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"The U.S. military is 'sure' it will catch Osama bin Laden this year, perhaps within months, a spokesman declared Thursday". --Associated Press story, 30 January 2004

e.g.
http://www.military.com/soldiertech/0,14632,Soldie rtech_Talon,00.html.cz

To put the $500 trillion dollar number in perspective, that's enough money to keep the Iraq war going until the year 9188 (i.e. the 92nd century, not a typo).

A rail gun weapon does not need to be near this fast(35km\sec) to ruin your whole day
A projected naval rail gun with a 2.5km/sec muzzle velocity could deliver a guided projectile with an impact velocity of Mach 5 to targets at ranges of 250 miles, at a rate greater than 6 rounds per minute.
A test demonstrated that a rail gun projectile's kinetic energy could create a 10-foot diameter crater, 10 feet deep in solid ground, and achieve projectile penetration to 40 feet - 3 to 5 times more effective than current guns.
Rail gun projectiles are smaller and easier to store: a standard AGS magazine holds 1,500 rounds; a rail gun magazine could hold 10,000 rounds in the same amount of space.
http://www.military.com/soldiertech/0,14632,Soldie rtech_RailGuns,,00.html

Actually, the first practical application of this, which is close to its first major trials, is the 747 Airborne Laser. It won't suffer from either of those problems, since it flies above the weather, where the atmosphere is quite clear. Might be nice to have a couple of those orbiting over North Korea, eh? ;-)

Lasers are not vary energy efferent, are easy to defend (up to a point) and are not well suited for combat situations.

Quite a bit of my argument is that they are *not* as easy to defend against as it may seem. If you pump that much energy into a target, something is going to give. And as I pointed out in a previous post, the very mirrors that make these lasers work are just beyond the brink of destruction. There's no defense for an aircraft skin other than a cooling system capable of boiling off megajoules of energy. In all other cases, inperfections, dust, and grime will lead to a complete vaporization of the reflective surface. :-)

Needle gun / High velocity rail guns are well suited for short-range use as long as they have a good power supply to work from.

This is true.

Now when the navy wanted to build a catapult system to launch aircraft used a seam system, as it's extremely reliable and efferent.

You mean "steam" catapult? The next generation of aircraft carriers are slated to use electromagnetic catapults. Linky

The point I am trying to make is Needle guns are more efferent and reliable than lasers. Yes the rails only last so long but they're easily replaced. Where a large laser with a minor problem is going to be hell to fix.

Sadly, this is subjective for the moment. The military is working on laser weapons, but we don't know the details of their reliability. The situation is similar with rail guns where it's predicted that reliable devices can be designed with sufficient R&D. So far, no needlegun has had a proven track record of reliability. The rails almost always melt at very bad times. We'll call this point a toss up. :-)

Yea they don't sound as sci-fi but they seem to be a much better solution for ships.

Both solutions are currently sci-fi-ish. The only one we *know* is happening is the Navy's extended range munition rail guns. :-)

PS: It was my understanding that we even have working rail gun systems that are waiting for the next generation of aircraft carriers which will have more spare energy for these types of systems.

That's more or less true. Raytheon is currently firing the Navy's rail guns in tests to ensure the weapon system is ready. After the DD(X) class Destroyer (really, a cruiser) is deployed, it will be retrofitted with these weapons. (Stupid cost saving measure.) The CVN(X) class carrier is being designed with the same concept of supporting energy hardpoints, but will have the advantage of using nuclear power instead of gas turbines.

Old Linky to Rail Gun tests

They are not supposed to be huge deck guns but rather closer to the size of a large washer drier unit / small car with a connection to an ammo supply.

The images have them looking something like a gun barrel jutting out at an 80 degree angle. If you follow some of the links I posted previously, you should find a few pictures. They may also replace one of the deck guns.
Article w/Pictures of current DD(X) :-)

If, and I Stress IF, you are right about space weapons having no real advantage you are correct that building them first because someone else might is BS. If you are wrong that makes us second to the party once we realize it was a misjudgement and gives a window of advantage to whoever was right.

In regards to judging the ultimate strategic importance of space? I question many things regarding our armed forces. I do not question their intelligence in identifying that which is of strategic importance. We did not get to be the single most powerfull military force by accident you know. So if the airforce eggheads think the next great form of force application is from space based weapons I say they might just deserve a little benifit of the doubt.

