets of installation and test documentation and two completely different sets of interface control documents and two completely different sets of facility requirements.

4. Did they go with two types because of warp-speed plans to install them as quickly as possible? Was it the case that one manufacturer could not produce them fast enough for the TSA? If this was the case, why not down-select to one type and do a second-source procurement to increase your production rate?

5. How do they decide which airports get which machines? One clearly has a smaller footprint than the other. Perhaps one has a higher floor-loading than the other. Perhaps one draws more power than the other? Perhaps a particular airport director may not want radiation-generating equipment at his airport (if he/she even got a vote).

All of these questions set aside, for the moment, my personal loathing of this equipment at many different levels and the public speculation of Chertoff personally profiting from the acquisition of the Cancer Machine version.

However, this does make for an interesting look from an acquisition strategy perspective. I've got my own theories, but I will wait to read what others have written.