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Lockheed Martin to develop ground-launched hypersonic missile

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Re: Lockheed Martin to develop ground-launched hypersonic missile

#21
post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you are smart enough to work on projects like that you should be putting your efforts to the benefits of humanity, not helping regimes build weapons of mass destruction. We need to end this madness we call the "arms race". This threat is greater than global warming.

The arms race was the main driver of progress in the 20th century, with countless civilian applications, including the Internet. We could use a good old fashioned arms race nowadays. It creates demand for top notch science and engineering like nothing else. And you could argue this benefits humanity, too, even besides the technology transfer. There hasn't been a world war since 1945, and the only real reason for that…

Ah yes, all that military innovation that's been improving the education system over the years....

Re: Lockheed Martin to develop ground-launched hypersonic missile

#23
post #5
post #4

We have an arms race again! Putin announced hypersonic missiles, and now the US has to have one.

I think we already have hypersonics, but you are right, the US is focusing more efforts on new weaponry, although 34 mil isn't much

It's been designed already; the 34 mil is to pay for a review. If that's successful there'll be much more money available to build it and do some tests.

Re: Lockheed Martin to develop ground-launched hypersonic missile

#24
post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The arms race was the main driver of progress in the 20th century, with countless civilian applications, including the Internet. We could use a good old fashioned arms race nowadays. It creates demand for top notch science and engineering like nothing else. And you could argue this benefits humanity, too, even besides the technology transfer. There hasn't been a world war since 1945, and the only real reason for that…

Or we could spend a lot of money on technology which is actually serving the public good

To what end, fistfucker3000? How do you convince people to spend unlimited amounts of money other than by convincing them that their very survival depends on it? And the threat needs to be acute, too: this is what they're trying to do with climate change now, but nobody really gives a shit about something that may or may not happen 50 years from now.

Re: Lockheed Martin to develop ground-launched hypersonic missile

#25
post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The arms race was the main driver of progress in the 20th century, with countless civilian applications, including the Internet. We could use a good old fashioned arms race nowadays. It creates demand for top notch science and engineering like nothing else. And you could argue this benefits humanity, too, even besides the technology transfer. There hasn't been a world war since 1945, and the only real reason for that…

Imagine how much we could have progressed if we just focused on progress rather than acquiring power through intimidation in some artificial zero sum game.

Yeah, I'm trying to imagine that, but then I remember that we live in the real world here, with finite resources, and thousands of years of history, not in some utopia where everyone sings kumbaya and dances merrily around a campfire.

Re: Lockheed Martin to develop ground-launched hypersonic missile

#26
post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The arms race was the main driver of progress in the 20th century, with countless civilian applications, including the Internet. We could use a good old fashioned arms race nowadays. It creates demand for top notch science and engineering like nothing else. And you could argue this benefits humanity, too, even besides the technology transfer. There hasn't been a world war since 1945, and the only real reason for that…

Ah yes, all that military innovation that's been improving the education system over the years....

In Russia, after seeing the nuclear weapon the Party realized that the Marxism-Leninism alone is not going to produce such a weapon and had allowed and forced real sciences to be taught in schools. Likewise, the "Sputnik moment" in the US resulted in massive education improvements, e.g. https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2007/10/how-sputnik-c...

Re: Lockheed Martin to develop ground-launched hypersonic missile

#28
There is an interesting discussion about the effects of hypersonic nuclear capable missiles and glide vehicles here [0]. In summary, this doesn't change much. But what the larger players are afraid of is proliferation of hypersonic missile technology [1].

[0] https://thebulletin.org/2020/01/hypersonic-missiles-new-arms...

[1] https://www.rand.org/blog/2018/03/hypersonic-missiles-a-new-...

Re: Lockheed Martin to develop ground-launched hypersonic missile

#29
post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's why we should always be asking our elected officials, why continue the madness?

> That's why we should always be asking our elected officials, why continue the madness? Allowing one's arsenal to slowly become obsolete is akin to disarmament, and unilateral disarmament isn't wise if one values their independence. Similar weapons are being deployed by the US's military rivals: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DF-ZF https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avangard_(hypersonic_glide_veh... This particular madnes…

Absurd. When does it end? Or are we just caught in this dangerous resource drain ad infinitum?
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