The U.S. aerospace industry has been through government spending declines before, and while there is a sense in Washington that this one's different, Frank Slazer isn't so sure. The industry veteran recalls during the 1990s - he was working in the Washington office of the former McDonnell Douglas Corp. at the time - when the emphasis on deficit reduction was one of the main arguments for canceling what is now the international space station. Not only did the space station survive multiple cancellation attempts, the nation managed to get its fiscal house in order, to the point of running a surplus, though that turned out to be short lived. Slazer maintains there's no telling what the fiscal environment will be like five years from now.
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