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A US military exercise to launch a satellite on short notice

arstechnica.com

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Re: A US military exercise to launch a satellite on short notice

#11

Post by malfist »

WarmWash wrote: post #10
ck2 wrote: post #4

Can we swap the US Military and NASA budgets for just one year please? Just one year It would be AMAZING Or even what we fund Israel's 2/3 of all their weapons are bought by US We'd have 10% speed of light probes going outside of solar system already Well at least Nancy Grace Roman L2 Telescope is launching, hope it goes perfectly

The military budget is a jobs program that also keeps a (near bare minimum) level of industrial capacity afloat. Its why no politician left or right is really interested in cutting it. If you browse open contracts, you'll see they that they overwhelmingly buy rather banal things and spend comparatively little on the "killing people" parts.

What do you think NASA is? NASA is so expensive because it's a jobs program. There's no other reason for Boeing to have factories in so many states for building satellites.

Re: A US military exercise to launch a satellite on short notice

#12

Post by tclancy »

WarmWash wrote: post #10
ck2 wrote: post #4

Can we swap the US Military and NASA budgets for just one year please? Just one year It would be AMAZING Or even what we fund Israel's 2/3 of all their weapons are bought by US We'd have 10% speed of light probes going outside of solar system already Well at least Nancy Grace Roman L2 Telescope is launching, hope it goes perfectly

The military budget is a jobs program that also keeps a (near bare minimum) level of industrial capacity afloat. Its why no politician left or right is really interested in cutting it. If you browse open contracts, you'll see they that they overwhelmingly buy rather banal things and spend comparatively little on the "killing people" parts.

Great. Can we change it to just be the non killing part for a few years until the bad project ideas fully die off?

Re: A US military exercise to launch a satellite on short notice

#13

Post by pc86 »

malfist wrote: post #11
WarmWash wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The military budget is a jobs program that also keeps a (near bare minimum) level of industrial capacity afloat. Its why no politician left or right is really interested in cutting it. If you browse open contracts, you'll see they that they overwhelmingly buy rather banal things and spend comparatively little on the "killing people" parts.

What do you think NASA is? NASA is so expensive because it's a jobs program. There's no other reason for Boeing to have factories in so many states for building satellites.

OK so maybe they're both jobs programs, but .mil is bigger and employs more people (almost certainly at a lower per capita cost).

Re: A US military exercise to launch a satellite on short notice

#14

Post by altruios »

avmich wrote: post #5
ck2 wrote: post #4

Can we swap the US Military and NASA budgets for just one year please? Just one year It would be AMAZING Or even what we fund Israel's 2/3 of all their weapons are bought by US We'd have 10% speed of light probes going outside of solar system already Well at least Nancy Grace Roman L2 Telescope is launching, hope it goes perfectly

Can we really accelerate any probe to faster than 1% c? Or 2% c?

One idea that stuck out to me was an array of giant thin solar powered spinning metal Crookes radiometers magnets in a line to make a railgun-like launcher. Materially cheap to do.

Related, but not exactly what I was thinking of: https://www.centauri-dreams.org/2025/08/05/a-rotating-probe-... The original source I'm thinking of may be lost to time :( I'll keep hunting.

edit:found!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MDM1COWJ2Hc

Re: A US military exercise to launch a satellite on short notice

#15

Post by blobcode »

germinalphrase wrote: post #9
cg5280 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In 2024, the average American spent about $17,000 on taxes. Nearly $4000 of that went to the DoD, about $3500 went to interest on federal debt. I think it’s fun to think about it in this way. I personally spend hundreds of dollars a month on war.

You have a source to share for that framing of the tax spend?

Although not quite exact, here's spending data for 2024 (https://fiscaldata.treasury.gov/static-data/published-report...) - about 14% of tax dollars went to defence, 0.14*17000=2380.

