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The Pentagon's Supersonic, Shape-Shifting Assassin
grammar fascist writes "CNN reports that Northrop Grumman is under contract to build a new supersonic, shape-shifting bomber by 2020. The main innovation is in its single, rotating wing. From the article: '[It] will cruise with its 200-foot-long wing perpendicular to its engines like a normal airplane. But just before the craft breaks the sound barrier, its single wing will swivel around 60 degrees (hence the name) so that one end points forward and the other back. This oblique configuration redistributes the shock waves that pile up in front of a plane at Mach speeds and cause drag. When the Switchblade returns to subsonic speeds, the wing will rotate back to perpendicular.'"
So, having one part of the plane change its angle is now shape shifting? WOW. My laptop is a shapeshifter, because the lid opens. My car must be a shape shifter too, the sunroof can take several positions!
Waste
in addition to the instability, how will they cope with the forces that stress the wing as it moves from one position to another while on the cusp of the sound barrier. won't the rigidity required make it heavier than a similar fixed wing aircraft would be? also, would the wing then be a point of frequent failure for the design?
Practical and affordable too I bet. Who cares how many kids can't read?
"The crows seemed to be calling his name, thought Caw."
Britain - 5.1% Portugal - 4.3% Denmark - 4.2% Ireland - 4.2% Austria - 3.9% Luxembourg - 2.6 Netherlands - 2.4
How about adding an option to post as an ignorant math-challenged fascist instead? 4.6 is nowhere near half of 5.1.
As a side note, France and Germany have higher reported unemployment because they don't count part-time minimum wage jobs. HTFH.
Funny, I don't recall ever seeing such an inflammatory title on a /. story in years. Just because the plane is a bomber? Come on now, the technology is cool, even if this is a bit outdated (I've got a swing-wing Estes rocket from when I was a kid, sitting on the shelf right over my desk, for crying out loud...). No need to make a political statement like this - let's keep the discussion a bit more civil, please.
--Brandon / Split Infinity Music
While projects like this can easily be seen as waste, they do a couple things.
This money goes to create hi tech jobs, rewarding people for getting engineering/science/sometimes computing degrees, potentially supporting universities themselves.
These projects generate knowledge by testing out technologies and supporting businesses or universities that sponsor research.
In my opinion, this is not waste, even if the end product never comes to be.
Certainly, this can only go so far, you wouldn't want all your money going to high tech / low success projects, but it is reasonable to have money going towards these things.
National defense is mandated but is spending billions on a program which is useless against terrorist mandated too?
I am all for defense. I do object to waging war for fun and profit though. Where is it mandated that the US taxpayers should get rid of every two bit dictator with oil while making nice with dictators in pakistan and africa?
evil is as evil does
Do you now need to provide a link, explaining what an X-wing is?
I feel positively aincient.
Two quick points.
1. That's CNN's article title, so that's hardly the Slashdot editors' fault.
2. It's unmanned. Unmanned combat aircraft are used almost exclusively for assassinations, at least currently.
I had done a quick google search and used figures brought up by the BBC. European unemployment rates similar to the U.S. unemployment rate:
.7% from last year's rate, compared with the U.S. unemployment rate, which reduced .5%.
Austria - 4.8% Britain - 5.3% Denmark - 4.8% Netherlands - 5.7% Sweden - 5.5% Switzerland - 3.3%
The overall unemployment rate in the Euro zone is 8% (this is in large part due to high reported unemployment in Germany and France, explained above, 11.0% and 9.3% respectively). However, the Euro zone unemployment rate reduced by
Not to be a total jackass, but I really do have to rub this in your face: the Scandinavian countries have historically had the lowest unemployment (historically lower than that of the United States) and STILL have the largest welfare system of all of Europe. If that doesn't provide a counterexample to your nonsensical "Everyone benefits from a dog-eat-dog world" blind faith in Capitalism-as-God, I don't know what does.
It takes them about 100 years to develop the fuel cell vehicle just for them to in that it'll be ready in 25 more years. While at the same time they predicted the delay of the fcv, they build a brand new vehicle from scratch, and they say it'll ready in 15 years total.
The thing that the military adds to R&D that academia lacks is urgency. The military responds to a threat, or a perceived threat. Academia can spend generations arguing the same theories to death.
-- I'm old enough to have lived through six different meanings of the word "hacker."
