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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

#171

Post by baja_blast »

tim333 wrote: post #118
ericmcer wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

The global currency thing is much more down to having the largest economy. The weapons don't matter much for that. I mean Russia has some cool weapons and how many people use rubles globally? The weapons may be worth it for keeping the world kind of peaceful though.

Nah global currency is easy of use, trust and rule of law.

Re: Space Plane: Mysterious US military aircraft launches

#172

Post by koheripbal »

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…

Wouldn't a tech like this be more likely to be used as an ABM tech than something for power transmission?

Maybe Ronald Regan's Star Wars program is finally getting implemented.

Re: Space Plane: Mysterious US military aircraft launches

#173

Post by fit2rule »

tim333 wrote: post #118
ericmcer wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

The global currency thing is much more down to having the largest economy. The weapons don't matter much for that. I mean Russia has some cool weapons and how many people use rubles globally? The weapons may be worth it for keeping the world kind of peaceful though.

America MUST fight more wars in order to keep the US dollar primacy in world markets.

If it doesn't, and if people switch to another currency (see for example the attempt by Iraq and Libya to create the African Dinar to replace US $), the USA will rapidly become a third-world country.

It is currently over-valued as a nation primarily because of the threat of force it uses to keep its currency in peoples hands.

Re: Space Plane: Mysterious US military aircraft launches

#174

Post by zipwitch »

stormdennis wrote: post #115
SEJeff wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I think it was the British and the French who brought freedom to Libya. Foreign intervention seems to nearly always make things worse. Just the other day there was an appalling attack on a maternity hospital in Afghanistan. People are saying that the West needs to do something...

The military intervention in Libya was initially led by the United States and then handed off to NATO. The US contribution to direct attacks consisted mostly of cruise missile strikes. The British, French and Canadian air forces also played a major roles.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_military_intervention_in_...

Re: Space Plane: Mysterious US military aircraft launches

#175

Post by ericmcer »

nickik wrote: post #163
ericmcer wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> huge part of why the dollar is THE global currency. That is highly questionable. The doller was half way to be the dominant currency before WW2. > The dollars for military budget and the dollars raised by a school fundraiser are not even the same currency. They are actually. > And we can print dollars, hell we just printed 5 trillion in a couple weeks. That's true in a narrow sense. When monetary demand changes you…

Why do you think Saudi Arabia even listens to us when we tell them not to drown us in oil?

Re: Space Plane: Mysterious US military aircraft launches

#176

Post by DuskStar »

Rebelgecko wrote: post #126
DuskStar wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think there's only ~100 people so far in the Space Force It has to be more than that, now - I'm pretty sure more than a hundred just went straight there after graduating from USAFA a few weeks back

According to the Wiki article, there's 88 people in the Space Force and 86 of them are 2nd lieutenants

Well that's an interesting rank structure. (I'm sure it'll change soon though)

Re: Space Plane: Mysterious US military aircraft launches

#177

Post by xcasperx »

VRay wrote: post #109
xcasperx wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The main goal of any species is to survive/reproduce. We don't know if there's any other intelligent life in the universe, or how common it is. The one thing we do know is that we haven't found any. There could be many reasons for this, and one of those is the Fermi Paradox (great filter). Whether this is a real thing or not we don't know, but by establishing sustainable settlements in space, we hedge against the ide…

If there are space aliens hanging around, they likely wouldn't contact us Just seeing them would give us a huge technological leg up. Right now we don't know that interstellar travel is readily feasible, but if we did know that then it would suddenly make sense to spend 100 times as much on space tech Considering what a bunch of jerks we are to each other, I don't think aliens would want us roaming around freely

Yeah, there's really no reason for them too. If they are able to do interstellar travel, resource harvesting (from asteroids, comets, moons, planets, and suns) is relatively simple.

The thing is, I don't think it'd matter technologically. I don't think a kardashev 1 civilization could ever catch up to a kardashev 2 civilization.

Maybe once they've reached a "technological plateau" it becomes mutually assured destruction? But instead of nukes, it's targeted gamma-ray bursts? Who knows...

Re: Space Plane: Mysterious US military aircraft launches

#178

Post by JKCalhoun »

_lbaq wrote: post #123
JKCalhoun wrote: post #116

Wife and I stopped in at Edwards AFB perhaps around 2000? Maybe 1998 or so.... Have to dig up the photos to be sure. The armed guard let us on the base so we could head to Dryden Flight Research Center (now the Armstrong Flight Research Center). In those days I figured you just tried to do a thing until someone said you couldn't. It didn't occur to me that there would be a problem driving in to Dryden. The guard aske…

Wonder if you saw the x-34 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orbital_Sciences_X-34

Yes, you may be correct.

Re: Space Plane: Mysterious US military aircraft launches

#179

Post by nickik »

ericmcer wrote: post #175
nickik wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> huge part of why the dollar is THE global currency. That is highly questionable. The doller was half way to be the dominant currency before WW2. > The dollars for military budget and the dollars raised by a school fundraiser are not even the same currency. They are actually. > And we can print dollars, hell we just printed 5 trillion in a couple weeks. That's true in a narrow sense. When monetary demand changes you…

Why do you think Saudi Arabia even listens to us when we tell them not to drown us in oil?

Saudi Arabia and OPEC have their own reasons to limit oil production. Pretty good ones actually.

And the Saudis were fine with doing so when it was against US interest in the 1970s.

Re: Space Plane: Mysterious US military aircraft launches

#180

Post by SEJeff »

zaphirplane wrote: post #158
stormdennis wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it was the British and the French who brought freedom to Libya. Foreign intervention seems to nearly always make things worse. Just the other day there was an appalling attack on a maternity hospital in Afghanistan. People are saying that the West needs to do something...

The amount of deaths and horror that freedom has brought to Libya is soul crushing. I would wager that a good percentage of Libyans would Trade that freedom for the dictatorship with all that it entails, obviously not those that suffered injustice of a dictatorship but the majority ... work home life ...

As an American, who is also a veteran of OIF II, it really dismayed me to watch what happened in Libya. Granted, I did watch the liveleak of the end of Gadaffi and I'm not sad a truly horrible human being is no longer in charge of a country. That said, I'm very sad for the people who have to endure so much upheaval.

The reality is that you can't go from a strongman authoritarian to a magical well functioning democracy overnight (or maybe even ever) without a a few generations of change. It is really heart breaking to see it.

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