Re: A US military exercise to launch a satellite on short notice

#16

Post by tclancy »

avmich wrote: post #5
ck2 wrote: post #4

Can we swap the US Military and NASA budgets for just one year please? Just one year It would be AMAZING Or even what we fund Israel's 2/3 of all their weapons are bought by US We'd have 10% speed of light probes going outside of solar system already Well at least Nancy Grace Roman L2 Telescope is launching, hope it goes perfectly

Can we really accelerate any probe to faster than 1% c? Or 2% c?

Per new Space Force regulations, we are using F for an adjusted speed of light. We are currently able to achieve 1.48F.

Re: A US military exercise to launch a satellite on short notice

#17

Post by mschuster91 »

ck2 wrote: post #4

Can we swap the US Military and NASA budgets for just one year please? Just one year It would be AMAZING Or even what we fund Israel's 2/3 of all their weapons are bought by US We'd have 10% speed of light probes going outside of solar system already Well at least Nancy Grace Roman L2 Telescope is launching, hope it goes perfectly

> Or even what we fund Israel's 2/3 of all their weapons are bought by US

And all of the money the US gives to Israel is earmarked for American products.

Re: A US military exercise to launch a satellite on short notice

#18

Post by ck2 »

cg5280 wrote: post #8
ck2 wrote: post #4

Can we swap the US Military and NASA budgets for just one year please? Just one year It would be AMAZING Or even what we fund Israel's 2/3 of all their weapons are bought by US We'd have 10% speed of light probes going outside of solar system already Well at least Nancy Grace Roman L2 Telescope is launching, hope it goes perfectly

In 2024, the average American spent about $17,000 on taxes. Nearly $4000 of that went to the DoD, about $3500 went to interest on federal debt. I think it’s fun to think about it in this way. I personally spend hundreds of dollars a month on war.

Defense spending in the USA is double what is publicly published

There are all kinds of dark budgets and stuff spun off into "civilian" programs that actually aren't

The published cost of Iran War is like $30 Billion when it is obviously over $100 Billion by experts and that doesn't including replacing all the missiles

TWENTY-ONE TRILLION DOLLARS since 9/11 spent on defense 2001-2021

* https://ips-dc.org/report-state-of-insecurity-cost-militariz...

imagine how much food clothing shelter for the US and WORLD that would buy

we'd have humans on Mars already with that budget not even knowing now how to stop space-blindness and bone-loss

Re: A US military exercise to launch a satellite on short notice

#19

Post by chris_money202 »

ck2 wrote: post #4

Can we swap the US Military and NASA budgets for just one year please? Just one year It would be AMAZING Or even what we fund Israel's 2/3 of all their weapons are bought by US We'd have 10% speed of light probes going outside of solar system already Well at least Nancy Grace Roman L2 Telescope is launching, hope it goes perfectly

Or hear me out, we improve life here on Earth...

Re: A US military exercise to launch a satellite on short notice

#20

Post by WarmWash »

malfist wrote: post #11
WarmWash wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The military budget is a jobs program that also keeps a (near bare minimum) level of industrial capacity afloat. Its why no politician left or right is really interested in cutting it. If you browse open contracts, you'll see they that they overwhelmingly buy rather banal things and spend comparatively little on the "killing people" parts.

What do you think NASA is? NASA is so expensive because it's a jobs program. There's no other reason for Boeing to have factories in so many states for building satellites.

You're not wrong, and no one is turning down NASA contracts, but the scale isn't comparable.

NASA buys mostly highly specialized parts that can be pretty narrow in scope and utility.

OTOH the DoD will buy 150,000 aluminum water canteens, which is probably the only thing keeping the one decent job in Wagatah, Maine from closing. Which happens to be of only a handful of shops in the country with the tooling for this. Wagatah, of course, is not known for it's aerospace engineering. But thankfully water is pretty important for soldiers, and the new design is x% more efficient, so Wagatah gets another 5 years of work, the DoD gets to keep a domestic source of water canteens, and if NASA needs 5 space grade aluminum storage boxes, a company in Wagatah can make them.

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