Thanks, this is interesting and makes sense. > A lot of the supposed "graft" and pork of the defense industry is about giving it a lot of leeway just to stick

Thanks, this is interesting and makes sense. > A lot of the supposed "graft" and pork of the defense industry is about giving it a lot of leeway just to stick around. Even if they stick around, will they maintain an edge? Seems like their incentives are similar to a professor on tenure - do the minimum, collect paycheck. Even if they are still creating cutting-edge weapons, could they scale up efficiently when needed? Just read Casey Handmer's extremely critical posts on Orion/SLS; I would not trust the side of Lockheed/Boeing he describes with critical national security capabilities.