[pelorat]

The fighter jet program was a jobs program, not dissimilar to how many US government programs are jobs programs by having different parts of it made in different states for no goo reason. Add in some nationalism and it was inevitable it would not work out.

[kube-system]

I always find it strange that being a "jobs program" is said as if derogatory, especially when talking about military equipment of all things. The free market optimizes for handling normalcy, not exception handling, like wartime. The reason to artificially these jobs is so that you have the factories and expertise to make these things when you need them.

[ExoticPearTree]

And what, they couldn't split the jobs 50/50 in any meaningful way so that everyone was happy? Dunno, you can let the french design and the germans build or something.

[pfdietz]

That's how you get something like Ariane 6 -- engineered to satisfy political constraints rather that to be competitive. Granted, NASA or to some extent the US military have the same problem.

[ExoticPearTree]

NASA is stubborn to keep going with Boeing. I'm actually fascinated that no one was put behind bars so far for the blunder the new rocket system is.

The US military has a few companies that it can work with to produce what it needs, so they are not necessarily tied to "we need to build a plane in 20 different locations to satisfy everyone".

And yeah, Europe has an expensive rocket no one wants to use commercially because it many times more expensive than the competition.

[fragmede]

If it's inevitable, then how come the F35's flying around? Sure there's some complaints to be made, but I've seen it work in person.