Subscribe now

In 1964, Walt Disney unveiled "Great Moments with Mr. Lincoln" at the New York World's Fair - a robot president that could stand up, talk, and gesture with movements so lifelike that people thought there must be a real person inside the costume. In 2026, we might see an AI Lincoln debating quantum physics with visitors while a fusion-powered flying car hovers overhead.

That's because President Trump announced his plan to turn America's 250th birthday into what's essentially the Stark Expo meets the World's Fair meets the ultimate nationwide block party.

And the coolest part? He wants to do it in Iowa.

Now, if you read Part 1 of this series, you know that World's Fairs were humanity's way of showing off its coolest new toys. But this isn't just about recreating those old expos - it's about using that same energy to showcase what happens when American innovation gets turned up to 11.

Think about it: We're living through multiple technological revolutions at once. AI is doing things that would make 1964's Robot Lincoln short-circuit in disbelief. We're printing organs, teaching cars to drive themselves, and casually launching rockets that land themselves back on Earth like it's no big deal. But unlike the World's Fairs of old, most of these innovations are being revealed through livestreamed product launches or tweets.

What if we brought back the physical spectacle? What if, instead of watching progress through our screens, we could walk through pavilions where:

• Nuclear fusion reactors power entire cities of tomorrow

• Neuralink lets you play Pong with your mind

• SpaceX shows off its Mars colony plans in VR

• Boston Dynamics robots serve you lab-grown burgers

Trump's plan starts with transforming the Iowa State Fairgrounds into a year-long celebration of American achievement. But with the right vision, this could become something bigger - a stage for American dynamism to flex so hard it makes the original World's Fairs look like science fair projects.

The Mother of All Innovation Showcases

Picture this: You walk into the "Aerospace & Defense" pavilion. An Anduril drone swarms overhead in perfect formation with others, demonstrating the future of autonomous defense. In the corner, a SpaceX Starship landing simulator lets you try to stick the landing (spoiler: you'll crash a lot). The walls are lined with real-time data from Air Space Intelligence showing every aircraft in American airspace, managed by AI that makes air traffic control look like a game of Pong.

But that's just the warm-up.

Walk next door to the "Energy Revolution" pavilion, where Commonwealth Fusion has built a working prototype of their compact fusion reactor. It's powering the entire fairground, which is kind of meta when you think about it. There's an entire section showing how America is leading the nuclear renaissance, with small modular reactors that look more like fancy coffee machines than power plants (but don't try to make espresso with them).

The "American Silicon" pavilion might blow your mind even more. IBM's latest quantum computer is running calculations that would make your laptop cry. Qualcomm is showing off chips so advanced they're practically tiny civilizations. And yes, there's an Apple "One More Thing" room that's permanently locked because Tim Cook likes suspense.

But Wait, There's More

The real magic happens when you hit the manufacturing section. Bright Machines has robots building other robots, which is either really cool or the beginning of a Terminator movie (we'll find out!). Micron is showing off memory chips that can store the entire Library of Congress in something the size of a Tic Tac.

And because this is America's birthday party, we're not just showing off the big company stuff. There's an entire section dedicated to student innovations, where high school kids are casually solving problems that stumped Einstein. The "America's Field Trip" program is bringing in students from every corner of the country to see what's possible when innovation gets unleashed.

Why This Matters

Here's the thing about World's Fairs - they weren't just shows. They were statements about what a civilization could do. The Eiffel Tower wasn't built to be a tourist attraction; it was built to prove that France could build something impossibly tall out of iron just because they felt like it.

America's 250th could be our moment to make the same kind of statement. Not just about our past, but about our future. It's a chance to show that American dynamism isn't just a buzzword - it's a real force that's cooking up the next industrial revolution in labs and garages across the country.

Plus, and this is important, it would be really fun. When was the last time we all got together to just geek out about the future?

If you enjoyed this deep dive into the world of human progress, you might like my newsletter, where I regularly overthink things so you don't have to.

Share A Curious Dad

The other night, while scrolling through pictures of city skylines when I paused at the Space Needle. One day I’ll be visiting Seattle with my family and one of my daughters will ask me why they built that strange tower, and I'll tell her about the 1962 World's Fair.