As for a fricken laser??? Well last I checked they were making some serious strides towards creating an airborn laser deffense system mounted in a 747.

http://www.globalsecurity.org/space/library/news/1 999/n19990811_991496.htm
http://avstop.com/news/747.html
http://www.military.com/soldiertech/0,14632,Soldie rtech_ABL,,00.html
http://www.airforce-technology.com/projects/abl/

Oddly enough, alot of the problems facing that system would be easier to deploy on a space platform. For example, being able to utilize a nuclear power source could remove the reliance on large amounts of chemicals to react for the power needed.

Lasers aside, they are also asking to deploy systems to drop rocks (essentially). And the efficacy of that isn't excactly in doubt. Nuclear Level explosions without the ascociated fall out. Rods from God indeed.

True enough the US developed the Pegasus. Launched from an F-15 doing an Icarus impersenation. Its only test was successfull but was against a dumb sattelite with no manouvering capacity. The warhead was a pure kenetic load with limited ability to alter its course once set. The idea was that if we ever needed to deploy them we would expend enough to cause active sattelites to expend their fuel in efforts to avoid the launches highly limiting their usefulness, actual impacts were a bonus. The window of intercept was extremely narrow and it would have been highly impractical if a sattleite had a less limited means of manouevering... or refuleing capacity. Both highly likely attributes of any militarized space platform.

The russians developed sattelites that essentially did the same thing. They would launch them as innocuous commecial loads or something but their true purpose was to intercept targets in orbit to disable them.

Like anything else of that nature its a move and counter move situation. Generally speaking deffense is easier than attack and I doubt that will fail to hold true for space.

They should keep things the way they are there is so much more to know.

The war in Iraq costs us 5.8 BILLION every MONTH

The overall defense spending is 511 billion a year.

TO keep this project alive for another decade would cost only 40 million. That's like a half day of war.

Bill Gates could come up with that money by checking all his couches and jacket pockets for gods sake.

Man our nation sure has messed up priorities.

Now imagine you're hiding in a building, waiting for your chance to repel the evil americans storming your city. You've heard the american forces are well organized and have amazing technology, but you're entirely unprepared for an armed robot coming in after you. One of your fellow soldiers in another room opens fire with his AK-47, but succeeds only in damaging the robot's treads, and giving away his position. The robot returns fire with its rocket launcher, and at this point you feel desperation like you've never felt before.

Sorry for the dramatic scenario, but I think it's worth noting that these robots could really inspire a sense of despair in the United States' enemies. I believe that it often takes a desperate person to view civilians as acceptable targets, and suicide bombers may often chose to be suicide bombers due to a feeling that nothing else will work.

Also, I know the thought of killing other humans doesn't deter a lot of people from joining militias and armed forces, but it will be that much harder to feel any sympathy for invading forces if the face of the enemy is a slow-moving robot that has deadly accuracy.

Does it happen often?

That gun-wielding intruders enters your bedroom?

So often that the extra electronics in your gun will seriously lower your chance of survival for the next 50 years?

Maybe -I- should start by locking my door.... But then again, what do I do if my brother comes along, after a late trip to town, and wants to stay over? Nah.. I'll let the door be unlocked. Maybe he'll stumble upon the intruder and scare him off.

It's so funny reading all these 'what if'-posts when it comes to guns. You people are fuunay! -HAHA
By the way... What if the gun-wielding maniac intruder of death came wearing bulletproof vest? Why settle for a puny firearm when you can get the REAL STUFF:
XM 109

If a small firearm can defend you against dorks, why not opt for the more high power stuff. With that gun you could hunt down bad guys driving armored cars. Now! That sounds like something.
Why must the 'what if' stop?

So, the Europeans are going to geeeently land their little rover (Beagle III?), putter around, and delicately inspect rocks and dust. Boooriiiinng! :-)

NASA, in typical American fashion...

This is one spacecraft NASA wants to smash and trash. "It would be like it's standing in the middle of the road and this huge semi coming down at it at 23,000 mph (37,015 kph), you know, just bam!" Grammier says. ... "We expect to provide great fireworks for all our observatories," Grammier says, "and that's exciting to do it on July Fourth."