While all of that is true, the current conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan is having the OPPOSITE effect. Instead of DOD funds going into research (this bomber not withstanding), it is going to pay for fuel, ammunition, and warfighters' salaries. Research budgets are actually getting cut across the services, with I think DARPA the only agency getting an increase.
So yes, research for DOD is a Good Thing, but the current climate, with budget deficits and operational costs in Iraq and Afghanistan, is not.
WOuldn't it be more efficient to take the war out of it and spend the money on pure R&D?
R&D is Research & DEVELOPMENT. You have to build something when you are done otherwise it is not R&D, it is just R. It is also not R&D&War.
Better yet why not just provide incentives for private enterprise to do R&D and give the money back to the taxpayers?
Well other than the giving money back part, the US government does this all the time.
How about R&D through the space program?
Have you ever heard of NASA?
Wouln't that be better then making new bombers to drop bombs on miami on a band of al-quada sypathisers?
Please use facts when making an argument. This is just a dumb statement that shows you have no good points to argue.
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Karma: Somewhere between SCO and Microsoft
As a Finn I was just wondering, at what time where you in sweden?
;-)
Because when Wartburg was a popular car in Finland, it would date to 1950s, that would make you a really old slashdotter. Mayby you are mixing Wartburg with Lada? Lada was a soviet made car which was also imported to Finland, but it was never popular, and if you mixed those two, then it would date you to 1980s.
Thought, you are quite right about the fact that having and driving a car in both Sweden and Finland is very expensive, but that's because the car taxes double the cars price and gasolines price, which btw. is just right, because personal driving is expensive to goverment (roads) and to enviroment (polution) and thus taxes should be taken to compensate those costs. Now days there thought is talk about moving to strictly taxing gasoline, and not cars, that would be logical, and it would make people think more about having a own car when a liter would cost from 2 to 3. The reason why americans are driving SUVs is because US goverment is subsidizing personal driving, by not taxing car owners the cost that are associated with using cars.
On a note, I too think that scandinavian countries tax too much, and there is too much goverment control, our unemployment rate is too high, and the official numbers are cleaned by putting people in to education and to early pension. Thought, I think that american system isn't the answer, thought it has some good points, the society should take care of it's weaks and unfortunates, and provide a minimum level of living, that is the only way in which we can say that everybody is in the same line in life and that people try and take risk in their lifes, without worrying ending up in the street.
PS. The most popular car in Finland in now days is Toyota, same too in america, or it will be soon
Survey research tool for commercial and scientific use
War is good for creating jobs, if only we could be at 1999 military and civilian casualty and injury levels.
http://icasualties.org/oif/Cumulative.aspx
Of course, I don't have a problem with our gov't safeguarding us and preventing another 3,000 of our citizens from being killed by terrorists, but I guess I'm not blinded by hatred of our President.
So when we get to 3000 kids, dubya sent to die, we'll be even, right. I guess the 18,350 kids who were wounded is a fair price to pay for you to "feel safer"
Those unacceptable numbers pale in comparison to the casualties and injuries incurred by non-us civilians. Estimated to be 35,000 to 42,000 people. Hmmm. 40,000 family members all love the US now. No reason they would join the insurgents. Was only dad, brother, son.....
War sucks, however, war is sometimes necessarry. Unecessarry war is morally repugnant. Red State/Blue State makes no damn difference.
OSGGFG - Open Source Gamers Guide to Free Games
I agree. Our military spending prevented 9/11 from happening. And boy, did we whip bin Laden's ass for even thinking about it! We put his shrunken head on the Washington Monument! Let that shit be a lesson to all you terrorisms!
Put another way: You think Bush dropping his pants and waving his tiny little nuclear warhead around is going to scare the religious jihadists? We're talking RELIGIOUS WINGNUT SUICIDE BOMBERS here. They don't care what happens to the rest of the world after they leave it. They think, for whatever reason, that they're doing the work of their god. Imagine if Hannity had an army of fervent followers who would be willing and eager to literally die for him.
Put down the crack pipe and the Tiger Balm, Rush. Who do you think is buying the debt that is used to pay for our military misadventures? I can't believe it's not
Newsflash, O'Falafel: Thanks to the Bush Administration's wanton spending spree, China could crash our economy into a zillion little shards . They have a strong economic incentive not to do that, but they could if they so chose. Bush and Cheney have given them that power over us.
