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Lockheed Martin Developing Successor To the SR-71 Blackbird
Zothecula writes "When the last SR-71 Blackbird was grounded in 1998 it was a double blow. Not only did aviation lose one of the most advanced aircraft ever built, but also one of the most beautiful. Lockheed Martin's Skunk Works has now revealed that it is building a successor to the Blackbird: the SR-72. Using a new hypersonic engine design that combines turbines and ramjets, the company says that the unmanned SR-72 will be twice as fast as its predecessor with a cruising speed of Mach 6."
http://tech.slashdot.org/story/13/11/01/1911249/skunk-works-reveals-proposed-sr-71-successor-the-hypersonic-sr-72
Don't worry samzenpus - you're not as bad as timothy.
the sr72 already exists or lockheed martin wants the press and public buzz for funding.
I read a great article on hit here.
http://tech.slashdot.org/story/13/11/01/1911249/skunk-works-reveals-proposed-sr-71-successor-the-hypersonic-sr-72
I suppose this is the suckcessor to Friday's submission.
This is only a marketing flimsy. There is no design; merely an artist's conception with words picked to get some generals at the pentagon all hot and sweaty.
Possibility 3: it's a dupe
This is a correct assumption.
Basically, the automatic cutbacks coming up mean all military spending will be cut in half.
All of it.
Lockheed Martin (which I used to own, and even bought and sold option in - yes, made tons of cash) has frequently had the Cheneys on their board, and other individuals determined to drag the US into the Two Permanent Wars Always era, when the correct response is to end overseas wars of foreign aggression and let the Middle East rot.
Solve that and there is no budget deficit.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
... but how many successors does it need?
Dear Slashdot: next time you want to mess with the site, add a rich-text editor for comments.
too bad slashdot can't develop some dupe detection.
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
Basically, the automatic cutbacks coming up mean all military spending will be cut in half.
All of it.
Yay!
No sig today...
Is this one going to have to lose something like 5% of its fuel load on takeoff and climb operations (in order to allow for thermal and external pressure variances between takeoff and operation)? I'm guessing that the speeds involved preclude anything like an interior safe to the touch (Ow! Hot!), and the pressure difference between MSL and +60,000 feet is still pretty impressive. I guess what I'm wondering about is will this thing cost as much as its predecessor to fly?
Scientific bullshit to keep all them fake jobs alive.. (economy of fake)
They can not even use their own search function.
I agree, I wish they would just take the military budget for Air Conditioning and give it directly to NASA. it would triple our space research funding.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
It already exists.
It needs to be cut by more than half to get rid of the budget deficit.
Stop being the world's police should allow cuts of ~80%.
There are two types of people in the world: Those who crave closure
I think we all have one big question:
With that kind of thrust, can we just add-on an extra oxygen tank, and convert it into the space-plane we've been promised for so long?
Perhaps this could be the proving grounds for a space shuttle replacement, powered by ramjets instead of solid rocket boosters?
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
Amazing plane, looks like a fish, moves like a fish, steers like a cow.
Will it be available in the traditional Hotblack Desiato livery?
Will it still leak oil straight off the showroom floor like a '57 Jaguar?
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
The sr-71 was retired, but then brought out of retirement, which many people thought strange since it's rplacement, the aurora had already been made as a revel model.
https://www.google.com/search?q=lockheed+aurora&rlz=1C1CHFX_enUS531US531&espv=210&es_sm=122&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=JQZ4UrbZLomEiwKxiYHQBg&ved=0CDsQsAQ&biw=1547&bih=969
But now, it (the sr-71) is being replaced? If history is any indication, there have been at least 3 new spy planes since the sr-71 already. What about the top secret shuttle like orbit capable craft that has been covered? I have to ask WTF do we need with another plane. Probably answer is this is just mis-direction.
slashdot troll = you make a compelling argument I do not like the implications of.
So we have satellites - limited in that they can't really be steered; the U2 - which I gather is still in service, and pretty effective for spying on countries without good air defence; and pilotless drones - which I would expect to be able to cover most of the areas where a U2 would be at too great a risk.
Is there actually a need for a hypersonic spy plane?
I agree, I wish they would just take the military budget for Air Conditioning and give it directly to NASA. it would triple our space research funding.
As a former soldier, I don't want them to cut funding for air conditioning. Operating in climates with 120 F for months at a time is pretty hard, and the computers and equipment starts failing.
But I get your point.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
Cutting anything just to cut is stupid. DO you think just random cutting will get rid of pork? It will not, pork is always the last to go.
What we need is targeted and precise cuts on a project basis.
But no, lets just leave all our allies dangling, and leave our defense wide open. Cause that's what happens when you just slash and burn.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
You mean the deficit that's been gone down by half over the last 6 years? that one?
Maybe you should make it a personal mission to learn about this stuff instead of just repeat dumbass headlines?
"Stop being the world's police should allow cuts of ~80%."
nonsense.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
With that kind of thrust, can we just add-on an extra oxygen tank, and convert it into the space-plane we've been promised for so long?
No. Orbital velocity is about Mach 25. This plane cruises at Mach 6. So you have another 19 to go.
Still, it's a step. One small step for a plane...
