I thought the conclusion was particularly interesting as well.


The (Mesta) company went under in the mid-1980s. It is not unambiguously
bad that it and the rest of American ultra-heavy manufacturing are gone.
But it’s not unambiguously good, either. Conventional wisdom would say
that the industry went to less-developed nations, freeing American
resources for higher-tech pursuits. In fact, the only companies today
capable of producing Heavy Press-size equipment are in the backwaters
known as Germany and Japan, with companies in Russia, Korea, and China
rapidly catching up and the UK actively rebuilding its top firm,
Sheffield Forgemasters, through cheap government loans. Just last year
four Japanese companies joined forces to build a new 50,000-ton press
for the aerospace and power industries, and while I was working on this
piece China Erzhong, a nationalized conglomerate, announced that it will
build an 80,000-ton press — the biggest ever — to support its nascent
aerospace industry.

Now is not the time for America to build new forges: eight really is
enough. But the original heavy presses, which have lived far longer and
spurred far more innovation than was ever imagined, set an example that
I think might yet be followed. Big machines are the product of big
visions, and they make big visions real. How about a Heavy Fusion Program?