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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

#91

Post by groby_b »

jseliger wrote: post #83
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…

Schools hold bake sales to buy supplies https://www.epi.org/publication/books_wheremoneygone/ : "With appropriate inflation adjustment, it appears that total real education spending per pupil increased by 61% from 1967 to 1991." And that's from 1995. Real expenditures have grown enormously in the last four decades, and the results are to be left as an exercise to the reader.

Spending since then has only increased ~20%, though. [1] That is not adjusted for inflation, which since 1996 was an impressive 67.58%.

[1] https://www.usgovernmentspending.com/education_spending

Re: Space Plane: Mysterious US military aircraft launches

#92

Post by ChuckMcM »

I find it amusing that I now consider it so wasteful to throw away all that rocket gear just to launch a payload :-).

I also wonder if they still have the "crew return" insert for the ship. Early in its life it was envisioned as a way to bring the full crew of the ISS to earth.

Re: Space Plane: Mysterious US military aircraft launches

#93

Post by spicyramen »

quietthrow wrote: post #76
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…

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.

Is my understanding that we already spend more in healthcare than military. What would you like to fix specifically?

Re: Space Plane: Mysterious US military aircraft launches

#94

Post by Zenst »

"One of the experiments will test the effect of radiation on seeds and other materials."

Are seeds the baseline in testing biological effects in space? Asking as I would of thought that testing seeds in space had been one of the most tested avenues and with that, a known consistent form of biological matter that can be compared with.

Certainly if you wanted to test a space shield, you could test with something that can contain a few seeds and see how the results compare. Though as one of the tests is for energy transmission, then seeing if such equipment increases biological impact in proximity is worth knowing for future plans. Seeds certainly robust enough and can crudly test them by growing them as well, so I can see many reasons for them on many missions.

Re: Space Plane: Mysterious US military aircraft launches

#95

Post by walterbell »

More on the "power-beaming technology", https://www.livescience.com/microwave-beam-military-space-pl...

> ... test the idea of using microwave beams to send solar power to Earth from space ... Build a big solar array in orbit, the idea goes, and it could collect enough sunlight (unfiltered by atmospheric effects or clouds,) to generate a powerful beam of microwaves. A collection station on Earth would then convert that beam into useful power ... down the road he said he hopes it will lead to a futuristic clean power source that could benefit everyone — and give the U.S. a new near-monopoly over a global energy supply.

Re: Space Plane: Mysterious US military aircraft launches

#97

Post by dokument »

walterbell wrote: post #95

More on the "power-beaming technology", https://www.livescience.com/microwave-beam-military-space-pl... > ... test the idea of using microwave beams to send solar power to Earth from space ... Build a big solar array in orbit, the idea goes, and it could collect enough sunlight (unfiltered by atmospheric effects or clouds,) to generate a powerful beam of microwaves. A collection station on Earth would then convert th…

Didnt' China try to do this a few years back but was shutdown for some reason? Also, this would double as a great military weapon so I am sure that is being assessed as well.

Re: Space Plane: Mysterious US military aircraft launches

#98

Post by dx87 »

walterbell wrote: post #95

More on the "power-beaming technology", https://www.livescience.com/microwave-beam-military-space-pl... > ... test the idea of using microwave beams to send solar power to Earth from space ... Build a big solar array in orbit, the idea goes, and it could collect enough sunlight (unfiltered by atmospheric effects or clouds,) to generate a powerful beam of microwaves. A collection station on Earth would then convert th…

That brings back some nostalgia. I remember playing one of the early Sim City games and that was one of the types of power plants you could set up. It had a small chance to malfunction, causing the beam to miss the collection station and set everything in the surrounding area on fire.

Re: Space Plane: Mysterious US military aircraft launches

#99

Post by bergstromm466 »

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…

Wow nice way of dressing up the US Empire! Have you got any ideas for a mascot?

Re: Space Plane: Mysterious US military aircraft launches

#100

Post by SEJeff »

zipwitch wrote: post #89
noch wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> [...] 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 t…

This is a farce. The United States is done fighting Great Power wars. No one talks about it publicly at all because doing so would shatter America's self-image as the Lone Superpower. The military the United States has now is quite capable of wrecking any nation that is not another Great Power. I say wrecking and not defeating, because as should be obvious from the last three decades, the United States has zero inter…

As we used to say when I was in Iraq (with the US Army), "Don't mess with America, or we'll bring freedom to you too!"

Look how well it worked out in Libya, Iran, Iraq, etc.

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