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
The Skunk Works has been working with Aerojet Rocketdyne for the past seven years to develop a method to integrate an off-the-shelf turbine with a scramjet to power the aircraft from standstill to Mach 6 plus
From Nov 2:
the SR-72. Using a new hypersonic engine design that combines turbines and ramjets the company says that the unmanned SR-72 will be twice as fast as its predecessor with a cruising speed of Mach 6.
Three days ago they needed a scramjet to hit mach 6 cruise. Then they were able to do it with a ramjet by the next day. A scramjet is a variant of a ramjet. But where a ramjet slows the air below supersonic for combustion, a scramjet does not. So it's a pretty important distinction. However mach 6 is also around the max speed was for an aircraft using a standard ramjet, not the cruising speed.
I wonder how bad or frequent an unstart will be with a mach 6 aircraft. It's probably good that it will be unmanned as a pilot many not be able to remain conscious, or even survive one at hypersonic speeds. I'm sure with all of the advances in computing speeds this would be trivial to do on an SR-71 at mach 3 today. But I have to wonder how far mach 6 will push things.
lets just leave all our allies dangling,
Maybe our allies should start picking up their portion of their defense tab rather than relying on the U.S. taxpayer to constantly foot the bill.
and leave our defense wide open.
Like what, goatse? The danger now is rarely military in nature but electronic. The military industrial complex even admits this. They are more worried about state-sponsored electronic infiltration than they are about some nation developing jets or missiles.
Take a look at the 2011 proposed budget and how much national defense gets. You mean to tell me we couldn't cut that budget by 10% and still be secure?
Considering that is 20% of our total expenditure, and is nothing but a money sink since we get almost nothing in return, I think we can cut the fat a bit and still have a juicy steak.
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
The low hanging fruit is the military. A force so large that there's little we couldn't take and hold (Moscow and Beijing being about the only two places on the planet we couldn't take and hold for a year). And if the rest of the world attacked, in a unified force, the US military would be able to beat the entire rest of the planet. Doesn't that sound excessive? Even abolishing the standing military, we'd be able to protect the mainland from anyone, a combined China Korea invasion, or whatever scenarios the doomsayers make up..
But no, lets just leave all our allies dangling, and leave our defense wide open.
Lets assume that all military and police in the US were disbanded. Who would invade, where, and how? It's simply not possible for anyone to invade, so spending hundreds of trillions of dollars on "defense" that ends up being nothing but welfare for the rich is stupid. And yes, I know that China could invade, if they built a navy first. But right now, they'd have to swim for it. The only "practical" option is to charter every cruise liner on the planet, and send them over as troop transports. And that's the most realistic invasion plan I've seen discussed. Chinese on Carnival. You really want to waste trillions on wars in the middle east to ensure we don't appear weak?
Learn to love Alaska
Guess what, dipshit. Spending half a trillion, instead of a whole trillion, more than you're bringing in still isn't a good idea.
And guess what, cutting 80% of the military budget, would bring the deficit to about zero. There's about 175k military personnel deployed outside the US. Probably half that many more as contractors. None of whom are actually protecting the US.
There are two types of people in the world: Those who crave closure
Even if you are worried about invasions, keep the Navy and Air Force more or less intact and encourage more civilians to develop sound marksmanship skills. Don't discourage anyone from becoming proficient with either the standard infantry rifles or some high powered 50cal sniper rifle.
Make the US a hard target to get to and a nightmare to hold onto.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
Nothing here makes sense. If they were developing the plane, they would do it in secret and fly it in secret, just like the U2 and the SR71. Is this some kind of distraction for the real plane? Or some PR for a money grab? Whatever it is, this is NOT the military's new spy plane.
The only thing worse than a Democrat is a Republican.
Maybe the United States could fuck off and stop terrorising the world.
Oh yeah, it's still not officially "acknowledged". Well played SkunkWorks, well played.
You have a point, but there's an important counter-point. The way the federal budget works for most projects, each year it's assumed that each project will get 104% of the spending it got last year. So in 1960 they approve $DUMB_IDEA. Fifty years later, $DUMB_IDEA is still eating away at your paycheck, with a budget ten times as high as the initial experiment. If you start with an across-the-board cut* and then look at which programs should have funding restored*, that means someone has to look at $DUMB_IDEA and either let it die or be responsible for continuing it.
Sure, some dumb ideas will stick around. Others were proposed by and for the Senate's most powerful member, Robert KKK Byrd, and kept going for decades because it was money for his state (or often, his ego). Now that Byrd is dead, some of his pork can finally be ended by the review process that will be required to expand the budget past the general cuts.
* "cut" in government parlance means an increase of 1% rather than 4% - still an increase.
"restored" meaning "set to grow quickly, rather than slowly"
the sr72 already exists or lockheed martin wants the press and public buzz for funding.
I'd be surprise if it already existed. I thought that all the existing hypersonic contraptions are plagued with many material and endurance problems. I mean, it's probably not impossible, but it still seems to be fairly close to claiming that the U. S. Air Force operates a fleet of intergalactic cruisers.
Ezekiel 23:20
the correct response is to end overseas wars of foreign aggression and let the Middle East rot.
