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Air Force Wants Commercial Spacecraft
coondoggie writes "The US Air Force is preparing to take a long look at how commercial space technology can help it better operate in the cosmos. The Air Force today said it will host a space test program meeting next week ahead of expected contract offerings, or Broad Agency Announcements looking to recruit commercial space providers."
Anonymous Cowards is almost correct. That's from the PROPOSED budget for 2012. What Anonymous coward forgot was that Social Security and Medicare is only 44% of the next proposed budget. The final 35% is discretionary, down from around 38% in 2008.
The 44% is nearly non-negotiable mandated spending. You can't really cut mandated spending except to streamline the programs. You can't just cut parts out you don't like. Not in the budgetary process, at least (or they're not supposed to, anyways).
The defense budget is entirely different. It is not mandatory, but it is not discretionary either. You CAN cut parts out you don't like with the wave of a budgetary wand... you just piss representatives off who lose military and defense contractor jobs in their districts. On the whole, military spending has no real "net gain". There is no financial return on $1 million Tomahawk missiles, whether fired or sitting in storage. It's therefore harder to justify investments in technology.
This doesn't mean such investments aren't needed. What liberals rail at is that we spend more than all of NATO combined on our military, and more than any single country. Our military spending is so large that it makes even China look minuscule. Conservatives point out that the reason our allies don't spend as much is that they rely on us for their security for the most part. Nobody is invading France, Britain, or Germany without having to deal with us.
However, as history tells us, spending too much on your military and not enough on your economy will lead to your downfall. While Sparta eventually defeated Athens, it was unable to take on the economic burden left by the spoils of war which lead to its downfall.
We could be the next Spartans, and China the next Athens. Sure, we can whip their ass, but in 30 years if we're paying $5 a gallon because we didn't go all electirc, and China did... who cares?
Nukes were supposed to level the field. It's not like we're going to have a ground war with any other nuclear power. We'll all glow in the dark long before then.
I8-D