But that explanation will sound like ancient history to her generation - humans gathering in one place to show off their coolest stuff.

Share

[As I love Marvel films, I couldn’t help but think about Iron Man and the Stark Expo. So you’ll see a lot of references to those films below]

The concept sounds almost bizarre today: Countries spending massive resources to build temporary cities of tomorrow, millions of people traveling just to see new inventions, and civilizations trying to one-up each other not through war but through architectural flexing and technological showing-off.

But that's exactly what the World's Fair was. And we need to talk about why we lost it.

The story of World's Fairs (h/t fellow Write of Passage member in for the great history lesson) breaks down into three distinct eras, each reflecting humanity's evolving relationship with progress. Let's dive in.

Era 1: The "Holy Crap, Look What Humans Can Do" Era (1851-1945)

It all started when Prince Albert, Queen Victoria's husband, had an idea: Let's gather all of human achievement under one roof. The result was London's Crystal Palace Exhibition of 1851 - a massive glass and iron structure that looked like something aliens might build if they were really into greenhouses.

This kicked off nearly 90 years of humans showing off increasingly wild achievements. The Eiffel Tower? Built for the 1889 World's Fair, originally meant to be temporary. The first telephone? Demonstrated at the 1876 Philadelphia fair. Electric light? Showcased at Paris 1881. The Ferris Wheel? Chicago 1893. This era was basically humans speedrunning the future.

As a first-generation Italian-American whose parents came through Ellis Island, I feel a deep connection to how these fairs shaped the American Dream. My parents arrived to cities transformed by World's Fair architecture - concrete symbols of possibility in their new home. That spirit of innovation and progress they witnessed became part of the legacy they passed down to me, and now I'm passing it to my daughters.

Era 2: The "Let's All Get Along and Build Cool Stuff" Era (1946-1987)

After two world wars, the focus shifted. This era was less about showing off current achievements and more about imagining future possibilities. This era gave us the Space Needle, Walt Disney's influence on Epcot, and the Unisphere.

The optimism was contagious. Montreal's Expo 67 theme was "Man and His World." The 1962 Seattle fair literally put space travel center stage. We weren't just showing off anymore - we were collectively dreaming bigger.

Era 3: The "Corporate Branding Exercise" Era (1988-Present)

Something changed as we approached the millennium. World's Fairs became more about nation branding and corporate sponsorships. The wild architectural experiments gave way to more practical concerns. The last major U.S.-hosted expo was in 1984 in New Orleans, which actually lost money and marked the end of an era.

Recent expos like Dubai 2020 (held in 2021) still draw millions, but they lack the raw "anything is possible" energy of their predecessors. When every product launch is streamed globally and virtual reality lets us tour foreign cities from our couches, what's the point of gathering in person?

Subscribe now

Why We Lost Our Collective Mind-Blow

The decline isn't just about technology making the world smaller. We lost something more fundamental - our capacity for collective wonder. When the Ferris Wheel debuted in Chicago, it wasn't just a big wheel - it was humanity showing itself what was possible. Each fair built on the last, creating a continuous conversation about progress.

Today's tech reveals happen in livestreamed product launches. Our architectural achievements, while impressive, are more about practicality than pushing boundaries. We've gained efficiency but lost the showmanship, the grandeur, the shared experience of witnessing tomorrow.

Why This Matters Now

As we face global challenges and increasingly retreat into digital bubbles, we've never needed the World's Fair spirit more. These weren't just exhibitions - they were declarations of human potential. They said: Look what we can achieve when we work together. Look what's possible when we dream big.

The temporary cities they built became permanent innovations. The wild ideas they showcased became everyday realities. Most importantly, they gave people something that's rare today - a shared, optimistic vision of the future.

My daughters deserve to experience that kind of wonder. Not through a screen, but in real life - standing next to other humans, looking up at something impossible made possible, feeling that collective "wow" moment that used to define World's Fairs.

Maybe it's time to bring that back. Not just the expos themselves, but the spirit behind them - the belief that humanity's greatest achievements come from showing off to each other in the most ambitious ways possible. Because sometimes, the best way to build the future is to gather everyone together and say: "Check this out."