Are you a parent? Many parents intervene to stop their kids from squabbling, and think they are reducing conflict. But if they just stay out of it, the kids will figure out how to resolve the conflicts on their own. Their resolution may not be what you, as a parent, would have imposed, but it is still an end to the conflict.
The same would likely happen in the Middle East. If we were no longer there to impose our will, the squabbling would likely stop as the countries in the region realized that they really had to deal directly with each other, and had to live with the consequences of their actions.
American power is not the solution to the Middle East's problems. To a large extent, it is the cause of the problems.
2008 deficit: $458 billion
2013 deficit: $680 billion
2014 deficit: $744 billion
> Maybe you should make it a personal mission to learn about this stuff instead of just repeat dumbass headlines?
Perhaps you should. Rather than venturing to comedycentral.com on that mission, may I suggest you start with http://www.treasury.gov/ and http://www.cbo.gov/
This is nonsense. If the SR-72 was even being considered for production, it would not be publicly disclosed, and we wouldn't know anything about it for years. This SR-72 stuff is just fodder from the PR guys at Lockheed. Just consider the claim - a joint ramjet/turbojet got you to mach 3, now its magically going to get you to mach 6? For sustained flight that doesn't melt the airframe?
Cost?
And guess what, cutting 80% of the military budget, would bring the deficit to about zero. There's about 175k military personnel deployed outside the US. Probably half that many more as contractors. None of whom are actually protecting the US.
Who would all be out of jobs.
This would cause a large unemployment problem.
Reducing tax revenue.
Increasing burdens on welfare programs.
All causing the deficit to remain exactly where it is.
If your gonna have a top speed of mach 6, you may as well strap the engine to a rocket, shoot it off a rail going up the side of a mountain, and have it as a reusable first stage for a orbital rocket.
I'm sick of the Blackbird, I think the military should start up the shelved RAH-66 Comanche (with its it's XM301 cannon) project again. I'm sure we have enough fast, invisible spyplanes to choose from from what I can surmise from the information and disinformation they let be reported.
=As a former soldier, I don't want them to cut funding for air conditioning. Operating in climates with 120 F for months at a time is pretty hard, and the computers and equipment starts failing.
If US soldiers were not deployed in places they have no business being in the
first place, the need for air conditioning would drop drastically.
You mean places like California?
There is no "I disagree" mod for a reason. Flamebait, Troll, and Overrated are not substitutes.
I was going to point out this was a dupe, but a bazillion people beat me to it.
But I also wanted to say, this is pretty cool, and we'll discover some practical solutions getting this thing operational. My one regret is that it is unmanned. Someone should be able to climb in, take off from a runway, and fly it to Mach 6, just to be able to say we could do it.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
Aren't some of them -- namely, the ones like Japan and Germany which double as our defeated foes -- mostly disallowed from having their own military by treaty?
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
No, the SR-71 is truly retired. The predecessor U2 spy plane, however, is still flying for US http://www.stripes.com/news/u-2-spy-plane-soldiers-on-after-nearly-60-years-1.211448
I'm assuming you weren't referring to DHS when you mentioned increasing homeland defenses. DHS is a useless money pit.
As for the military being able to take and hold things, does Somolia ring a bell?...Black Hawk Down? We couldn't even handle that little piece of shit, so don't be so sure about our capabilities. If you were talking about wars with tanks and ships and planes, it's all good, but then you're referring to the types of enemies we worried about during the Cold War. Times have changed, and an insurgent war on their turf ain't so easy a nut to crack.
Just another day in Paradise
Excuse me, raymorris, but why would you leave out 2009, 2010, and 2011?
Say, you wouldn't have an agenda in leaving those numbers out, would you? Nah, not you.
This year's deficit is 1/2 of last year's deficit. And in 2013, the federal deficit as a percentage of GDP is less than it was under the Reagan Administration. Last year, our budget deficit was 4.1% of GDP. Under Reagan's 8 years as president, his average was 4.2%.
And wouldn't you say that looking at the deficit as a percentage of GDP is a pretty fair way to evaluate it?
You are welcome on my lawn.
Dear Lockheed,
What we don't need is a new aircraft. What we do need is cheap clean water that is available anywhere. We keep hearing about the new projects you're embarking on but we haven't heard anything about Perforene since your patent in March.
Please continue your endeavor to benefit human kind by developing Perforene.
Thank you,
The World
Solve that and there is no budget deficit.
Nope. The current wars are less than some social programs, so just ending them would help the budget some, but it may cause a lot more spending down the road if those societies get even worse and we need to go back in again.
Get rid of the 120+ overlapping and redundant "anti-poverty" programs that the Feds spend $700B on a year and you would be close to getting rid of the budget deficit. In addition, one would be getting the Federal govt back to its original limited scope of powers instead of getting its grubby fingers into everything.
Check out this film and you will have some answers: www.theworldwithoutus.com
And as far as a Chinese invasion, imagine how many bunk beds a life support system that one could install in a cargo container and imagine how many of those containers can fit on a ship. That is your invasion fleet, not cruise ships.
