Viewing profile — antubbs

Eh. e.g. the north atlantic tracks have been around since the 1960s. GPS wasn't available to the public until Korean Air Lines Flight 007 in the 1980s.

With the disclaimer that I have no idea what I'm doing and there are probably many flaws in this reasoning: A metric ton of bunker is about $300 ( http://shipandbunker.com/prices )…

Newer ships aren't necessarily much better. Mærsk's E class container ships still burn bunker fuel. The Triple E Class made improvements in efficiency and emissions, but are still …

The 747 is certainly iconic, but I hate to be the one to tell you that 747 production may be coming to an end as the industry has zero interest in inefficient four-engine jets. Bas…

The hilarious thing is that the KC-46 is basically a means of keeping the Boeing 767 production line open and operating and producing airplanes even though Boeing has replaced it w…

Pretty much. The B-1 was designed for a role (low altitude nape of the earth bombing) that was obsolete before they worked out the bugs in the jet (Russian interceptor and fighter …

There have never been very many operational Tu-160 bombers in service. The Tu-160 is focused on the standoff weapon role, and is ideally meant to delivering tactical ordinance whil…

The shuttle's promise (inexpensive frequent launches) never materialized. Instead it was an incredibly complicated and expensive system to operate, launch, service, and recover. Sp…

There's been Russian military use of grid fins on supersonic rockets and missiles for many decades. It's my understanding that supersonic flow is not a problem, rather transonic (m…

It's a launch platform without clear future missions or funding. After the surplus RS-25 engines from the shuttle program are used (designed to be re-usable, they are heavy and exp…

I guess this is my concern as well. I'm not sure what the need is for the shiny new object in this case; I've never felt limited by Vim, but perhaps there are particular features o…

I'm not sure it makes sense to assume that all launch companies want to scale up and build vastly bigger rockets. SpaceX did it to go after the CRS launches, and now onto larger co…

I don't think it is accurate to suggest that this company is competing with SpaceX. It is accurate that SpaceX is trying to provide lower-cost launch capability and it is accurate …

So, it's certainly happened: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_satellite_collision I'm nowhere near talented enough to talk in terms of "odds" with respect to satellite collisions,…

Can't speak to the plan for the second stage (which will do a once-around and de-orbit if I understand correctly), but the first stage will not be following a ballistic trajectory …

The assumption with the F-35 seems to be that technology (better sensors & automation) will overcome performance & armament disparities. This is not a new assumption in the air sup…

To their credit, the F-117 also wasn't a multirole fighter, was built in low quantities, wasn't planned for export uses, and was relatively quickly retired. It's a one-trick pony d…

Range, thrust, and power to weight are just a few performance parameters. It's somewhat more difficult to get accurate turn performance and acceleration information about the F-35.…

This is more conjecture, but I don't think this is so much a capability problem (they're already mounting stingers on drones; larger models with large electronic sensor platforms/r…

Gotta be careful about history; when the F-35 program started, drone-based warfare was pretty infantile. Drone payloads are still relatively light compared to heavily-laden fighter…

I don't believe this is accurate. The F-16 is the "low" part of the "high/low" multirole fighter strategy. For the air force, the "high" jet is the F-15. The F-22 is predominantly …

I think that's been beaten to death with http://www.quora.com/Engineering-Management/Why-are-software...

It seems like the thesis is that C++ is a more complicated language, and therefore the code produced in it is more complicated and harder to comprehend. This line of reasoning is s…