To be continued in Part 2: How America's 250th Birthday Could Reignite the World's Fair Spirit.

If you enjoyed this deep dive into the world of human progress, you might like my newsletter, where I regularly overthink things so you don't have to.

Share A Curious Dad

Every so often, I fall into a Wikipedia rabbit hole that makes me question everything I thought I knew about human progress. Last month, it happened when I read this mind-bending fact:

In 2024, despite having phones more powerful than the computers that sent humans to the moon, despite having cars that can (kind of) drive themselves, and despite having robots that can do backflips, we actually fly SLOWER than we did in 1973.

Let that sink in for a second.

Somewhere in an alternate universe, there's a version of us that kept pushing the boundaries of speed. In that universe, you can fly from New York to London in 2 hours, have a business meeting, and be back home in time for dinner. But in our universe, we're still crawling through the sky at the same speeds we did when people thought bell-bottoms were cool.

Why?

The answer involves a fascinating mix of physics, politics, environmental science, and human psychology. But mostly, it involves us making things go boom in ways that really annoy everyone on the ground.

Welcome to the strange world of supersonic flight.

The Problem with Going Really Fast

Before we dive in, we need to talk about what happens when things go faster than sound. And to do that, we need to understand what sound actually is.

(If you're already a physics expert, you can skip this part. But then again, if you're a physics expert, you probably enjoy reading about physics anyway, so who am I kidding?)

Sound travels through air like ripples through water. When you clap your hands, you create waves of compressed air that spread out in all directions at about 767 mph (at sea level). This is what we call the speed of sound, or Mach 1 if we're feeling fancy.

When an airplane flies at normal speeds, it pushes these sound waves out ahead of itself, like a boat pushing water. Everything's fine. The air has time to get out of the way, like a crowd slowly parting for someone walking through.

But when a plane goes faster than sound, something weird happens. The air doesn't have time to get out of the way. Instead, it gets compressed into a cone-shaped wall of pressurized air that trails behind the plane. When this wall of high-pressure air hits you, you hear a BOOM.

Actually, you hear two booms, because there's a pressure wave at both the front and back of the plane. It's like the air is getting punched twice.

This would be just a neat physics fact if it weren't for one small detail: People really, really hate being punched in the face by invisible walls of air.

The Time We Decided to Punch an Entire City in the Face (For Science!)

In 1964, someone at the U.S. government had what they thought was a brilliant idea: "Hey, let's repeatedly hit an entire city with sonic booms for six months and see how they feel about it!"

This was Operation Bongo II (yes, that was its real name), and it was conducted over Oklahoma City. For six months, the Air Force subjected the city's residents to eight sonic booms per day.

The results were... predictable:

• 15,000 complaints

• 4,901 damage claims

• One very angry city

• The eventual banning of supersonic flight over U.S. land

It turns out that when you repeatedly startle people, rattle their windows, and wake up their babies, they don't respond with "Wow, the march of human progress is so inspiring!" They respond with lawyers.

The Concorde

Despite this setback, in 1969, humans built something remarkable: the Concorde. It was basically a time machine.

No, really. If you left London at 10:00 AM on the Concorde, you'd arrive in New York at 9:30 AM the same day. You could literally land before you took off (local time). This is the closest humans have ever come to commercial time travel.

But the Concorde had some problems:

1. It was LOUD. Not just sonic-boom loud, but everything-it-did loud. Taking off? LOUD. Landing? LOUD. Just sitting there? Still pretty loud.

2. It was expensive. Like "sell-your-car-to-buy-a-ticket" expensive. A round-trip ticket would cost about $20,000 in today's money.

3. It drank fuel like a college freshman at their first party. The Concorde burned about 2 tons of fuel just taxiing to the runway.

Meanwhile, The Military Was Off Being... The Military

While commercial aviation was dealing with the sonic boom problem by essentially giving up, the military was in their secret clubhouse building something ridiculous.