What's odd is the Skunk Works was famous for banging out fantastic planes in record time. SR-71 development kicked off around 1960, the first flight was 1964, and it went into service in 1966, around six years after starting.
The fine article says the SR-72 will be ready for flight in '18 (five years from now) and might be operational in 2030 (!). Does it really take 17 years to develop an unmanned drone, albeit a really fast one?
Ending the standing military and increasing homeland defenses would balance the budget.
No, it wouldn't. Our deficit is that insane. It would help a bunch, but really a strong standing military is a good investment - the economic damage done by an invasion is so extreme that even if the risk is low, it's worth funding some military. However, there's no doubt that significant military cuts are coming: we'll cut everything except mailing checks to voters until there's just nothing else left to cut.
(BTW, there are greedy and sociopathic folks on our southern border that are armed better than any police force, despite not being a nation-state. The world is full of assholes, and you do need to deter them).
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
I replied to the person who said today's deficit is half of six years ago. So I compared today to six years ago.
You wouldn't have a reading comprehension problem would you? No, not you.
Reagan won his election in a landslide because interest rates were around 21%, unemployment was 7.5%, and inflation was high. Reagan made some investments to cut interest rates in half, decrease taxes by $15,000 per family, slash inflation, reduce unemployment, and win the cold war.
Obama spent the same amount of money to - let his donors retire from their bogus solar companies. There's a difference between borrowing a mortgage of $100,000 to buy a house vs. throwing $100,000 in the camp fire. I have to believe you're smart enough to understand that.
You mean like the money borrowed from Social Security to pay for all these wars?
Easy fix - get rid of the earnings cap and disallow "carried interest". Problem solved.
That's what 2/3 of old people want, anyway.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
If we were no longer there to impose our will, the squabbling would likely stop as the countries in the region realized that they really had to deal directly with each other, and had to live with the consequences of their actions.
Let us keep in mind that there is considerable upside for some parties to some of those consequences, such as controlling up to half the world's proven oil reserves as Saddam Hussein attempted to do in the 80s and early 90s. He didn't succeed because the US organized a coalition against him.
Unfortunately, the grown up version doesn't have either the harmlessness or insignificance of your analogy.
Can you imaging the Chinese trying to land an amphibious force in Los Angeles from cruise ships with the gangs all working together to fend off the attackers? Hell, 10 guys with .50 cal rifles and a good position near the coast in office buildings could do some serious damage even before they land. Probably not enough to sink one, but certainly enough to cause some pain/fear.
Learn to love Alaska
As for the military being able to take and hold things, does Somolia ring a bell?...Black Hawk Down? We couldn't even handle that little piece of shit, so don't be so sure about our capabilities.
We weren't trying to take anything. We were trying to shoot the bad guys in a limited conflict. We've always done poorly in those.
Learn to love Alaska
He didn't succeed because the US organized a coalition against him.
Or, alternatively, he almost succeeded because Kuwait had weak defenses and inadequate local alliances since the Kuwaitis expected the Americans to bail them out.
No, it wouldn't. Our deficit is that insane.
No, it wouldn't. Our deficit is that insane.
Nope. The most recent completed year we spent more on the military than the size of the deficit. That means, we'd have had a surplus, if not for the military.
BTW, there are greedy and sociopathic folks on our southern border that are armed better than any police force, despite not being a nation-state.
Better armed than *any* police force? The LAPD has tank-like vehicles, and the National Guard would quickly respond, and has jet planes and lots of tanks. We need trillions of dollars of military to save us from scary Mexicans? That sounds like racist fearmongering. Beware the Canadians!
Learn to love Alaska
We dont need a war in california. Yes I disagree with everything California stands for but that is no reason to go to war there.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
The B-2 bomber has air conditioned hangars. If they are not stored there the paint stops working. That idea is like the office cutting the pen budget to save money. It just hampers everyones ability to be productive.
Most bridges need fixing or replacing, and have done for decades in not a few cases. Much of the power grid needs repair, renewal, rebuilding. We could get smart enough to build a fair number of improved nuclear plants and significantly get into thorium cycle - that covers everything from mining, tailings reclamation to all kinds manufacturing of parts for this and that. Lots of crops are under-harvesting even where gleaning is allowed. I've lost all track of how many thousands of miles of waterways, including the Intra-Coastal, need a raft of work - I plain got tired of looking at the mess after a while.
There is a whole shitload of basic infrastructure work that needs doing but has been put off, for a variety of reasons, none of which are particularly good.
Hell, just for grins we could do something weird such as rebuild, say, Detroit.
And even if the government is the last builder of resort, it'd still be a big plus because the monies spent would be mostly all spent _here_. We could have close to full employment for the first time in decades; people working, consuming, paying taxes. There's plenty of folks have done the crunching, so go dig some useful info out; I found lots, last I looked, browsers and hard drives and missing backups ago. Stop with the kneejerks; heck, take just five minutes per day this week and just look around you, and tell me if you don't see stuff needs doing.
Yes, there are some bad people need sorting, in some fashion, so do that. What we are doing isn't working so well. The War on $flavor_of_the_day is a scam, to inflate fear, divide the populace, extract money, consolidate power. Why not solve some problems instead? Solving problems invites a bit of calm and reason and cooperation. What a concept.
