Past and present DARPA program managers and a DARPA-funded researcher describe the agency’s historical and current role in advancing new technologies for affordable manufacturing in the defense sector. Among these contributions are early advances in additive techniques (a.k.a., 3-D printing), affordable missile production, and pioneering processes to ensure confidence in new manufacturing techniques, such as composite bonding. Current DARPA programs perpetuate the long-term goal of leveraging data and information technologies so they can become ever-more helpful to human designers as they strive to invent the new materials that become the flesh of ever-more capable technologies.