Raytheon’s Quiet Eyes is one of several examples of new directed energy weaponry, a munitions class that includes lasers, highpowered microwaves and particle beams. Spending on surface-to-air missile-zapping will average $830 million a year over the next decade, estimates Teal Group, a defense consultancy, up from $450 million today. Directed energy technology is wellrooted in many of the 2,900 “threat reduction” research programs at the Los Alamos National Laboratory. “We see a future in lower-cost systems, and Raytheon has both a head start and a very solid production base already with its [Sidewinder] missiles,” says David Rockwell, a senior electronics analyst at Teal. “It could be a big deal for them.”

"Some bread on the table is better than none," said Joel Johnson, an expert on international arms sales at the Teal Group, a Washington-area consulting firm. "Rather than turn a Navy ship into a reef, it's better to send it to a third-world nation which can then hire an American contractor to refurbish it."

As the federal deficit grows, it may be difficult to find the $104 billion it will cost to send Americans back to the moon, say Launius and Marco Caceres of the Teal Group, an aerospace analysis firm. Caceres warns NASA’s competing priorities may have consequences, especially if corners are cut. The nation “is giving NASA all this difficult, visionary stuff to do but … not giving them the resources to do it,” he says. “Eventually it catches up with you and you have an accident.”

But the mini drones are far more common, making up about 75 percent of the military’s pilotless planes. They are cheaper to build, easier to use, and popular with the ground troops because they have saved hundreds of lives, said Steven Zaloga, a senior analyst with the Teal Group Corp., a defense consulting firm in Fairfax. Aiding their proliferation is the Pentagon’s decision to give millions of dollars to the commands overseas to spend on their most pressing wartime needs without going through the time-consuming purchasing bureaucracy, Zaloga said. Getting rid of the red tape opened the flood gates for small firms. “These mini drones gave the people with their boots on the ground mini-intelligence systems, which in turn spurred more demand,” Zaloga said. “Drones are no longer just for the general sitting in his Pentagon office.”

Analysts said the acquisition would give BAE, already the biggest foreign player in the U.S. defense market, an even better chance of winning top Pentagon contracts. “Their whole strategy has really been focused on the U.S.,” said Philip Finnegan, director of corporate analysis for the Teal Group, noting that the company has made several U.S. acquisitions in recent years.