(Not to add an over-burden to my own wish list [snicker] but while we're about it, how's about an opt-in national single-payer health service, publicly-financed elections, re-districting by something half-way sane (even by ZIP code would be an improvement), and some real freacking transparency to government. Might be a real good idea to have an actual education system, and pay teachers for a change.)
Folks keep sayin' they want balanced budgets and all that. Fine. Then bloody well look where the money goes, how it's spent, and what we get in real return to the economy - not someone's off-shore accounts. And enough already with the wonderful trade agreements which have gutted us, killing the middle class in the process (well, there's lots of fingers in that slice of pie.)
Putting a quarter of a million people on unemployment is really going to help the economy. Not to mention all of the towns around military installations that would collapse, and not just in the USA.
Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds
...why, precisely? The need for the SR-71 was very well known. What threats out there need Mach-6 reconnaissance that satellites or stealth drones can't get us?
Oh, Lockheed needs money and doesn't want 7 years R&D to go to pot... that's why.
Our allies (clients) are rich enough to defend themselves without our subsidy. The Cold War is over and we have SSBNs so no nation-state is going to attack us as we could simply erase their country. That includes North Korea. Those nuke-armed fighters sitting Zulu Alert for decades weren't there for show, they were there to end the Norks if they felt froggy enough to attack the South. Not "slow them down", but destroy them completely.
We could slash the money and let the military determine where the cuts go. If they fuck that up it's a leadership failure to be punished.
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
I wonder if they found a way to keep the fuel tanks from leaking.
Well said. Why is it that we get angry when some poor people collect welfare and food stamps, but nobody seems to care about corporate welfare, which is orders of magnitude greater in cost?
The perpetual-war syndrome needs to be stopped. We seem to think that because we succeeded in WW2 that we have some mandate to step in and solve all the worlds problems, despite repeated failures. Meanwhile, Haliburton and other quasi-military mega-corps are laughing all the way to the bank.
"No matter where you go, there you are." -- Buckaroo Banzai
I would pay to see this movie.
What could possibly go wrong with putting all the guys who know how to shoot well out of work?
THIS THIS THIS. Just lose the damn earnings cap on SS!
Or, alternatively, he almost succeeded because Kuwait had weak defenses and inadequate local alliances since the Kuwaitis expected the Americans to bail them out.
It wouldn't have mattered if Kuwait was expecting a bail out or not. They were in a losing position no matter what they had, excluding perhaps some nuclear weapons. Too few people and a bad tactical position means they would have lost anyway.
It's worth noting that Saudi Arabia and the rest of the Arabian Peninsula is just as bad off militarily. That's what Iraq would have steamrolled next. Then after Iraq built a few fission bombs, it'd be time for the second Iraq-Iran war.
Right, anyone who disagrees with you is a racist, where have I heard that before?
The Mexican drug cartels are better organized and better equipped (and far more sociopathic) than the Mexican army. And as someone who will always Remember the Alamo, I don't ignore the threat the Mexican army presents.
As far as the deficit vs military spend - I go by the link in my sig - those numbers are well sourced. Either way, we're sure to keep cutting military spending, heedless of any risk, and cutting everything else except "mailing checks to voters" and high-pork programs. Our current crop of politicians sees the budget only as a tool to buy votes, as any actual governing is a joke. This will end in tears.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
Would that be before or after nuclear war? Because I sure as fuck wouldn't want to be these Chinese soldiers. They either all die in LA, or die trying to return home to an irradiated nation. Nobody will come out of that scenario unscathed. And no land would be taken, just billions of lives lost.
Life is not for the lazy.
I still don't see the purpose for such an expensive plane. The price will be too big vs the minor lacks of satellites and drones.
There is a bigger market for the successor of the concorde, for the moment satellites cannont teleport you form London to NY in 3 hours.
Oh sorry, we can't afford to keep funding food stamps but a mach 6 unmanned jet is no problem.
See the violence inherent in the system?
They'd be crazy to invade, or do anything that would risk nuclear retaliation. The USA has 7000+ nukes and anti missile defences. China has 200+ nukes and not surprisingly preaches a "No First Use" policy. The ones with the most nukes laugh at that suggestion.
Draw 1000+ nuke circles over all the cities in China and go estimate what would be left. Their only hope would be if Russia backs them up with Russian nukes. But why would Russia protect China if they try something as stupid as that?
China might invade Taiwan given the right circumstances, and/or take over the Spratly Islands. Why the heck would they invade the USA.
We dont need a war in california. Yes I disagree with everything California stands for but that is no reason to go to war there.
Please, please, please someone with points mod this up.
Cutting anything just to cut is stupid. DO you think just random cutting will get rid of pork? It will not, pork is always the last to go.
What we need is targeted and precise cuts on a project basis.
But no, lets just leave all our allies dangling, and leave our defense wide open. Cause that's what happens when you just slash and burn.
Exactly, in fact projects like the SR-72 with no actual mission and the new F35 fighter that no-one wants should be at the top of that list of cuts. The F35 contract is past $60B now with no working aircraft so far. All the DOD departments wanted was a tech refresh of the existing fighters and not something brand new, but all the Congressional pork barreling got in the way of fiscal responsibility.
