FEATURED ARTICLE:
Alabama Picked For New Raytheon Plant
Defense contractor and electronics heavyweight extraordinaire Raytheon will build a new manufacturing and testing plant in Alabama. The manufacturing plant can be a new facility for their missile division. Raytheon Missile Systems has been headquartered in Tucson, Arizona for decades. This does not mean the Tucson location will close at all. Raytheon has a long history of excellence in engineering, especially in defense as they are one of the largest defense contractors within the world.
A new shop in Tucson just was not happening
From an article in Business Week, Raytheon needed a new facility to design, build, and test a new ship defense system and a ship borne interceptor missile. (It would blow up incoming missiles.) Due to scheduling and zoning requirements a new facility in Tucson just would not be able to be open in time. From a short list of cities the business picked Huntsville, Alabama. The groundbreaking for the $ 75 million, 70,000 foot facility can be soon. That’s bound to have some fairly high mortgage payments.
Raytheon has laser like focus
The Strategic Defense Initiative, or “Star Wars” program, may are a bust for Ronald Reagan, but laser weapons are panning out for Raytheon. Raytheon has intended a defensive laser weapon that can shoot an Unmanned Aerial Automobile down easily. According to CNET, a recent test on the California coast of the laser shot 4 out of 4 UAVs down. The high intensity beam causes the targets to burst into flames in moments and drop from the sky.
Longstanding tradition of excellence
Raytheon has been on the cutting edge of engineering for a long time, aside from their defense work. Before the company adopted the name Raytheon, the company invented a gas filled vacuum tube that allowed radios to run off AC current from the wall rather than needing a battery. (Some malcontents still insist vacuum tubes sound better than other things.) Raytheon also invented radar for naval vessels and also the microwave oven.
Read more on this topic here
news.cnet.com/2300-11386_3-10004204.html?tag=mncol
businessweek.com/ap/financialnews/D9H3GKRO0.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raytheon
