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Space Plane: Mysterious US military aircraft launches

bbc.co.uk

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Re: Space Plane: Mysterious US military aircraft launches

#71

Post by brighton36 »

ericmcer wrote: post #61
CapitalistCartr wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This comes from the military budget; they can light Cuban cigars with hundred dollar bills as a rounding error. The US Navy has 11 large fleet aircraft carriers, 9 assault carriers, when the rest of the World considers two carriers to be a lot. Schools hold bake sales to buy supplies, the Pentagon/The Congress spends a Trillion USD on a new manned fighter we don't need just to shovel pork into as many Congressional d…

It’s hard to quantify because military supremacy and having the best weapons in the world is a huge part of why the dollar is THE global currency. And we can print dollars, hell we just printed 5 trillion in a couple weeks. This gives us insane leverage when it comes to foreign debts because most debts are in dollars. The dollars for military budget and the dollars raised by a school fundraiser are not even the same…

This. Military spending may just be 'free money' in some world outlook scenarios.

Re: Space Plane: Mysterious US military aircraft launches

#72

Post by w-ll »

shockinglytrue wrote: post #3

The press around the X-37B continues to perplex, it's particularly disappointing to see this "super secret but let's talk about it constantly" article using the word "very" 3 times. I think it was drilled into me by the age of 12 to avoid "very" in written English in order not to obviously oversell, and yet here it is from a professional writer working for the BBC

> the whole point of a Doomsday Machine is lost, if you keep it a secret!

Dr. Strangelove

Re: Space Plane: Mysterious US military aircraft launches

#73

Post by noch »

ericmcer wrote: post #61
CapitalistCartr wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This comes from the military budget; they can light Cuban cigars with hundred dollar bills as a rounding error. The US Navy has 11 large fleet aircraft carriers, 9 assault carriers, when the rest of the World considers two carriers to be a lot. Schools hold bake sales to buy supplies, the Pentagon/The Congress spends a Trillion USD on a new manned fighter we don't need just to shovel pork into as many Congressional d…

It’s hard to quantify because military supremacy and having the best weapons in the world is a huge part of why the dollar is THE global currency. And we can print dollars, hell we just printed 5 trillion in a couple weeks. This gives us insane leverage when it comes to foreign debts because most debts are in dollars. The dollars for military budget and the dollars raised by a school fundraiser are not even the same…

> [...] military supremacy and having the best weapons in the world is a huge part of why the dollar is THE global currency.

However, in "How the United States Could Lose a Great-Power War" (RAND, 2019)[0], we read:

> [...] For now, U.S. forces appear poorly postured to meet these challenges. That's because both Russia and China have developed formidable networks of missiles, radars, electronic warfare systems, and the like to degrade and potentially even block U.S. forces' ability to operate in the Western Pacific and Eastern Europe to defend allies and partners in those regions. China in particular is developing increasingly impressive capabilities to project military farther afield, including through systems such as aircraft carriers, long-range aviation, and nuclear-powered submarines. Together, these forces have tilted the military balance over places such as Taiwan and the Baltic states from unquestioned U.S. dominance to something much more competitive.

And[1]

> The US keeps losing, hard, in simulated wars with Russia and China. [...]

[0]: https://www.rand.org/blog/2019/10/how-the-united-states-coul...

[1]: https://breakingdefense.com/2019/03/us-gets-its-ass-handed-t...

Re: Space Plane: Mysterious US military aircraft launches

#74

Post by rnikander »

_8j50 wrote: post #62
lifeisstillgood wrote: post #18

Sat here in lockdown, I have just rewatched Matt Damon's The Martian and yes, we want to go up and out. I am so glad someone is still trying. I am also blown away by the American Federal budget - this is a classified military space program . How much does one of those cost ?!

Enlighten a simpleton here please, why do "we" need to leave the planet. I am far from a space nerd but I do know that neither mars or any solar object other than other is known to contain climate that is better or would even come close to earth's climate even with no polar ice caps and extreme global warming. Wouldn't it be cheaper (more humane as well) to "colonize" earth? For the next 100 years,even with full on w…

1. Adventure, exploration. 2. The earth will be destroyed by the changing Sun in a few 100 million years. :) 3. Better to not have 10x the human population here. Leave big open spaces for the other animals and national parks. I'm sure there are other reasons too...

Re: Space Plane: Mysterious US military aircraft launches

#75

Post by oyashirochama »

grecy wrote: post #60
russli1993 wrote: post #53

all the money on military, and not in investing in healthcare, improve public health responses, increasing financial reward for the front line workers that are sacrificing themselves for the greater society. In my opinion, this is sad. I would rather have this money being written as a check to every nurses and doctors served in COVID19.