Looking at the bigger picture, deficit spending is still higher than pre-2008, and those 3-years you're comparing to were not typical due to things like TARP. Spending is continuing to balloon, yes the deficit is still projected to hover in the 0.8 trillion/year range.
http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/download_multi_year_1960_2018USb_15s2li101mcn_G0f
Continuing to run up the credit card, paying only interest is a sure-fire way to bankrupt the household.
That would have been nice because then I wouldn't have had to go to the army.
Yes, Japan and Germany have an army. We have electricity, too.
1) Stop invading countries where it's 120F for months. 2) If you really have to, then endure the temperature. If Napoleon's soldiers could do it, you can do it too. 3) If that's too much, don't join the military. You're not fighting for Freedom anyway, might as well get directly hired by a bank.
I come from Europe. I go to the US on a regular basis. You guys are crazy when it comes to A/C. I'm usually cold inside a cooled building, I have to put on a sweater or something. I've talked about this with many colleagues and they agree the A/C is set just too low in the US. Make it a reasonable temperature and you'll have tons of savings right there.
Gangs would be the first ones to flee the scene. They form gangs because they can't cope in the modern society alone. What makes you think they would want to defend a country and laws that offer them nothing but misery? The rest of the point stands, and that's why GPs post is BS. US military could maybe take whatever place they wanted for a short while, but keep them? Guess it depends on how you define "keep". It's bloody impossible to really control any place where the population is against you. You could genocide everyone, but apart from that, good luck. There are places where most people know how to operate assault rifles and make and use improvised explosives. With formal training. The whole damn idea being it will be way too expensive for invading force to keep the area. Usually the invading force in these scenarios isn't US btw.
Good, then it needs to be hampered.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
I was under the impression that you guys had a "defense force" that wasn't allowed to exceed a certain size.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
That's a great knee-jerk reaction you have there. The reality is that we wouldn't have to cut funding to any viable programs if we would simply cut waste. AC for military isn't waste. That said, there are billions upon billions wasted in to Pentagon every year. If you want to recoup enough money to fly to mars and back (and all the related research, etc.), just cut pork. Outlaw lobbyists. Disallow the ability to tack on earmarks. That sort of stuff. Simply picking some area you don't care for (military) and saying, "cut air conditioning" and getting a little har-har out of yourself is immature and short sighted and in reality your practicing croneyism (partiality for people or ideas you prefer without regard for merit), even if only in your head, which is what got us to where we are in the first place.
I thought part of the rationale behind grounding this plane was it's cheaper to use a spy satellite nowadays. If it's truly a multirole aircraft, say a bomber, then it could have its uses.
Chewbacon
The Bible is like Wikipedia: written by a bunch of people and verifiable by questionable sources.
That's Japan. Germany has a reasonably large army, which is explained by the fact that it was a buffer state between the Warsaw Pact (USSR + occupied states) and Western Europe. But it's a conscript army, and they're all taught to question orders.
Ah, but would the Iraqis have such an edge over their neighbors if the US (well, the West as whole) didn't help them in the first Iran-Iraq war?
And one of the reasons Iran-Iraq war happened in the first place was because of the 1979 revolution in Iran. Why did Iran have a revolution? Partly (mostly) because their oppressive regime was pro-West. Why was that regime pro-West? That can be trace back to CIA/MI6 overthrowing their democratically elected leader (who didn't play ball with the West)
Now, I'm not saying the ME would be all sunshine and unicorns if we left them alone, but it has been demonstrated that the attempts for the West to "help" the ME actually wasn't that helpful
I'd be surprise if it already existed. I thought that all the existing hypersonic contraptions are plagued with many material and endurance problems. I mean, it's probably not impossible, but it still seems to be fairly close to claiming that the U. S. Air Force operates a fleet of intergalactic cruisers.
I would also be surprised, but not for the reasons you just gave, after all look at the problems that plagued the SR-71. Also the SR-71 is 50 years old, we should have the expertise to improve on the design.
The reason I would be surprised is because we have other projects that fulfill the role that are more cost effective, such as the flying twinkie. Another reason is that although it is possible to design a stealth aircraft that can go beyond Mach 3, the massive plume of hot exhaust gasses will give it away.
Don't know something? Look it up. Still don't know? Then ask.
And then we would be blamed for allowiing the resulting humanitarian disasters to happen.
But at least that way it would cost us less money.
The most recent completed year we spent more on the military than the size of the deficit. That means, we'd have had a surplus, if not for the military.
The same could be said of Social Security or Unemployment, Welfare and other Social programs. Maybe we should end those as well.
If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
Guess what? .25 M when added to 11.3M isn't going to matter much.
There are two types of people in the world: Those who crave closure
A "large" unemployment problem? You're pretty ignorant there. .25M added to 11.3M unemployed would not be a 'large' problem. It would be a 2% change.
It wouldn't reduce tax revenue, it would vastly decrease tax spending.
If you think that the government makes as much off taxing military personnel as they spend on them, you're so far down the rabbit hole, there's no hope for you.
