341–350 of 1001 posts
I wonder, in light of a shifting geopolitical situation, if the next generation of fighter might be a stab at something the west can build completely independently on it's own materials?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I have always assumed this and the $500 toilet seats are just making room for black projects. There were no publicly visible budgets for the U2/F117 projects.
I had a friend who, many years ago, got a military contract to manufacture an item. I jokingly asked him if he was competing with $1200 hammers and $500 toilet seats and his response was "if you had any idea how much paperwork and red tape is involved in doing anything with the government you'd say that the $500 toilet seat was under-priced and the contractor probably lost money on every one."
Basically it's the same PITA when it comes to getting things countersigned, approved etc. for spending $200 in parts as it is for spending $2000 in parts. So might as well order in bulk.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
You misunderstand the purpose the F35- it is a jobs and pork program first and foremost, like SLS. It has the side benefit of keeping people trained to build this sort of thing, so SpaceX can hire them. We can build cool shit, but our government and most companies don't optimize for that.
I have always assumed this and the $500 toilet seats are just making room for black projects. There were no publicly visible budgets for the U2/F117 projects.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes, a while back I was interested "where does billions we spend on national defense actually go" and I came to the conclusion that the DoD is really just a giant jobs program. Ultimately I think the reason we don't have things like flying cars is that the private sector gets stuck in local maxima (such as getting people to click ads) and in the public sector it's very hard to have focused time-blocked short term goa…
I keep seeing people say this. Maybe flying cars just don’t make sense? Wheels work really well when your engine dies. Have you seen people drive in 2d space? You want to add a z axis? What’s the efficiency of a small plane? Surely not better than a Prius. Edit: I looked it up and a Cessna gets ~15 mpg.
Its already madness to allow wealthy citizens into space. Tesla and Amazon are one freight flight to space, filled with tungsten rods, away from becoming there own nation - with non-nuclear deterrence. That somebody - whoever it is, out there is getting humankinds tech progress to a grinding halt, is a blessing in disguise. We actually do not even get a honest discussion about the risks on this path.
Problem is though, we always scienced our way out of our problems with our volatile nature. Tap some energy here, create some fertilizer there, oversupply solves the problems we do not want to solve. Exponential supply for exponential unchecked demand.
Enter social tech- in theory we could limit ourselves, could curb our demands, could become starving monks in the desert, hypnotized by coloured lights playing across enchanted stones. This seems to be the road we need to take, for the other road to be traverse-able.
The saddest thing about all of this IMO is they have been working on this for 14 years, and how much money was spent/wasted? Now, read about Skunkworks - they were able to build the SR71 (without supercomputers) in less than half that time and for a fraction of the cost. This isn't just planes, this seems to be everything nowadays. Fission was discovered in 1938/1939 and we dropped two bombs on Japan in 1945. No chan…
What’s going on with all the Reddit level comments below your post? I think you bring up great points. This could be a case of low hanging fruit being picked. We are at the point where everything being added is just bells and whistles since the foundation has already been built.
Why start with a clean slate and develop a new plane? If the F-16 is still working, why not start with its design and upgrade the avionics and software?
The saddest thing about all of this IMO is they have been working on this for 14 years, and how much money was spent/wasted? Now, read about Skunkworks - they were able to build the SR71 (without supercomputers) in less than half that time and for a fraction of the cost. This isn't just planes, this seems to be everything nowadays. Fission was discovered in 1938/1939 and we dropped two bombs on Japan in 1945. No chan…
You misunderstand the purpose the F35- it is a jobs and pork program first and foremost, like SLS. It has the side benefit of keeping people trained to build this sort of thing, so SpaceX can hire them. We can build cool shit, but our government and most companies don't optimize for that.
It just seems to be what people say when these programs fail, but I don't hear this said about programs that have succeeded.
The saddest thing about all of this IMO is they have been working on this for 14 years, and how much money was spent/wasted? Now, read about Skunkworks - they were able to build the SR71 (without supercomputers) in less than half that time and for a fraction of the cost. This isn't just planes, this seems to be everything nowadays. Fission was discovered in 1938/1939 and we dropped two bombs on Japan in 1945. No chan…
Well we built two mRNA vaccines in less than a year. I'd call that pretty fucking awesome.