It's amazing how much can be packed into a single, seemingly throwaway line when the context is a president's State of the Union address. President Barack Obama didn't even devote a full sentence to rural broadband service in his Jan. 24 speech, but his few words covered a lot of ground.

Alcoa is counter-attacking the rising use of composites in aircraft structures. The global aluminum giant will invest more than $90 million to build a new plant in Lafayette, Ind., capable of churning out 20,000 metric tons a year of advanced alloys that it says will allow airframers to build lighter and lower-weight aircraft. Production is slated to begin in 2014. The company also will expand output of the patented third-generation aluminum-lithium alloys at facilities in western Pennsylvania and the U.K.

It may seem a stretch to look for similarities between a C-17 or 737 assembly line and a satellite factory. The atmosphere in the two places is so different—literally. Airplane hangar doors are opened when it gets hot and machinists wear T-shirts and jeans. A satellite factory's temperatures are carefully controlled and particulate contamination is a big deal, so assemblers wear hair nets and “bunny suits” over their street clothes.

The strategy employed by Boeing to win $3.5 billion worth of missile defense work late last year reveals a willingness on the part of the aerospace giant to embrace highly aggressive pricing and low margins to hedge against the uncertainty ahead with waning Pentagon spending. And, the company's rivals are taking notice.

Europe may be mired in financial austerity, but that has not derailed the region's effort to duplicate GPS with the Galileo satellite navigation and timing constellation. Instead, it is changing the economic equation underpinning the program.

A multibillion-dollar commercial satellite imagery program and a showcase example of the Obama administration's forward-looking commercial remote-sensing space policy has been targeted for cuts that could impact U.S. military and allied operations and potentially lead to industry consolidation in the U.S. sector.

Are defense contractors earning too much money in an era of budget austerity? That question is being asked at the Pentagon after earnings results showed the industry managed to maintain and in many cases bolster profit margins in 2011, even as growth evaporated.

The first of the retired space shuttle orbiters to go on display will arrive at its final destination April 17. Discovery is due to land at Washington Dulles International Airport atop a shuttle carrier aircraft and then be delivered to the National Air and Space Museum's Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center there two days later. NASA's workhorse shuttle will replace the atmospheric test article Enterprise in the museum display.