It wasn't easy to kill Lockheed Martin's F-22, but resurrecting the Raptor could be just as difficult. Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney put the issue in play during a Sept. 8 interview with a Virginia television station near the Air Combat Command at Langley AFB, saying if he were elected president, he would add more of the fifth-generation fighters. But it's not clear whether the pledge aimed squarely at the local audience would fly even if Romney wins in November.

Deputy NASA Administrator Lori Garver raised some eyebrows last week with a provocative sound bite: “We're going back to the Moon.” A prime mover in the Obama administration decision to kill the “Moon, Mars and Beyond” Constellation program, Garver explained that she was talking about cislunar space, with a mission as early as 2017. That would be the planned first flight of the Orion multi-purpose crew vehicle atop the planned heavy-lift Space Launch System.

A prototype vertical-takeoff-and-landing (VTOL) suborbital launch vehicle under development by Masten Space Systems crashed Sept. 11 during a flight test at Mojave, Calif. Masten Business Development Director Colin Ake says the Xaero rocket was preparing to make a vertical landing and was around two-thirds of the way through its mission when the accident took place.

Trumped by election fever, NASA does what it can

Orders for platforms that have yet to fly are unheard of in the space launch industry

Can industry really police itself? That's the question the Transportation Department's Inspector General will pose the second time starting Sept. 19, in an audit of the FAA's voluntary disclosure reporting program. The IG's review of the program comes as lawmakers continue to be concerned about the findings of a 2008 Inspector General's audit that found an FAA inspector and Southwest Airlines ducked the system.

Last week, a fresh set of calls urged Congress to address the nation's financial situation. Executives from Lockheed Martin, BAE Systems and EADS North America are proceeding with pre-election plans to warn thousands of workers that they might be laid off early next year. Two former Treasury secretaries, one Republican and one Democrat, said failing to address America's debt problem has dire economic and foreign policy implications. And Moody's rating agency now says the nation's long-held AAA rating hinges on congressional budget negotiations. Sen.

Francesco Caio Title: CEO, Avio Age: 55 Birthplace: Naples, Italy Education: Engineering degree from Milan Politecnico and MBA from INSEAD in Fontainebleau, France.