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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

#111

Post by throwaway051820 »

spicyramen wrote: post #93
quietthrow wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

The U.S. government spends more on healthcare than the UK government does [1], even though the latter insures all citizens and the former doesn't. The cost of universal healthcare isn't really the issue. The U.S. is spending much more and getting much less.

You see the same thing with the U.S. military. The U.S. spends far more than any other nation on the military, yet look at what happened when Yemen fell apart - the Chinese military evacuated Chinese citizens, the Indian military evacuated Indian citizens, the Pakistani military evacuated Pakistani citizens, and the U.S. government told U.S. citizens that they were on their own[2].

[1] https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-42950587 [2] https://foreignpolicy.com/2015/04/21/washington-to-americans...

Re: Space Plane: Mysterious US military aircraft launches

#112

Post by NiceWayToDoIT »

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…

I cannot help myself thinking, although probably is not comparable: USD 1 trillion for new fighter vs. USD 10 billion for the entire Startlink constellation

:/

Re: Space Plane: Mysterious US military aircraft launches

#115

Post by stormdennis »

SEJeff wrote: post #100
zipwitch wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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...

Re: Space Plane: Mysterious US military aircraft launches

#116

Post by JKCalhoun »

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 asked a lot of questions, but, pre 9-11, we had no problem getting in.

Dryden has a small museum, a few hangars. One hangars has the original M2-F1 lifting body.

I distinctly remember this space plane (or it's predecessor?) being towed down a small road near Dryden. I guessed it was some sort of X-plane. We were on a sort of mini-tour at that point, being shown around, and I believe there was an attempt by the tour-guide to distract us from that plane.

Re: Space Plane: Mysterious US military aircraft launches

#117

Post by gfosco »

_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…

The way I see it, it's not about you and me, but humanity. Humanity needs to step forth from Earth, to avoid future destruction. Until humanity is space-faring and multi-planetary, it is vulnerable to total erasure.

Re: Space Plane: Mysterious US military aircraft launches

#118

Post by tim333 »

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…

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.

Re: Space Plane: Mysterious US military aircraft launches

#119

Post by eecc »

justinator wrote: post #101
zipwitch wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I guess, but ISIS still seems to be a thing. Or in geek-speak. We have the Death Star, as we are the Empire. The Empire still lost.

Yup, and it’s so ironic that the Rebel heroes are a ragtag collection of desert-dwellers led by warrior priests of a religious sect.

Re: Space Plane: Mysterious US military aircraft launches

#120

Post by Anon1096 »

rswail wrote: post #103
spicyramen wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

The US spends substantially more on health administration than other nations. Removing that administrative burden (ie the private health insurance organizations as arbiters of health care delivery) would substantially lower the cost. As a percentage of the GDP, the health industry is a larger proportion than military production, but as a percentage of the US Federal budget, the military consumes roughly half.

I suspect you're only counting discretionary spending, when you should be counting all federal government spending, as important programs like Medicare are non-discretionary. Overall, the military is less than 20 percent of federal spending in the US.
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