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WASHINGTON — The aerospace and defense sector is bracing for a potential brain drain in the next decade as a generation of Cold War scientists and engineers hits retirement age and too few qualified young Americans seek to take their place.

The problem — last year, almost 60 percent of U.S. aerospace workers were 45 or older — could affect national security and close the door on commercial products that start out as military technology, industry officials said.

While U.S. universities are awarding 2 1/2 times more engineering, math and computer science degrees than they did 40 years ago, defense companies must compete with the likes of Google, Microsoft and Verizon for the best and the brightest.

"It’s about choices," said Rich Hartnett, director of global staffing at Boeing Co. "There are so many more options today with a proliferation in the kinds of degrees and career paths that people can follow."
Industry leaders are doing their best to emphasize the allure — and importance — of jobs linked to national defense.

Marion Blakey, chief executive of the Aerospace Industries Association, said the United States may face another "wake-up call," similar to the Soviet Union’s launch in 1957 of Sputnik 1, the world’s first satellite guaranteed approval cash advance loans.

China’s success in shooting down one of its own satellites last year, as well as the upcoming retirement of the U.S. fleet of space shuttles, signal that the country cannot afford to take its technological and military superiority for granted, said Blakey. She formerly headed the Federal Aviation Administration.

In addition to fierce competition for a limited pool of experts from all corners of corporate America, contractors working on classified government programs must deal with another factor: restrictions on hiring foreigners or sending work to other countries.

"The ability to attract and retain individuals with technical skills is a lifeblood issue for us," said Ian Ziskin, corporate vice president and chief human-resources and administrative officer for Northrop Grumman Corp. of Los Angeles.

Ziskin estimates that roughly half of Northrop Grumman’s 122,000 workers will be eligible to retire within a decade. The trend is the same at Lockheed Martin Corp., of Bethesda, Md., which has a work force of 140,000. At Chicago-based Boeing, whose defense unit is based in St. Louis, about 15 percent of the company’s engineers are 55 or older and eligible to retire now. Overall,