The SR-71 Blackbird was what you'd get if you asked a 12-year-old to design a plane, but then actually had the technology to build it:

• It flew so high (85,000+ feet) that pilots had to wear spacesuits

• It went so fast (Mach 3.2+) that it had to be built out of titanium because aluminum would melt

• It leaked fuel on the ground ON PURPOSE (more on this in a second)

• When it got shot at by missiles, it just accelerated and outran them (this happened over 4,000 times, which is both awesome and terrifying)

Quick nerdy sidebar: About that fuel leak thing - the SR-71 was designed to expand by several inches during flight due to heat. At ground temperatures, this meant the fuel tanks had gaps. The solution? Let it leak on the ground and wait for the heat of high-speed flight to seal the tanks. This is the aerospace equivalent of saying "eh, it'll probably work out."

The SR-71 solved the sonic boom problem in the most brute-force way possible: by flying so high that the booms barely reached the ground.

But here's the thing - while this worked great for spy planes, it's not super practical for commercial travel. Airlines generally prefer their passengers to be able to breathe without spacesuits. Picky, picky.

What This Means For Humanity (The Part Where Things Get Philosophical)

So far, we've talked about the technical challenges of supersonic flight. But let's zoom out for a second and think about what it means that we, as a species, voluntarily chose to fly slower.

This is actually pretty weird when you think about it.

Throughout human history, we've consistently chosen to go faster whenever we could:

Walking → Horses

Horses → Trains

Trains → Cars

Cars → Planes

But with supersonic flight, we did something unprecedented: we developed the ability to go faster, and then collectively said, "Nah, not worth it."

This tells us something interesting about human progress. We tend to think of technological advancement as a straight line going up and to the right, but it's actually more like a negotiation between what's possible and what's desirable.

The sonic boom problem isn't really a technical problem (we solved that in 1947). It's a social problem. It's about balancing the benefits of speed against the costs to our communities.

Some numbers to think about:

• A supersonic flight could save about 4-5 hours on a transatlantic journey

• But it creates a sonic boom corridor about 50 miles wide

• Meaning thousands of people get disturbed so a few hundred can save some time

This is basically the tragedy of the commons, but with noise pollution.

The Bigger Picture

The supersonic flight story is a perfect example of what I call a "collective action problem" (which is a fancy way of saying "thing that would be great if we could all agree on how to do it").

Other examples of collective action problems:

• Climate change

• Traffic in cities

• That one friend who never does their dishes in the shared apartment

In each case, the technical solution exists, but the social solution is much harder.

And this brings us to where we are today. We have:

• The technical ability to fly supersonic

• A strong desire to fly faster

• A equally strong desire not to be sonic-boomed while trying to watch Netflix

To be continued in Part 2: "How NASA and a Bunch of Startups Are Trying to Make Supersonic Flight Not Annoying"

Coming up in Part 2:

• NASA's X-59: The Plane Designed to Sound Like a Gentle Whisper

• Boom Supersonic: The Startup That Wants to Make the Concorde Look Slow

• What Happens When We Solve the Boom Problem

• Why Your Kids Might Grow Up in a World Where Distance Is Optional

As always, if you enjoyed this deep dive into the world of human progress, you might like my newsletter, where I regularly overthink things so you don't have to.

Subscribe now

Meanwhile, Rachel Maddow suggests unwinding government contracts from SpaceX, and political commentators call for "showing SpaceX the door."

But these hot takes miss something fundamental: without SpaceX, flood victims would lack emergency communications, NASA would be scrambling for reliable launch capability, an entire generation of space companies would have likely never started, and American astronauts would still be hitching rides on Russian rockets

It's like imagining football without the forward pass revolution of the 1960s, contemplating space exploration without SpaceX reveals just how much one innovator can transform an entire field.

This conversation is about national security, humanitarian aid, and American leadership in space.

The numbers paint a brutal picture: SpaceX currently handles 80% of orbital payload deliveries, with projections reaching 90% by 2025. But the more damning statistic isn't market share – it's cost per kilogram to orbit.

In 1970, the Saturn V cost roughly $1.16 billion in 2024 dollars. The Space Shuttle, our first attempt at reusability, somehow managed to increase that to nearly $51,200. Today? SpaceX has dropped it below $1,500, with Starship promising to plunge those costs toward $200. That's not just improvement; that's reinvention.