Your statement is correct as far as it goes, but what you've failed to realize is that "the current group of fanatics" is not a fixed set of people. Like the particles of water vapor that form a cloud, there are constantly individuals entering and leaving the "set of fanatics", and its appearance as a fixed object is an illusion. Like a cloud, its size will grow or shrink depending on the environment around it. Which is why so much of the USA's recent actions have been not only ineffective but counterproductive: if a military operation kills N terrorists, but inspires (more than N) people who were previously non-combatants to become terrorists, then our effort in that operation has actually harmed us more than doing nothing would have.
The "War On Terror" is not some video game where you can win simply by killing until there are no 'baddies' to kill. It is a political struggle for the hearts and minds of humanity. The terrorists know this, and use it to their advantage. It's time we did the same. When the bulk of the world can't tell the "good guys" from the "bad guys" anymore, the terrorists are winning.
I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
Did you know that Lenin was convinced of the inevibility of the world communism, a midget called Napoleon was convinced that he's unbeatable and the sun was never to set over the British Empire? Every superpower has fallen and so will US. History is a bitch that likes to repeat herself, but don't fret the next superpower-to-be is just behind you in that queue.
As much as no one likes war, it is a goal to work towards that helps in the R&D of new technologies. I mean, if I were to tell you "Go out and invent something cool." you'd probably make something interesting. But if I told you "We need to beat these guys!" People generally get a lot more fired up. They tend to focus on the problem at hand and come up with possible solutions, in this case, going faster. It always helps to have some sort of focus.
Now, a similar thing occured when we had the space race for instance, so it's not war only, but war is a powerful force that drives civilizations time and time again.
Also, it's a good defense. If people know we're constantly developing new technologies to swiftly kick their ass, they'll be less likely to try a conventional attack on us.
-=JML=-
This is complete and utter bullshit. While I imagine there are some fanatics out there who feel that people who are not a member of their culture/religion must be killed, I would wager that a good number of them live in the US. The primary beef folks in the Midle East have with American policy is that we blatantly and unreasonably yield to Israeli policy at the expense of the Arab population. The western world considers the Arab world with general contempt stretching back to the time after WWI when the west drew up borders and established puppet leaderships. The global population in general rejects the strong brand of American superiority and cultural hegemony that is imposed by fiat on what are supposed to be locally-goverened democracies. Funny thing--many Americans are fed up with this too, albeit on subtler levels.
As for the government spending money on R&D and production, every penny of your money the government spends on R&D and production ends up in the paychecks of the employees and shareholders associated with the companies that got the contracts.
Aside from the fact that most of the money for these contracts DOES NOT EVEN EXIST AND IS MERELY DEBT TO BE PASSED ON TO FUTURE GENERATIONS, money could still be spent on R&D for peaceful purposes. You know, things like shelter and food. Buckminster Fuller's vision of a world without material need is a technological possibilty. Unfortunately it's not politically as profitable as war. Profiting from war is a true moral low, but quite beneficial for the Inner Party.
harmonious design
Similarly, to rebuild the infrastructure of Iraq is an appropriate use of US tax money. However, to rebuild any infrastructure in the US would be socialism.
Similarly, we have a responsibility to free the Iraqis from Saddam Hussein's tyranny because those people deserve human rights and we have a leadership role when it comes to human rights in the world. However, we can inprison them indefinitely without trial, and interrogate them with what would be considered torture in the US, because they are not Americans, and it's not the responsibility of the US government to secure human rights for non-Americans.
Keep going over those basic arguments until you've memorized them. It might help to print them out and carry them around with you, in case you don't have 24/7 access to Fox News.
They talked about a design like this in Popular Science Magazine. Before I graduated from High School. In 1980.
And that was due to Burt Rutan building and showing off the AD-1 in the late 70s / early 80s. Show a prototype concept vehicle, and people's minds start racing at the possibilities. The problem was, it was difficult to fly, so the design needed a little time on the shelf to allow AI concepts and processing power time to catch up. 40 years after proving the concept (assuming this program isn't cut), we will have our swing-wing bomber.
This is much like the "flying wing" concept conceived and tested by Jack Northrop in the 1920s. There were production models made in the 1940s, such as the Northrop B-35, but the flight characteristics were still touchy. Ultimately, the design had to wait until the 1980s for the B2, for fly-by-wire and enough procesing power to keep the wing stable.
Man is the animal that laughs.
And occasionally whores for Karma.