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How the Super Bowl Will Reach US Submarines
Velcroman1 writes "Ever wonder how troops serving abroad in remote locations and even underwater might get to watch the Super Bowl? The very same highly advanced technology used to pass classified drone video feeds will be deployed this Sunday to ensure U.S. troops can see the Super Bowl — - no matter how far away from home they are. The broadcast is the result of a unique media, government and technology partnership with the American Forces Radio and Television Service, Raytheon and the U.S. Air Force. The Global Broadcast Service (GBS) may be normally used to disseminate video, images and other data, but major sporting events have been broadcast over it as well. The system will be 'as small as a laptop, and [equipment] the size of a shoebox and umbrella' yet 'in other places will be projected onto large screens in hangers' like aircraft carriers out at sea, explained Raytheon Intelligence and Information Systems' chief innovation officer Mark Bigham."
First, it's a sunk cost. The network was already needed for their mission. It would be wasteful not to put it's idle time to some good use.
Next, morale improvement is very much a legitimate contributor to military readiness.
Soldiers should be perfect automata, wanting nothing but to serve their country, needing no entertainment, no respite, willing to work with complete focus as much as is required.
Oh please cut the fucking shit.
Soldiers are human, and they need recreation just like everyone else. Now maybe watching football isn't your choice for that, it's not mine either, but you are in no position to judge others for what they like.
What's more, it helps give them a sense of connection to their country. Serving on a ship, and a sub in particular, is lonely. You are gone for months at a time, in the case of a sub often totally cut off. This is a way to get a "taste of home" as it were, to get to participate in something that a large part of the nation is also doing.