The Vulnerability

Consider this sobering reality: After the Space Shuttle's retirement in 2011, the United States - the nation that put humans on the moon - spent nearly a decade hitching rides to space on Russian rockets. Without SpaceX's successful crewed missions starting in 2020, we'd likely still be in that position, writing checks to Roscosmos and hoping geopolitical tensions don't strand our astronauts.

The military implications go beyond sobering into existential territory. The Pentagon's ability to rapidly deploy satellites and replace damaged space assets isn't just a capability – it's a deterrent. When critics suggest "showing SpaceX the door," they're really suggesting dismantling America's only proven rapid-response space capability.

Imagine telling the Navy in 1943 to find new shipyards in the middle of the war. SpaceX isn't just another contractor; it's the backbone of American space resilience.

The Cost-Plus Quagmire

The traditional aerospace industry was mired in what insiders call "cost-plus" contracts – a perverse incentive structure where companies were guaranteed to cover all expenses plus a profit margin. They're like my beloved Pittsburgh Steelers, still running ground-and-pound offenses in today's modern pass-first game. Innovation wasn't just stagnant; it was actively discouraged.

When every dollar spent means more profit, why build something cheaper?

This system birthed projects like the Space Shuttle, which promised reusability but delivered the opposite: a system so maintenance-heavy that it cost more to refurbish than to build from scratch. It became the cautionary tale that everyone pointed to when claiming reusable rockets were impossible.

The Failed Alternatives

The pre-SpaceX landscape is littered with the wreckage of "revolutionary" spacecraft designs, each one a case study in how not to innovate. The McDonnell Douglas DC-X showed promise - imagine a rocket that landed vertically in 1993! - but died the death of a thousand budget cuts. The X-33, Lockheed's "Space Shuttle replacement," burned through $1.5 billion before anyone admitted its composite fuel tanks weren't feasible. And then there's VentureStar, the program that promised to make space access as routine as air travel but never left the drawing board.

Each of these projects shared the same fatal flaw: they tried to leap straight to Single Stage to Orbit (SSTO), a moonshot that demanded perfection on the first try. These weren't just failures - they became industry-wide cautionary tales, used by aerospace executives to warn against any deviation from expendable rockets. "Remember the X-33," they'd say, whenever someone proposed trying something new.

The message was clear: stick to what works, even if what works costs $20,000 per kilogram to orbit.

An Innovation Vacuum

What SpaceX achieved with booster recovery isn't just an engineering triumph - it's a complete dismantling of aerospace orthodoxy. For decades, the industry treated rocket reusability as a fool's errand. The Space Shuttle's "reusability" had become a punchline: each launch required dismantling the entire system, months of refurbishment, and costs that made expendable rockets look economical.

Then SpaceX did the impossible. Not in a lab. Not in a computer simulation. Not in a government study. They landed a 15-story rocket booster moving at supersonic speeds on a floating platform in the middle of the ocean. On December 21, 2015, the first successful ground landing. By April 2016, they stuck the landing on a drone ship. Nine minutes up, nine minutes down, ready to fly again.

This wasn't just about recovering hardware - it was about shattering the economics of space. That recovered booster represents 60% of the rocket's launch price. SpaceX has now landed boosters over 350 times. They've reused some boosters more than 15 times. The rest of the industry said it couldn't be done, then said it wouldn't be profitable, then said it wouldn't be reliable.

Now, in 2024, they're all trying to copy it - Blue Origin, ULA, Arianespace, everyone. But here's the kicker: not one of them has managed to do it at scale. Not even once.

Meanwhile, SpaceX treats booster landings as so routine that they don't even show them on webcasts anymore unless something goes wrong. While others talk about the future of spaceflight, SpaceX has rendered their PowerPoints obsolete before they can finish their pitch decks.

The Path Forward

Without SpaceX, we'd be stuck in the old paradigm where space remained the domain of government agencies and their traditional contractors. Blue Origin talks about "gradatim ferociter" (step by step, ferociously) but has yet to reach orbit. ULA promises innovation but still treats each rocket like a bespoke creation. Arianespace and Roscosmos remain trapped in old-world thinking about expendable vehicles.

