Company profitability has improved dramatically. Profit margins are now high and continuing to increase. The goal now is to make the company more of a systems integrator in areas such as unmanned aerial vehicles rather than a supplier of individual subsystems. Debt reduction has taken precedence over acquisitions although the company has been very active in making small, niche acquisitions in cyber security.

There is great irony to all the fuss during the past few months about the possibility that the Obama administration might block the continued sales of Russian RD-180 liquid-fuel engines to United Launch Alliance (ULA) of Denver, Colorado, as a way of punishing Russia for its government's annexation of the Crimea and ongoing meddling in eastern Ukraine.

High-end business jets are a strong market. General Dynamics' first-quarter results, announced last month, show the continued evolution of the company from an almost pure-play defense prime to a company deriving nearly half (45%) of its earnings from Gulfstream Aerospace and Jet Aviation, two units that focus on manufacturing, completing, and supporting high-end ($26 million-plus) jets. 

The launch Friday of SpaceX's Falcon 9 v1.1 rocket to the International Space Station (ISS) is important for at least three primary reasons. First, because the vehicle carries about 5,000 pounds of supplies (including food and new spacesuits) to ISS aboard its Dragon capsule. The station currently houses a six-man crew -- Oleg Artemyev, Alexander Skvortsov and Mikhail Tyurin of Russia; Rick Mastracchio and Steve Swanson of the United States; and Koichi Wakata of Japan.