[wolfgke]

I am no native speaker of English, but at

> Skunk works can sustain, at max manpower. It is bureaucratic waste with minimum productive output.

to me, "it" seems to refer to "[s]kunk work" and referring to skunk work with respect to "max manpower" does not sound like skunk work to me, but throwing lots of cooperate ressources (instead of a small elite team) at the project.

[mkl]

"It" here refers to "F35 budget". The punctuation is not ideal; I think it would be clearer something like this:

> With the F35 budget well over a trillion dollars (this is 2-3 orders of magnitude larger than needed to fund maximum number of projects Skunk works can sustain, at max manpower), it is a bureaucratic waste with minimum productive output.

[stan_rogers]

The word "Skunk" does not start a new sentence. It is in the middle of this phrase: "this is 2-3 orders of magnitude larger than needed to fund maximum number of projects Skunk works can sustain". I'll agree that the punctuation isn't ideal; that phrase should have been preceded by a comma.

[ptero]

The poster you are responding to is correct. Sorry, I could have been clearer in wording and "it"s.

Skunkworks is great, but works while it is small and nimble. Fund it fully. But this could cost billions, tens of billions at most. Not trillions that have been spent on F-35.