The space industry without SpaceX wouldn't just be more expensive – it would be fundamentally different. The revolution in reusability wouldn't have happened, or at best would be considered a theoretical possibility rather than daily reality. The cost curve that has bent so dramatically downward would remain stubbornly flat, locked in the same cost-plus paradigm that kept space launch exclusive and expensive for decades.

In an industry where success meant adding more servers to run simulations, SpaceX succeeded by adding more welders to build rockets. While aerospace giants spent decades perfecting computer models of reusability, SpaceX simply built rockets, crashed them, fixed them, and crashed them again until crashing wasn't an option anymore. Without them, we wouldn't just lose a launch provider; we'd lose the force that taught the industry that impossible things become possible when you're willing to fail fast, learn faster, and never accept that the way things have always been done is the way they must continue to be done.

The name alone used to evoke images of engineering feats, aviation milestones, and a legacy so solid it seemed untouchable. But Boeing today? Not so untouchable. After years of spiraling crises, the company is now embroiled in another setback that makes you wonder: is this the beginning of the end for Boeing as we know it?

In January 2024, a Boeing jet flying with Alaska Airlines hit the news—this time, for all the wrong reasons. Mid-flight, a door plug malfunctioned, the kind of technical slip that sets off alarms at the FAA. The fleet grounded, Boeing’s reputation took another hit, and for the average observer, it was just one more reason to think twice about boarding a Boeing.

But this isn’t just one random error. It’s one of many in a string of what looks like systemic issues—a cascade of manufacturing slips, quality control problems, and operational snags that don’t just risk planes; they risk Boeing’s entire future.

The Cracks Are Showing

When a door plug violently separated from an Alaska Airlines Boeing 737 Max 9 at 16,000 feet in January 2024, it wasn't just another incident—it was a symptom of deeper problems within the aerospace giant. The event, which miraculously resulted in no serious injuries, led to the immediate grounding of 171 Boeing 737 Max 9 aircraft and sparked renewed scrutiny of Boeing's manufacturing processes.

The subsequent investigation revealed a stunning oversight: four critical bolts meant to secure the door plug were missing entirely. This wasn't a subtle technical malfunction—it was a fundamental failure in basic assembly and quality control, the kind of error that shouldn't happen in high-school shop class, let alone at the world's premier aircraft manufacturer.

A Question of Culture

Quality isn't optional when your product carries hundreds of lives at 600 mph. Yet Boeing's internal culture has shifted dramatically from its engineering-first roots. As new CEO Kelly Ortberg candidly admitted in October 2024:

"The trust in our company is eroded. We're saddled with too much debt. We've had serious lapses in our performance across the company, which has disappointed many of our customers."

The numbers tell a sobering story. Boeing has reported losses in virtually every quarter since early 2019, with total core operating losses reaching $39.3 billion. The company's long-term debt has skyrocketed from $10.7 billion in March 2019 to $53 billion by September 2024, with plans to raise another $25 billion through additional borrowing and stock sales.

Manufacturing Mayhem

Boeing's production challenges extend beyond single incidents. The company's vast global network of suppliers, already stressed by previous quality-and-safety crises, faces new pressures from ongoing labor disputes. A strike by 33,000 machinists that began in September 2024 has virtually halted commercial airplane production, costing Boeing an estimated $50 million per day.

The impact ripples through the supply chain. Small suppliers like Independent Forge Company in Orange County, California, face difficult choices. As company president Andrew Flores noted, they might need to cut operations from five to three days per week to retain skilled workers whose "knowledge cannot be replaced."

The Space Race Slump

While Boeing struggles with earthbound problems, its space division faces mounting challenges that have led to a potential exit from the space business. Under new CEO Kelly Ortberg's leadership, Boeing is exploring the sale of significant portions of its space operations, including the troubled Starliner spacecraft program and International Space Station operations.

The space division has become a significant financial burden, with Boeing's defense and space sector reporting losses of $3.1 billion in the first three quarters of 2024. The Starliner program's difficulties came to a head during its first crewed test flight in 2024, when five out of 28 thrusters experienced issues during the ISS docking procedure. The situation became particularly embarrassing when NASA - National Aeronautics and Space Administration made the unprecedented decision to return the spacecraft without its crew, reassigning astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams to return on a SpaceX vessel in February 2025.

