[magtux]

This happens even outside Defense in all specialized industry. I was once asked if I could reverse engineer a part for a 30 year newspaper stacking machine in a printing press. Very interesting stuff and a consequence of being niche.

[Jtsummers]

Exactly. We're dealing with:

- Limited production run. These aren't Ford Mustangs or Toyota Priuses with hundreds of thousands and millions being produced. There were 21 built over 13 years. This also leads to the consequence that each one should be considered a bespoke creation and not a "copy" of the others (even ignoring the 20+ years of individual maintenance work they've each had).

- Time. It's been 21 years since the last one was produced in 2000. Whatever facility produced this has long since lost that capability.

- Aging workforce. Whoever designed it is likely retired, and could even be dead at this point. Certainly the senior engineers who may have been 40+ when the project started in the 70s/80s. Even if they weren't retiring and dying, the people on the project have been doing other things for 20+ years.

[lambda2001]

The last part is extremely true. I have known many engineers that worked on the B-2 and have since retired. There's very little chance many of them would come out of retirement and honestly I don't think the government would pay for that.

[pvarangot]

Large scale printing machine setups are insane. I've seen very old installations go for prices that are higher or comparable to a new setup just because you know the throughput and you know the civil engineering is sound.

[starpilot]

Also in auto repair. A shop told me they wanted to take a gasket from the engine, draw the part, then send it to a machine shop to have it fabricated.

[foobarian]

Try most web companies :) I'm a week into reverse engineering ancient URL canonicalization at my new place... sigh