I genuinely believe that if Americans knew what the rest of the Developed world gets for it's tax dollars vs. what Americans have to put up with for their tax dollars, they would riot in the streets. There's a very good reason the major news outlets in America never directly compare America to other Developed countries, and only ever compare it to undeveloped or "evil" countries (China, Sudan, Iran, Russia).

You're comparing it to nations that have little to no healthcare systems at all, the US has one of the largest healthcare systems with the main issue being the salaries of said doctors causing the imbalance of healthcare costs versus actual results. Our healthcare is among the best but at a cost. The compared countries are among the worst, and China is arguable a developed nation masquerading as a developing country. Our taxes for military also result in a lot of people having great knowledge for civilian jobs once out of the military if they plan correctly.

Re: Space Plane: Mysterious US military aircraft launches

#76

Post by quietthrow »

CapitalistCartr wrote: post #48
lifeisstillgood wrote: post #18

Sat here in lockdown, I have just rewatched Matt Damon's The Martian and yes, we want to go up and out. I am so glad someone is still trying. I am also blown away by the American Federal budget - this is a classified military space program . How much does one of those cost ?!

This comes from the military budget; they can light Cuban cigars with hundred dollar bills as a rounding error. The US Navy has 11 large fleet aircraft carriers, 9 assault carriers, when the rest of the World considers two carriers to be a lot. Schools hold bake sales to buy supplies, the Pentagon/The Congress spends a Trillion USD on a new manned fighter we don't need just to shovel pork into as many Congressional d…

Yet heavens forbid if we spent a little more trying to fix healthcare. This all is thanks to mentality of fear which has deep roots in American consciousness. At the nation level - what if somebody attacks us to at the family level there all kinds of crazies here let’s not let our children play outdoors in the neighborhood without supervision- it’s a fear based society.

Re: Space Plane: Mysterious US military aircraft launches

#77

Post by _8j50 »

rnikander wrote: post #74
_8j50 wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Enlighten a simpleton here please, why do "we" need to leave the planet. I am far from a space nerd but I do know that neither mars or any solar object other than other is known to contain climate that is better or would even come close to earth's climate even with no polar ice caps and extreme global warming. Wouldn't it be cheaper (more humane as well) to "colonize" earth? For the next 100 years,even with full on w…

1. Adventure, exploration. 2. The earth will be destroyed by the changing Sun in a few 100 million years. :) 3. Better to not have 10x the human population here. Leave big open spaces for the other animals and national parks. I'm sure there are other reasons too...

I mean I wasn't saying why you would want to. I was questioning why "we need to"

Re: Space Plane: Mysterious US military aircraft launches

#78

Post by _8j50 »

alex_young wrote: post #67
_8j50 wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Enlighten a simpleton here please, why do "we" need to leave the planet. I am far from a space nerd but I do know that neither mars or any solar object other than other is known to contain climate that is better or would even come close to earth's climate even with no polar ice caps and extreme global warming. Wouldn't it be cheaper (more humane as well) to "colonize" earth? For the next 100 years,even with full on w…

Mostly because it’s not a zero sum game. Yes it’s more achievable to build a pod on the antarctic (we’ve done that) or the ocean floor, but we should also see what we can do outside of our bubble. I personally think Venus cloud stations are a better target, but why not try them all? We learn great things and enable wonderful tech like the internet and GPS when we do huge projects like this, so why not?

Why not? Because trillions and trillions of dollars. Even $2T is barely enough to feed america for a few months and it is barely afforded.

My point also ws that it's not zero-sum. As in, "we" don't need to colonize mars,but I see no problem in doing so as long as it isn't done by sacrificing people's lives on earth.

Re: Space Plane: Mysterious US military aircraft launches

#79

Post by 1bc29b36f623ba8 »

tjbiddle wrote: post #68
_8j50 wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Enlighten a simpleton here please, why do "we" need to leave the planet. I am far from a space nerd but I do know that neither mars or any solar object other than other is known to contain climate that is better or would even come close to earth's climate even with no polar ice caps and extreme global warming. Wouldn't it be cheaper (more humane as well) to "colonize" earth? For the next 100 years,even with full on w…

I just want an off-site backup for humanity. Sure, it's high latency and the restoration process takes forever - but it's something!

In a very long-term perspective, this is pretty much it. Off-site backup -- we don't have any redundancy when it comes to our own environment.

There are also a bunch of other benefits but they pale in comparison to this one.

Re: Space Plane: Mysterious US military aircraft launches

#80

Post by elboru »

_8j50 wrote: post #77
rnikander wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1. Adventure, exploration. 2. The earth will be destroyed by the changing Sun in a few 100 million years. :) 3. Better to not have 10x the human population here. Leave big open spaces for the other animals and national parks. I'm sure there are other reasons too...

I mean I wasn't saying why you would want to. I was questioning why "we need to"

Why did Humans need to move out of Africa?
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