The news about the 737 MAX has got me thinking about my own experience with the aerospace industry. There’s something cultural about the avionics and aerospace industries, the Defense Department and the FAA; they are impervious to ideas. The status quo cannot be unseated.

INDIANAPOLIS—Rolls-Royce Corp. announced Monday that it is kicking off a year-long campaign in pursuit of a contract to build hundreds of engines for U.S. Air Force bombers worth an estimated $1 billion that would bring 150 high-tech jobs here.

RENO, NV—Boeing is to provide engineering, manufacturing and flight test resources to supersonic-aircraft developer Aerion to help the startup bring its business AS2 jet to market by 2023.

GREENBELT, MD—Technologist Mahmooda Sultana and her team at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center here have received a $2 million development award to spend the next two years advancing a nanomaterial-based detector platform. This platform measures only 2 by 3 inches, yet is capable of sensing minute concentrations of gases,vapor, atmospheric pressure and temperature, and then transmitting the data via a wireless antenna.

MOBILE, AL—Airbus has begun construction of a new $300 million assembly plant here to manufacture the A220 jetliner. The project is expected to create 432 full-time jobs.

HUNTSVILLE, AL—Aerospace manufacturer Blue Origin LLC has officially started construction on a factory here that will produce the BE-4 engines to power both the New Glenn and United Launch Alliance's Vulcan Centaur rockets.