With the Defense Department spending nearly $900 billion per year in taxpayer money, ProPublica decided to examine one of the most expensive failed military projects in recent memory: the littoral combat ship program.

LCS was supposed to launch the U.S. Navy into the future. Instead, the ships broke down across the globe and many of their weapons never worked.

Now the Navy is getting rid of them, but it took an array of naval leaders and two consecutive defense secretaries to finally stop the program.

Hear more about our investigation in an Instagram Live conversation with reporter Joaquin Sapien and senior editor T. Christian Miller.

This event has ended.