I. Love. This. Countryyy! Yeeeeeeaaah! *does Bush/Ballmer monkey dance*

Here and here

IMHO, you can safely use the supplements as a baseline for the increase in costs. There are, of course, additional costs - human costs, opportunity costs, and future obligations such as treatment of injured veterans.

The monthly burn rate of $5.8 billion includes quite a bit of money that we wouldn't be spending if the troops weren't deployed. The real problem with your argument is that no one actually knows precisely where all that $5.8 billion a month is going. Supplementary funds are subject to less oversight and disclosure than the regular budget; this is what allowed Bush to $750 million earmarked for Afghanistan and use it to prepare for a war in Iraq. (None of this, of course, counts the billions in Iraqi money that's gone missing.)

While I was a high school senior many moons ago I must have scored pretty high on the mandatory military test administered by my school(asvab). BTW, Can you believe that the military offers tips and strategy pointers for taking the test? Anyway I received at least one glossy Freedom Informer every week and a friendly call from a recruiter monthly even though I told them I wasn't interested. After I went to college(without switching my address) either they forgot about me or lost track of me. For awhile my phone number and address changed every year so there was no way for them to correlate asvab scores with names & addresses.

Anyway I think that this new program will solve most of those problems, sure the ss is handy, but its only one side of a three legged stool and not very useful unless they directly institute a draft. The military needs educated men to serve as officers and they need to be able to follow up with those who drop out of college and are running out of job options. A new database to lure a new generation of freedom spreaders for bush.

The new Humvee looks similar to the APC from Aliens. Granted the picture of the new humvee is in its travel mode, but there are still some obvious similarities.

I beg to differ

Even the US gov't realizes this.

While that may be true and even logical, each department within the government will trust a clearance provided by another. I had a clearance from NASA and when I went to work for the the Navy I had to fill out similar but different forms and a second background check was run.

It would be the way you described if the federal gov't established a single entity to issue and track clearances but it sadly does not - for reasons that probably have to do with maintaining budgets and departments and increasing the general inefficiency that gov't is naturally predisposed to do.

>>>"Military draft stealing away the lives of an entire generation of young Americans (and then some)? YOUR FAULT."

>>Draft? Hate to tell you this, but the draft was the democrats idea, and now it's certainly not going to come to pass.

>Which time Sparky?? Draft is how you get people >to serve in a war nobody believes in. Perhaps >if you get your head out of your ass and look >at how many people are not re-enlisting and how >few are enlisting, you might get a clue about >how Bush will get people to serve for his ever >expanding war for oil/wealth/power watever.

It seems like that would be common sense and you certainly hear it enough to think it's true but it looks like it just isn't the case.

Military Numbers are rising
Military re-enlistment rates exceeding Pentagon goals
Are you going to be drafted?

Considering that roughly 50% of military deaths in Iraq are due to improvised explosive devices....

Nice try, but I saw it on a t-shirt sold by sinful shirts. Oops, it's not there anymore...oh well.

As for Little Green Foozballs...no I don't visit white supremacist sites, thankyouverymuch.

And BTW it's more like Bush '00, draft RIGHT NOW

/here come the OT downmods

Apparently, Illinois has the largest naval base in the country. source

The Great Lakes Naval Training Center is home to the U.S. Navy's only Recruit Training Command. The largest military installation in Illinois and the largest training center in the Navy, the base includes 1,153 buildings on 1,628 acres and uses 50 miles of roadway to provide access to the Center's facilities.

Great Lakes has been turning civilians into seamen and seamen into sailors for more than 80 years. From NTC's founding in 1911, it has maintained its position as the Navy's largest training facility. From World War I through today it has trained and sent to the fleet more than two million new sailors through its Recruit Training Command and nearly an equal number from its technical schools.

umm...no. Current MGIB rates are $985/month. FY200 rates were $650/mo for a full time student.

Doubtful it was higher 20+ years ago.

Sure. Here is a CNN article on the shortfalls in the 1990s. Here are some articles on recruiting for 2002, 2003 and 2004.

The concerns about recruiting and reenlistment have all been based on opinion polls that predicted that shortfalls would arise. So far there is no sign of those shortfalls actually arising. I guess the polls are not reliable predictors of what people will actually do.

