The aeronautics and space companies are relying on a senior establishment, which Goldin termed "Cold Warriors" because they came from an era that boosted the space industry. They arent going to be around for long, he said.

"Guess what boys and girls?" Goldin said. "In the next five to ten years the Cold Warriors and the people who worked on Apollo are going to retire, and we have five to ten years of that overlap between those who know how to do things and those who come in with brilliant new ideas."

"We need to deal with it, we cant ignore it," he added.

Goldin said aerospace companies are losing younger talent to other, more lucrative sectors like information technology.

NASA is also losing staff faster. While employees used to stay with the agency for life, new employees come for three or four years before moving on to industry, he said.

David Napier, research director with the Aerospace Industries Association in Washington, said aging of the industry is a concern because the expertise of older generations is hard to pass on.

Napier said attracting younger talent to aerospace is hard when internet companies offer higher salaries. He said over a nine-month period ended September 1999, the aerospace industry lost 68,000 workers, falling from a total of 885,000 to 817,000.

A recent Defense Department study of commercial launch failures also noted a lack of training and experienced personnel as top problems facing U.S. launch vehicle companies.

Goldin said while NASA cant promise young people stock options, "we want them to become intellectually rich."