Boeing—Won $1.6 billion initial contract for "systems integration" of the overall missile defense effort, 4/98; according to the Wall Street Journal (5/1/98), the contract could be worth $5.2 billion to Boeing over the next ten years. Boeing is also the prime contractor for the Airborne Laser (ABL), a chemical laser mounted on a 747 aircraft that is supposed to be able to intercept Scud missiles in their "boost phase" (as they are being launched); the Air Force expects to spend as much as $1.2 billion on this program between now and 2002, most of which will go to Boeing. Boeing has also received a contract to assemble the booster rocket motors for the Ground-Based Interceptor, another key Star Wars component; the boosters will cost an estimated $3 million each.

Lockheed Martin—Lockheed Martin is the prime contractor for the Army’s Theater High Altitude Area Defense system, THAAD. The project has failed its last six tests in a row, and Lockheed Martin has agreed to pay up to $75 million for the costs of any failed tests in the future. The Army has spent $3.2 billion on THAAD so far.

Raytheon—Raytheon is the prime contractor for the Navy’s Theater Wide missile defense project, which is supposed to intercept enemy missiles early in their flight path by detecting them and firing at them from ships at sea. Theater Wide is the pet project of pro-Star Wars groups like the Heritage Foundation and Frank Gaffney’s Center for Security Policy, and it is slated for a $100 million to $200 million per year increase over the next five years. Raytheon is also a major subcontractor to Boeing for systems integration on the overall National Missile Defense effort. The Theater Wide program is slated to receive roughly $1.4 billion in funding from F.Y. 1997 through F.Y. 2003.

Gaffney’s board is a virtual "Star Wars Hall of Fame," with members such as long-time Star Wars booster and weapons scientist Edward Teller; former Reagan science advisor George Keyworth; Charles Kupperman, Vice President for Washington operations of Lockheed Martin’s Space and Strategic Missiles sector (one of five Lockheed Martin executives on the Center’s board); William Bennett, free-lance moralist and co-director (with Jack Kemp) of the conservative organization Empower America; Christopher Cox, Republican member of the U.S. House of Representatives; Edward Feulner, President, Heritage Foundation; John David Hoppe, chief of staff for Sen. Trent Lott (R-MS); Jon Kyl, Republican Senator from Arizona; James Roche, Corporate VP and General Manager of the Northrop Grumman Corporation; Curt Weldon (R-PA), chairman, Military Research and Development Committee, U.S. House of Representatives; and Pete Wilson former governor of California and potential Republican presidential candidate in the year 2000. This impressive web of connections in government, industry, and with other conservative think tanks makes Gaffney’s Center the nerve center of the Star Wars lobby.