As for the stop-loss orders, this is reasonably informative. The orders only apply to units that are deployed, so they make no difference to the task of meeting yearly recruitment and reenlistment goals.

Actually this isn't quite true for the Air Force, as they were specifically told by Congress this spring to get rid of quite a lot of people--13 to 16 thousand I believe, while they're also trying to get people to move to the Army who does need more folks. Here's a link to what I'm referencing: http://www.military.com/NewsContent/0,13319,usaf2_ 030104.00.html

Even if the volunteers run out there is still the Inactive reserves, which are people who served less than eight years ago. Only then would they bother with the draft (I'm Air Force IRR and am not worried in the least). Trust me, it's not going to happen.

How do I become a pilot?

Air Force pilots are generally officers who compete for the pilot training slots. Air Force flight training has strict vision requirements. The vision requirements are 20/50 for pilots and 20/200 for navigators. Vision for both must be correctable to 20/20. Applicants who have a history of Photo Refractive Keratectomy (PRK), Radial Keratotomy (RK), or Laser In-Situ Keratomileusis (LASIK) are ineligible for aviation duty.

Is surgery to improve visual acuity allowed?

No, any type of surgery to improve visual acuity, e.g. radial keratotomy, photorefractive keratectomy, LASIK, etc., will disqualify you for the Astronaut Candidate Program ...

No, this is why. Anybody who thinks that Bush is just over there in Afghanistan and Iraq for the sake of profits for Texas oil companies is just too blind with anti-Bush hatred to see straight. And thank god those are not the people in charge of running and defending this country.

VTOL carriers allow for tiny carriers - no need for a big runway.You have small, fast ships that can get within range of their targets in weeks instead of months

Sounds like you'd like to revive JEEP carriers. They left service because they were really only a war requirement. Not to mention that the advent of Jet Planes required larger decks. It wasn't until the invention of the Harrier that small decks became practical again. They're also not as survivable as the big carriers, which have greater range, ability, and armor.

That being said, the cost of running a bunch of small carriers can actually be larger than running a single, large-scale carrier. The only advantage to the smaller boats is that they can be in more places. This is less of a problem when you consider that the U.S. currently operates about a dozen full-size carriers.


The key issue isn't maneuverability, although that can be nice. It's speed of deployment. It took us over a month before we were ready to attack Afghanistan; according to Woodward's interview with Bush, he was furious over this fact (and with good cause!).

Ummm... the Enterprise was on the scene almost immediately. She was just leaving the Gulf at the time, and did full reverse rudder (without orders!) when her commanding officer learned of the Sept. 11 attack. In theory, the carriers should be positioned in such a way that the U.S. can move a carrier on the scene within days. If Bush was pissed off, it's probably because someone screwed up the carrier positioning. Thanks to Clinton, they were probably sitting over by Bosnia instead of the Persian Gulf. :-/

We really need to get away from this cold-war mentality heavy-armor massive-craft fighting style.

It's probably worth pointing out that the carriers have done so well because they're the most versitile ships we have. Not only do their planes give them a tremendous strike distance, but their large size makes them perfect for carrying the latest electronics platforms, missile systems, and other useful upgrades. In other words, the carriers have lasted because they adapt to the situation. :-)

Terrorists blow things up and kill about 1/10th the number of Americans who die in highway deaths each year, but in doing do they stiffen our resolve and so never get anywhere near to changing our fundamental America values.

But dissidents and domestic trouble-makers can cause real problems for a regime that calls questioning its mistakes tantamount to aiding America's enemies.

Today is Memorial Day. I hope that all Americans will take time today to reflect on the costs of freedom and the American men and women in our armed forces who have paid for our freedoms with their service, their wounds, and their lives.

On this Memorial Day, let's really support our troops by following the advice of so many retired officers and men by insisting that "Robert S." Rumsfeld and his band of incompetent chicken-hawks resign -- or be fired.

Most of the technology we have today is the direct result of, or significantly improved by the space race. From things as simple as velcro and dehydrated food, to sophisticated electronics, there are huge benefits to everyone that are never mentioned when people bitch about the costs.

