I worry about the defense industrial base. People sometimes see it as five or 10 big companies, but it's really tens of thousands. My concern is that a lot of good companies, some of them single-source suppliers of key technologies down the food chain, may just lose interest in doing business with the Defense Department or the federal government and just focus on commercial and international [sales]. And then we as a country won't have those capabilities.

What are the prospects for more Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense (Thaad) missile defense sales?

There's a lot. One of our significant accomplishments last year was working with the [Pentagon's Missile Defense Agency] to get the United Arab Emirates as the first international customer. Missile defense is clearly on lots of countries' [agendas], and the capabilities of Thaad are going to be in high demand. I fully expect there will be several other countries in the year to come that will visibly express interest in the system.

Is NASA's commercialization push good or bad for the Lockheed Martin-Boeing United Launch Alliance? Obviously, SpaceX does not use the Atlas rocket.

ULA has had 62 consecutive launches without a failure. To the best of my calculation, those launches placed more than $30 billion worth of assets in the correct orbits. Space launch is a complicated area, and NASA is going to have to decide how best to allocate its limited resources. I think ULA is working and its track record is perfect.

Christopher E. Kubasik

Title: Vice chairman, president and chief operating officer, Lockheed Martin

Age: 51

Education: Bachelor's degree in accounting from the University of Maryland

Career: Kubasik spent the first 17 years of his career at accounting giant Ernst & Young, where he became a partner. He joined Lockheed Martin in 1999 and was named chief financial officer in 2001. In 2007, he was tapped to lead the company's Electronic Systems business. In 2010, Kubasik was named president and chief operating officer. In April, he was promoted to CEO, effective Jan. 1, 2013.