It got them bought by Boeing, whom the US federal government could rely on to take over production and support for McDonnell Douglas aircraft (several hundred o

It got them bought by Boeing, whom the US federal government could rely on to take over production and support for McDonnell Douglas aircraft (several hundred of which are still in service today and will be for years to come.) But who could take over for Boeing? Lockheed Martin is the only plausible answer, but is that what anybody wants? Together Lockheed and Boeing would be something like 4x as large as the second largest contractor for the federal government, so that's not great. And would Lockheed Martin even want that? Right now Lockheed Martin provides support for 50-some C-5's, but with the addition of Boeing they'd have to take on support for hundreds military aircraft derived from Boeing's commercial models. Particularly, all of the Air Force's hundreds of tankers for aerial refueling are made by Boeing (or McDonnnell Douglas), derived from commercial airliners with hundreds more on order. Would Lockheed get back into the commercial airliner business (which they left in the 80s)? If not, then what would the economics of Lockheed manufacturing and supporting hundreds of airliner-derived military jets look like?