191–200 of 258 posts
I don’t think these mega empires are good for the world, too much central power and too many management layers between those who rule, and those who do.
A lot of rules to follow that often seems arbitrary.
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> The US can spend this kind of money .. with not much progress .. and no real consequences for failure. Adversaries see this as weakness because that is what it is. I've heard just the opposite about the similar SDI/"Star Wars" - that the US pouring billions into this blatantly impossible and pointless programme, and suffering no real consequences for doing so, was what finally convinced the USSR they couldn't win.
I think this is very naive to the history of the soviet union at that time period, how gorbachev's new policies failed, how chernobyl effected everything, and how much of an internal failure this was. the usa likes to claim they ended the cold war and reagan did so by blah blah blah, however, the soviet union would have collapsed given gorbachev's policies failing no matter what the usa did.
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Isn't it the case that f9h's lift capacity has increased over the years due to engine improvements and stage lengthening..? Iirc fairing size is still a major limiting factor.
They have a bigger fairing in dev for the military, and the gateway launch
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> the US broke a promise to the USSR of not expanding NATO There is literally zero evidence of that, except claims by the Russian propaganda itself. People who live in totalitarian countries (like Russia, where ruler is in a power for a lifetime), seems to not understand that democracies don't do promises, because leaders changes frequently, and any promise without written agreement is just plain impossible except ve…
National Security Archive at George Washington University: Declassified documents show security assurances against NATO expansion to Soviet leaders from Baker, Bush, Genscher, Kohl, Gates, Mitterrand, Thatcher, Hurd, Major, and Woerner You're welcome. https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-book/russia-programs/2017... All of your comments are suspiciously related to US foreign policy issues btw ;)
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> the US broke a promise to the USSR of not expanding NATO There is literally zero evidence of that, except claims by the Russian propaganda itself. People who live in totalitarian countries (like Russia, where ruler is in a power for a lifetime), seems to not understand that democracies don't do promises, because leaders changes frequently, and any promise without written agreement is just plain impossible except ve…
National Security Archive at George Washington University: Declassified documents show security assurances against NATO expansion to Soviet leaders from Baker, Bush, Genscher, Kohl, Gates, Mitterrand, Thatcher, Hurd, Major, and Woerner You're welcome. https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-book/russia-programs/2017... All of your comments are suspiciously related to US foreign policy issues btw ;)
This expansion argument also ignores that Eastern European countries are joining NATO of their own accord.
Btw Russia and the US also signed the Budapest memorandum to respect Ukraine's sovereignty.
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Rockets are not LEGO. You can't just swap engines without a significant redesign of the rocket and ground support equipment to match. the RS-25 burns liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen; the BE-4 and Raptor burn methane and liquid oxygen, but the Raptor uses supercooled densified propellants while the BE4 takes them at closer to their boiling point. Switching between BE-4 and Raptor would require nearly as much work as…
> Rockets are not LEGO. For a moment there I thought that Low Earth Geostationary Orbit might be a thing.
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There’s no real way to evaluate the effectiveness of the Chinese military because they’ve not seen significant action in several generations. However that itself is not a good sign. As for their kit, Myanmar bought some of their planes but none of them are operational. The planes were a joint project by China and Pakistan, but 8 years after the deal was signed apparently have persistent unsolved technical and structu…
I'm not sure it makes much sense to worry about carriers for the war in Taiwan that everyone expects- their aircraft can use their airfields. Peacetime armies are generally bad, but turnover tends to be high when the fighting starts, and the second or third set of generals is often much better. The most important advantages China has are pretty overwhelming- a giant population, and they own the global supply chain fo…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
There’s no real way to evaluate the effectiveness of the Chinese military because they’ve not seen significant action in several generations. However that itself is not a good sign. As for their kit, Myanmar bought some of their planes but none of them are operational. The planes were a joint project by China and Pakistan, but 8 years after the deal was signed apparently have persistent unsolved technical and structu…
The US hasn't seen action against a peer since 1945. Ofcourse there's a reason for that: nuclear weapons.
While true, it's missing the forest for the trees. NASA spends almost half it's budget on human spaceflight, and there doesn't seem to be any particular goal there beyond "send people into space because we want to send people into space." Meanwhile, a measly 3.5% of the NASA budget is spent on aeronautics. Yes, the SLS is an inefficient way of performing a mission that NASA shouldn't be performing in the first place,…
This is a common sentiment, but I don't share it. Crewed spaceflight is no worse and no different than spending money on Hubble, JWST, or the Voyager missions. We pay for those missions because they inspire us. For many, gaining knowledge about the universe is its own reward, even if it doesn't lead to cancer cures or longer-lasting batteries. In the same way, sending people into space connects us to all those namele…