There are two types of people in the world: Those who crave closure
dads are stupid. smart dads know this. the folly of spending time with your children, filling their heads with anahronistic drivel is well known.
Just because your mother overcompensated, and filled your head with rage against the deadbeat is no valid argument. Now get down to the sports bar and STFU.
Germany has dropped conscription two years ago.
You just lost a lot of credibility due to 1) the "racist fearmongering" remark, which was just uncalled for and out of proportion, and 2) your gross overestimation of the US military capabilities. You think London would be a piece of cake? or Tehran?
Look back up at my post, now look back down, you're on the Internet. Now look back up. I'm a signature.
Unemployment isn't federal. The others are "self funding" As in, if you end SS and the SS tax, then you have a *worse* deficit. If you keep the SS tax, but end SS payouts, you've nearly doubled the federal income tax rate. If you allow for such wild changes in tax rate to balance the budget (rather than cutting spending), then just eliminate all deductions for anyone making more than $50,000, tax capital gains at earned income rates, and you'll balance the budget with minimal changes.
Learn to love Alaska
Ah, but would the Iraqis have such an edge over their neighbors if the US (well, the West as whole) didn't help them in the first Iran-Iraq war?
There's that oil. I used Iraq as an example, but Iran, Egypt, and the rest of the region has similar potential. The fundamental problem here is simply that part of the world has a lot of highly valuable oil concentrated into a relatively small amount of real estate. That allows the rulers to accumulate quite a bit of power.
And there's not much, aside from the interests of outsiders to keep the key oil bearing parts from falling under control of one ruler.
Yeah, London would be a piece of cake. It'd be easier than Baghdad. With Iraq, there were more armed resistors called "terrorists" by the US government than the sum of all "terrorists" estimated by the US prior to the war. How? Because invading a country made many people grab the nearest gun and shoot at the nearest American. Either that, or the feds are grossly incompetent at counting or estimating anything.
How is that relevant? What are the people in Manchester going to do to "overthrow" the Americans? Throw crumpets at us? Give us tea laced with arsenic? Anyone coming to their aid would have to cross water. The US navy is roughly the size of every other navy on the planet combined, so no outside help is likely. A strategic strike against key military locations before the landing, and the UK will have little to respond with, and we know where it all is, because we sold it to them. So yes, I firmly believe that the US could take and hold London. And we took and held Baghdad, which is similar to Tehran, so I'm curious why you think Tehran would be so much harder, especially if we weren't fighting two wars at once.
Learn to love Alaska
Now suppose I had turned this problem around and asked whether Saudi Arabia should interfere with the developed world, particularly the US? The US exerts considerable influence over the area even to the point of toppling governments.
But as it turns out, the US has a good sized Muslim population both from immigration and converts. And most of those go on Hajj to Mecca in Saudi Arabia. There's considerable opportunity to win "hearts and minds" with positive propaganda there.
Saudi Arabia also has considerable wealth which can be used for political bribes or covert campaign contributions (for example, millions of small donations under $100 to US candidates) which the candidate need not know even come from Saudi Arabia. They can boycott products and services from various countries.
Is it worth the effort to influence a far larger and more powerful country which continually meddles in your region? It seems to me that yes, it is worth that effort.
Right, anyone who disagrees with you is a racist, where have I heard that before?
Not from me, it just sounded like the Republican talking points for anti-immigration rules. "fear the brown, fence them out before they all swim across"
And as someone who will always Remember the Alamo, I don't ignore the threat the Mexican army presents.
Yes, I've been to the Alamo. I always thought the famous attribution was spoken *to* the mexicans as a warning, not to the Texans as a motivator. "You killed us, we'll kill you" was the message, not one of treachery or whatever you are implying. The army came in and took a military fort. Relatively uninteresting, until you note the losses on each side, but not even that noteworthy when you compare it against other sieges of roughly equal technology without a lengthy blocade or shelling.
Learn to love Alaska
What makes you think they would want to defend a country and laws that offer them nothing but misery?/quote>Because they are fiercely territorial and already organized in a para-military manner. When the shit hits the fan, gangs do work together, even if only for a short while before shooting each other again.
And yes, "keeping" some place is poorly defined. How about "form a 10 mile diameter circle (adjusted for local conditions) and kill anyone trying to cross in or out of it, with greater than 50% efficiency"? Does that work as a definition of "keep"? Because I can't think of anywhere the US would have problems other than Russia or China. Yes, someone else said "London" but I think the US would not have that much trouble forming a killing ring around London and sealing it off from the rest of the world. We even have operational military experience in London airports. We did it in Baghdad, and there are few places less hospitable.
Learn to love Alaska
always thought the famous attribution was spoken *to* the mexicans as a warning, not to the Texans as a motivator.
Not where I grew up, anyhow. Heck, my Mom had a notepad stuck to the fridge with "Things to Remember" printed as the header, and places to write 1 -10 as a numbered list of tasks. Of course, 1 was pre-printed: "The Alamo". Maybe it was an earlier time, but it was seeped into the culture as motivation.
