F-35 had the same fundamental problems as the Space Shuttle. High level requirements: Dog fighting, close in air support, stealth, long range, automatic weapon

F-35 had the same fundamental problems as the Space Shuttle. High level requirements: Dog fighting, close in air support, stealth, long range, automatic weapon systems, VTOL variant. It was said many times over the decade but this plane has no specialization, so it sucks at everything. F-16's can beat it in a dogfight, A-10's are better close support, etc etc. The Space Shuttle was rightfully cancelled (Still, I was sad) because it was a bucket of requirements that had huge reliability and cost problems. Don't worry, this will repeat itself. A bunch of specialized tools exist and then someone says "I can build you a swiss army knife" and someone high up gets sold the dream of the multi-function tool. "It's gonna solve all our problems, you'll see..." The multi-function tool looks f'ing fantastic on paper. It does everything! Until you put it up against actual specialized hardware and then decision makers say "ohhhhh yeah that's why we did it like that..."