Boeing's strategic restructuring of its space operations reveals a company in retreat from what was once a core business:

• The company will likely retain control of NASA's Space Launch System (SLS) for lunar missions

• Commercial and military satellite operations are expected to remain with Boeing

• Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin has emerged as a potential buyer for some of Boeing's NASA contracts

Boeing's position in space exploration has diminished significantly as SpaceX has become NASA's primary commercial partner. The company's recent challenges have validated NASA's strategy of maintaining multiple commercial partners for space operations. As Ortberg emphasized in his "less is more" approach, "We're better off doing less and doing it better than doing more and not doing it well," Ortberg

A Crossroads

Boeing's significance extends far beyond its balance sheet.

As America's largest exporter, it contributes an estimated $79 billion annually to the economy and supports 1.6 million jobs across all 50 states through its network of 10,000 suppliers. Its struggles pose strategic questions about American leadership in aerospace and aviation safety.

Ortberg's prescription for recovery focuses on fundamental change: "We really need to embark on a culture change that is something more than just a poster on the wall," he says.

The question isn't just whether Boeing can survive—its position in the commercial aviation duopoly virtually ensures that—but whether it can reclaim its position as a symbol of American engineering excellence. The answer will shape the future of global aviation for decades to come.

Share

Boeing’s dilemma is one of identity: Does it try to hang on to its legacy in the commercial space and aerospace sector, or does it break off a part of itself to survive? Every move Boeing makes now doesn’t just set the stage for its future but could reshape the entire aerospace industry.

What happens next?

Whatever Boeing decides, we’re watching a giant make some of the biggest decisions in aviation history—and the impact will be felt for decades to come.

They represent a concept known as "American Dynamism”—a blend of private-sector innovation and public-sector necessity.

SpaceX and Anduril Industries are two standout examples, each pushing the boundaries of what private enterprises can contribute to national priorities. Their impact underscores the vital role of entrepreneurial dynamism in securing the future of the United States.

Revolutionizing Space Exploration and Security

Founded in 2002, SpaceX set out with an audacious goal: to make humanity multiplanetary.

While the idea of colonizing Mars captures the public imagination, SpaceX’s impact has already transformed the way the world views space travel and its strategic importance. By reducing the cost of launching payloads into space, the company has opened up new possibilities for both commercial ventures and national security.

SpaceX’s reusable rockets, particularly the Falcon 9, have significantly reduced the cost of access to space. Before its innovations, sending satellites into orbit required expensive, one-time-use rockets, a burden largely borne by governments.

SpaceX has upended this model by successfully landing and reusing boosters, creating a sustainable and cost-efficient method of space travel. This not only benefits private companies but also has profound implications for national security. The United States can now launch surveillance satellites, communications arrays, and other critical defense assets at a fraction of the previous cost.

Moreover, SpaceX’s collaboration with NASA through the Commercial Crew Program has restored America’s ability to send astronauts into space, eliminating reliance on Russian launch systems.

This milestone, alongside the company’s contracts with the U.S. Department of Defense, positions SpaceX as a critical player in maintaining American leadership in space—a domain increasingly regarded as the next frontier of national security.

In addition to supporting the U.S. government, SpaceX is laying the groundwork for longer-term objectives, such as interplanetary travel through the Starship program. While the vision of colonizing Mars might seem distant, SpaceX’s continued success in heavy-lift rockets and autonomous landing systems illustrates the potential of private-sector innovation to achieve goals that were once the realm of science fiction. This relentless drive aligns directly with the ethos of American Dynamism: addressing large-scale societal and governmental challenges through innovation.

The Future of Defense

While SpaceX has transformed space exploration, Anduril Industries is tackling a different, but equally critical, arena: defense technology.

Founded in 2017 by Palmer Luckey, the company has taken a disruptive approach to national security. Its products, including advanced autonomous drones and surveillance towers, integrate artificial intelligence to provide the U.S. military with a technological edge.

In an industry historically dominated by slow-moving defense contractors, Anduril's agility has proven to be a significant asset.

