If we cannot have manned moon missions anymore and no more space shuttles then I don't want the military to have SR71 successors or their own mini-shuttle.
Our priorities are all screwed up, we need to be making science exciting for the next generation.
We'll always have plenty of warmongering to go around.
Many of you around here are too young or not from the USA to have this experience but I remember when the first shuttle was being developed and tested and how exciting that was to schoolkids (it was the Enterprise! [1]) And I was fortunate enough to have someone from NASA visit our elementary school with moon rocks and gave us space photos and other presentations that were so interesting that I remember the experience to this day.
Agreed. We're spending 1.2 trillion on the lifetime of the F-35 project, yet NASA begs for scraps. I hate my country's priorities. We're military first, people second, and science last. Not sure why we think this is a winning formula, especially as we watch Asia rise.
So "yes" to every pork-barrel weapons system designed for enemies we don't have and for a conflict we'll never have (another WWII-style drawn out war with everyone pretending they dont have nukes). "No" to anything that doesn't make the military industrialists wealthy.
Heck, when we do let NASA do something, we give it parameters that destroy any chance of success like giving Republican Senator with ties to $x_company_in_his_district to bring jobs to his district instead of going with a efficient vendor.
Is there a standard answer when someone complains about the "war machine" and incorrect priorities? It's kind of common in this crowd, and probably not the proper way to look at it. To me, it's a Frequently Mentioned Complaint.
Certainly many of us here wish there was more money spent on big science. For example, if the US built Super Collider 20 years ago, what we are discovering in physics today, would have been discovered almost 2 decades ago:
Anyway, the US spends a fortune on its military. The cost was something like 20 billion for air conditioning in the Iraq war? (that's one supercollider). Until we have that ever elusive world peace, we're probably going to continue to spend a fortune. Having the military spend some of its money on new SR71's, robotic vehicles, the Internet, drones, etc isn't going to be cheapest research but fewer people question it, and the research does get done.
Consider that if we didn't need national defense, people would probably just want lower taxes and you still couldn't convince them to go to the moon. There's nothing there, after all.
> I don't want the military to have SR71 successors
This is probably a PR stunt. You never, ever, under no circumstances, pre-announce military technology.
Having said that, it's really a shame humans never flew to the moon since I was a kid. I'm not particularly sad about the shuttles - they were engineered by marketing - but I'd like to see some more cool space technology.
The same Lockheed Martin that pretty much built (and is) the NSA, the same Lockheed Martin that processes the census, the same Lockheed Martin that processes the tax returns, the same Lockheed Martin that can test your DNA, the same Lockheed Martin that makes the Trident nukes, the same Lockheed Martin that builds the spy satellites, the same Lockheed Martin that can supply 'interrogators' to Guantanamo, the same Lockheed Martin that supplied the planes that went in first in Iraq, the same Lockheed Martin that owns Afghanistan (to all intents and purposes) and the same Lockheed Martin that owns all the politicians in Washington.
If they want this then they can get you to pay for it.
Why would Skunk Work make something like that public? Do I miss something or wouldn't that be really weird? I thought normally such military related technological projects are only released to the public after they cannot longer hide it (e.g. like 'Beast of Kandahar' etc.).
I figure to gain much-needed political capital somehow. It's probably a dead-in-the-water project, and they need some mil-industry complex saber rattling to give it a much needed (desperate) jump start. Because it sounds pretty useless to me.
The article claims there's a growing intel gap, and yet what's changed since the original was retired (other than satellite coverage getting better, + unmanned drones)? It's probably still going to be ridiculously expensive to operate, and provides what advantages? Who are we going to use this on? The only nations that can probably deny us satellite coverage, at least politically, are China and Russia, and are we really going to start flying hypersonic jets over their airspace anyway? This whole thing just makes me laugh.
or it's reaching the end of life so they can let this one go public so they can keep its successor quiet - Or Snowden leaked it so they might as well go public
[+] [-] ck2|12 years ago|reply
Our priorities are all screwed up, we need to be making science exciting for the next generation.
We'll always have plenty of warmongering to go around.
Many of you around here are too young or not from the USA to have this experience but I remember when the first shuttle was being developed and tested and how exciting that was to schoolkids (it was the Enterprise! [1]) And I was fortunate enough to have someone from NASA visit our elementary school with moon rocks and gave us space photos and other presentations that were so interesting that I remember the experience to this day.
We need that again for school kids.
[1] http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/4/44/Star_Trek_cast...
[+] [-] drzaiusapelord|12 years ago|reply
So "yes" to every pork-barrel weapons system designed for enemies we don't have and for a conflict we'll never have (another WWII-style drawn out war with everyone pretending they dont have nukes). "No" to anything that doesn't make the military industrialists wealthy.
Heck, when we do let NASA do something, we give it parameters that destroy any chance of success like giving Republican Senator with ties to $x_company_in_his_district to bring jobs to his district instead of going with a efficient vendor.
[+] [-] melling|12 years ago|reply
Certainly many of us here wish there was more money spent on big science. For example, if the US built Super Collider 20 years ago, what we are discovering in physics today, would have been discovered almost 2 decades ago:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superconducting_Super_Collider
Anyway, the US spends a fortune on its military. The cost was something like 20 billion for air conditioning in the Iraq war? (that's one supercollider). Until we have that ever elusive world peace, we're probably going to continue to spend a fortune. Having the military spend some of its money on new SR71's, robotic vehicles, the Internet, drones, etc isn't going to be cheapest research but fewer people question it, and the research does get done.
Consider that if we didn't need national defense, people would probably just want lower taxes and you still couldn't convince them to go to the moon. There's nothing there, after all.
[+] [-] chroem|12 years ago|reply
Edit: Just to be clear, this is sarcasm.
[+] [-] rbanffy|12 years ago|reply
This is probably a PR stunt. You never, ever, under no circumstances, pre-announce military technology.
Having said that, it's really a shame humans never flew to the moon since I was a kid. I'm not particularly sad about the shuttles - they were engineered by marketing - but I'd like to see some more cool space technology.
[+] [-] jstalin|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Theodores|12 years ago|reply
The same Lockheed Martin that pretty much built (and is) the NSA, the same Lockheed Martin that processes the census, the same Lockheed Martin that processes the tax returns, the same Lockheed Martin that can test your DNA, the same Lockheed Martin that makes the Trident nukes, the same Lockheed Martin that builds the spy satellites, the same Lockheed Martin that can supply 'interrogators' to Guantanamo, the same Lockheed Martin that supplied the planes that went in first in Iraq, the same Lockheed Martin that owns Afghanistan (to all intents and purposes) and the same Lockheed Martin that owns all the politicians in Washington.
If they want this then they can get you to pay for it.
[+] [-] evacuationdrill|12 years ago|reply
I don't understand this one. Are they behind the IRS's systems or something?
[+] [-] mcv|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Shihan|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] moogleii|12 years ago|reply
The article claims there's a growing intel gap, and yet what's changed since the original was retired (other than satellite coverage getting better, + unmanned drones)? It's probably still going to be ridiculously expensive to operate, and provides what advantages? Who are we going to use this on? The only nations that can probably deny us satellite coverage, at least politically, are China and Russia, and are we really going to start flying hypersonic jets over their airspace anyway? This whole thing just makes me laugh.
[+] [-] mariuolo|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] walshemj|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Kilo-byte|12 years ago|reply
http://pastebin.com/HqmzuAZ4
[+] [-] kevincennis|12 years ago|reply
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aurora_(aircraft)
[+] [-] kayoone|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jonlucc|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ihsw|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] macmac|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] zobzu|12 years ago|reply