The head of one of the companies that would become Airbus once gave journalists a translation lesson. "Whenever you here us say a program is 'strategic,' what we mean is we don't earn a dime on it," he said. "Launchers are strategic for us." A few years later, the U.S. Air Force - the world's biggest, best-funded space agency - came to the same conclusion, allowing two struggling startups, Boeing and Lockheed Martin, to merge their rocket programs to form United Launch Alliance.
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