Anduril's core innovation is not just in creating high-tech gadgets, but in deploying systems that leverage AI to make real-time decisions. For example, its autonomous drones can patrol borders or conduct reconnaissance without the need for human pilots, freeing up resources and reducing risk. Similarly, Anduril’s surveillance towers use AI to process vast amounts of data, identifying threats with greater speed and accuracy than traditional methods.

These technologies represent a shift from the long procurement cycles and cost overruns typical of defense contracting. By developing products that can be rapidly deployed and iterated upon, Anduril offers the Department of Defense a new model of partnership with the private sector—one that prioritizes speed, adaptability, and cutting-edge technology.

Much like SpaceX, Anduril’s value lies in its ability to fill a critical gap. The U.S. military increasingly faces technological competition from adversaries like China and Russia, whose investments in AI and autonomous systems have raised alarms within defense circles. By moving quickly and thinking outside traditional paradigms, Anduril positions itself as a crucial partner in maintaining America’s defense superiority.

Private Innovation and National Priorities

The success of SpaceX and Anduril speaks to a larger trend: the growing importance of private companies in addressing national challenges. Historically, national defense, space exploration, and large-scale infrastructure projects were seen as government responsibilities. The development of NASA’s Apollo program or DARPA’s early internet innovations came out of public institutions with vast resources and long timelines. Today, however, the private sector often moves faster and is more willing to take risks than government agencies or legacy contractors.

American Dynamism, as championed by venture capital firms like Andreessen Horowitz, aims to support these types of companies. It is about recognizing the potential for startups and innovators to tackle issues of public importance—whether it's securing supply chains, protecting national borders, or exploring outer space. SpaceX and Anduril exemplify this shift. Their willingness to take risks, iterate quickly, and collaborate with government partners highlights a new model of public-private partnership.

This model is not without its challenges. The fast pace of private innovation can clash with the slower, more bureaucratic processes of government agencies. Regulation, oversight, and ethical considerations must also evolve to keep pace with new technologies, particularly in areas like AI and autonomous systems. But the success of companies like SpaceX and Anduril shows that when government and private enterprise collaborate effectively, they can achieve far more than either could alone.

American Dynamism

American Dynamism isn't confined to a single sector. It’s a movement and a feeling of progress, centered on rebuilding essential aspects of American life—both from a national security standpoint and from an economic and societal perspective. As Katherine Boyle and David Ulevitch of Andreessen Horowitz describe, it's about fostering innovation in critical fields such as defense, energy, aerospace, manufacturing, and beyond​.

This philosophy is underpinned by the idea that technological progress and entrepreneurial spirit are crucial for addressing national challenges. For example, Anduril Industries is advancing defense technologies to protect national security, while SpaceX revolutionizes the space economy by lowering the cost of access to space. But American Dynamism goes beyond these immediate examples. It spans sectors like energy, where decentralization can help secure military logistics, especially in conflict zones​.

Companies like Radiant are developing nuclear microreactors to provide on-site power, making forward-operating bases energy-resilient and less dependent on vulnerable supply chains.

In the aerospace industry, companies such as Air Space Intelligence are transforming flight operations with AI-powered platforms that enhance safety, efficiency, and situational awareness​.

This kind of innovation not only advances civilian aviation but also strengthens military operations, illustrating how private-sector advancements can directly contribute to national interests. In the same way, a flourishing launch industry is vital to maintaining tactical response capabilities, allowing the U.S. to remain independent in space​.

A Future-Oriented Workforce and Infrastructure

Part of American Dynamism’s broader focus includes preparing a future-ready workforce. As we face shortages in skilled labor, particularly in industries like construction and manufacturing, there is a need to build a strong pipeline of talent. Companies and investors are now recognizing the importance of reshoring critical industries and investing in domestic talent to address these gaps​.

This ensures that America remains not only competitive but also resilient in times of global disruption.

American Dynamism is about more than isolated technological achievements. It’s about applying innovation across sectors to ensure that America remains a leader on the global stage. Whether through advancing AI, decentralized energy, or creating robust domestic supply chains, this philosophy encourages movement, momentum, and a proactive approach to solving complex national challenges.

The key to its success lies in the collaboration between government and the private sector, where startups and entrepreneurs can tackle problems faster and with more agility than traditional actors.

Share