The cliff is heavily geared toward inflicting pain on the industry, with $500 billion in cuts to government defense spending over the next decade, a process called for extraordinarily boring reasons "sequestration."

In recent weeks, defense industry representatives have issued increasingly dire warnings about the dangers posed by the cuts.

"The dangers of sequestration are by now well understood, with more than 2 million jobs hanging in the balance and the Joint Chiefs warning of severe damage to America's security," David Hess, chairman of the Aerospace Industries Association, wrote to President Barack Obama earlier this week, in a letter signed by more than 130 aerospace and defense CEOs.