Anyhow, ever generation has had it's hippies with their "we don't need an army" and "what if they gave a war and nobody came". Sadly, all of human history begs to differ, and the answer to "what if they gave a war and only one side came" is very grim indeed. There's still a lot of genocide ongoing in the world.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
Anyhow, ever generation has had it's hippies with their "we don't need an army" and "what if they gave a war and nobody came". Sadly, all of human history begs to differ, and the answer to "what if they gave a war and only one side came" is very grim indeed. There's still a lot of genocide ongoing in the world.
The founding fathers were "hippies" by your definition. They lived in a world with no standing armies, and didn't write the Constitution expecting a standing army sucking massive amounts of wealth out of the country.
Learn to love Alaska
They were also in a frontier with big empty spaces at the borders, and had veteran, proven state militias and professional military leadership. There was no thought of "we'll never need an army" but instead "we have all the army we need already, in the state militias".
Today war is highly technical, and raising a militia fairly pointless when it comes to war - a soldier with the right training and equipment is vastly more effective than a guy with an assault rifle. As we move more to bots it will become more so. It's much like the centuries before Agincourt, where the advantage of good armor and a warhorse, with years of training for both man and horse, was equally extreme.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
And there's not much, aside from the interests of outsiders to keep the key oil bearing parts from falling under control of one ruler.
Except for all the competition you mentioned with similar potential inside the region.
And even in the event the region gets united... so what? Countries can't become big and united on their own without Big Brother America and the West's approval and "helping" hand?
I think it's hilariously hypocritical how supposedly freedom loving people of the West (mostly Americans) fear and hate hearing "I'm from government, I'm here to help", but think it's ok to say to the ME "I'm from (foreign) government, I'm here to help"
Another reason is that although it is possible to design a stealth aircraft that can go beyond Mach 3, the massive plume of hot exhaust gasses will give it away.
Does it really need exhaust gases to be noticed in IR? The aerodynamic friction alone ought to be sufficient for that.
Ezekiel 23:20
repost
As a former soldier, I don't want them to cut funding for air conditioning. Operating in climates with 120 F for months at a time is pretty hard, and the computers and equipment starts failing.
But I get your point.
Maybe they could stop using tents to store people/computers.
Something insulated might cut the power bill....
No sig today...
Tehran would be a pain only because I think their insurgency would make Iraq's look like a picnic. Getting to Tehran, no problem, on that we'd agree.. holding it, not so much, and it wouldn't help that we're already war-weary and nearly broke.
Look back up at my post, now look back down, you're on the Internet. Now look back up. I'm a signature.
Why do we need such an offensive "defense" force?
Learn to love Alaska
The only campfire going on here is the $85 billion a month being given to the banks by the Fed.
Better to just drop that money from a helicopter.
You are welcome on my lawn.
If unemployment isn't federal, then why do I have to pay unemployment tax to the federal government, and why is their second largest budget bucket "Unemployment, Welfare and Social Services"?
If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
It's a federal welfare program that is welfare, but given a different name to cause confusion. Do you pay unemployment to your state? If you were to become unemployed and collect unemployment payments, what department would you go to? As far as I know, it's state or local in every state in the US.
Long-term unemployment is called "welfare", and that's why it gets funny names on federal forms, so they can tax you multiple times for the same time, but that doesn't mean it goes to what it says.
And besides, you answered the financial part of the question. If you end the cost, it ends the income. If you end the cost without ending the income, then you increased taxes. If the issue is increasing taxes, that's a different question than the one previously posed.
Learn to love Alaska
If they cut the funding, they might find a way to still have the air conditioning, just not power it with generators fueled with $400 per gallon fuel. Solar power springs to mind.
The US navy is roughly the size of every other navy on the planet combined, so no outside help is likely.
A fight to control the English Channel would be an interesting one to watch. The US Naval forces, pitted against other naval forces, would give the US very solid supply lines across the Atlantic and would, of course, allow the US to field impressive air power. They would not, however, be able to prevent outside help crossing the narrow parts of the English channel. That battle would be US Naval forces vs tanks and other land based artillary on high ground, and US planes against concentrated land-based anti-aircraft.
Also, the UK is a nuclear power. Everyone seems to have forgotten this fact, since everyone is so enthusiastic about nuking civilian populations, but one of the original selling points of nuclear weapons is that you can use one to blow up up large fleets of non-civilan ships at sea. A single nuke could wipe out most of a carrier group and there would be very little that could be done to stop it. The US could spread out the carrier group, but carriers are valuable targets all by themselves and would still be worth nuking, not to mention that spreading out the group would leave them vulnerable to conventional attack. That's the reason the US and the world in general stopped using battleships. They're way too vulnerable. One small hit and a massive investment sinks. Aircraft carriers are similarly vulnerable, but the aircraft have such great range that it's considered worth it as long as they're massively guarded. They're still _very_ vulnerable to advanced modern weapons even if those weapons aren't nukes.
Let's not forget that there was another technologically advanced nation with a massive military that thought it could take on the entire world in the last century. Even with support from a group of allies, it turned out they were wrong.
All that said, the biggest obstacle for the US in taking and holding the Capitol of any modern military power is that the US would have to comitt itself to accepting losses. Even if it won, there would be massive losses of very expensive equipment and tens of thousands of soldiers dead. The US hasn't been interested in that sort of fight for a long time now.