BTW, the costs aren't really that much. Defense spending in 2002 was $360 billion, while Nasa's new budget is $15.5 billion. Even spending a trillion dollars over the next decade wouldn't bring it close. Furthermore, we're spending nearly $4 billion in Iraq and nearly $1 billion in Afghanistan EVERY MONTH. For some reason, no one seems too interested in doing a cost/benefit analysis on that.

People don't realize how much our lives have been changed by the 'side effects' of trying to achieve huge goals. Bigger challenges lead to bigger innovations.

Space travel brings a whole different set of challenges than we face on Earth, inspiring different innovations. This is even more true with manned space flight.

Manned space travel will continue to be necessary if we wish to explore further out or in more detail. Robots can only do things you planned on, and going into the unexpected is the whole point of exploration. The communications lag will also increase. The 8 minute lag to mars limits the speed and manuvuerability of the rovers. While this is fine for now, eventually we will reach a point where further research requires closer to realtime action. The further out you go, the less feasible remote-control exploration becomes.

The AF is just beginning to downsize some 16,000 AF jobs. Why, then, would they implement a draft? The whole notion seems so unlinkely as to be incredulous! Here's a good link... and yes, I am in the AF. However being an intel geek, I'm not elegible for the downsizing.

I get the feeling this'll never get read, but really, people need to check their facts before they start crying "wolf!!"

-jokerghost

Around the time Saddam's captured mug was being paraded around TV like a trophy?

Good info at military.com

Also this link

Four million dollars is a great deal for the military when compared to the cost of a fighter or surveilance plane with a pilot. At that cost they can build 10 drones for the price of one F-15E (Military.com).

Actually, US soldiers have a fairly good reputation in this area. Most of the GIs behave more or less as they would at home.

Some years ago I met an old Chinese soldier who took me into his house, fed me dinner, and gave me gifts, all because I was American. He told me that American soldiers were the best disciplined and most reliable in the world. They followed orders even when no-one was looking! That, apparently, was as un-Chinese as you could get. Thirty years after observing this, he was still astonished.

Of course, this old fellow was comparing regular army soldiers to Chinese bandits (the KMT and the competition had common origins in organized crime). We shouldn't forget about the times that US soldiers have done wrong; My Lai is probably the most famous, and our soldiers have embarrased us on Guam several times recently. This kind of thing makes the news because it isn't normal, and the US military has been very determined about dealing harshly with the evildoers it finds in its ranks. If the Army sends you overseas and you rape a local girl, you're going to wish you had brought her home and done it where the US civilian courts could punish you.

... US has demanded ... concessions that no US military personnel can be tried for war crimes on UN missions.''

So, you want us to send our soldiers as mercenaries to wipe your behind for you, and then you expect us to turn our soldiers over to whatever butcher is running the world court this year? We are not amused. Don't forget, the UN is filled with nations that want to destroy us (and you, too, if you're in Europe).

... I despair about a nation that claims to be the home of Democracy.

You aren't despairing about us, then. Greece was the birthplace of democracy, but democracy is unstable, and never lasts long anywhere. The US has always been a republic. Insofar as we can avoid democracy, we have a chance to keep our freedoms.

... what kind of noises would be coming out of the US if American citizens were being held in similar conditions ...

Our State Department would do nothing of consequence. If it became a common practice to treat Americans thus in some country, the government would advise us not to travel there. If a US citizen abroad gets involved in a revolutionary group, or some sort of criminal activity, the US government generally turns its back on him. They didn't even take any effective action to deal with Iran during the hostage mess when Carter was president, and those guys were government employees!

I think using an incendiary daisy cutter bomb. is more creative.

There is also a website for Cheryl Stearns jump at Stratoquest.com. Aparently the jump was going to be filmed for a TV series called "Global Fitness Challenge". (However, that mentions an April 2000 date?) The common theme of the show seems to be pitting an American athlete or team against a foreign competitor.

RE: Gary Powers
Though the U2 was capable of flying at 80,000' and routinely flew at 70,000, Powers plane had already dropped to 34,000 feet when he climbed out. (read Mayday for the U2 for a detailed retelling of Powers flight).

How about this one, . read your email from a submarine. The link that led me to that one (which I've now lost) I think called it PPPoH2O.