For all you non military spending types...

H

hogdogs

Staff In Memoriam
Anyone keeping any touch on the news knows we shot the broken arrow satellite...
we did not pain a wooden gun black and get lucky! We took a system we likely have billions invested in and modified it aboard a ship we have likely billions invested in and did the near impossible... it was described as trying to use a .30-06 to hit a .22 bullet crossways at 500 yards or some such info...
We were just protecting an area of earth the size of a few football fields square from contamination. But we did 2 other larger things...
1)We showed the whole world we are not only in possession of the best systems but we are willing to spend $$$ to get results and...
2)We can adapt to immediate conditions...
Did I mention we showed the world we ain't some sissy bunch of slackers? We will and SHOULD maintain the highest order of readiness of the planet and be WILLING to do it!
Brent
 
As much as I despise space "exporlation" as a waste of spending I admit it helps...
We got Tang and more.... Heck I hear the first lunar landers were computerized but the 'puter was of less capacity than a 2$ calculator...
Brent
 
As much as I despise space "exporlation" as a waste of spending I admit it helps...
We got Tang and more.... Heck I hear the first lunar landers were computerized but the 'puter was of less capacity than a 2$ calculator...
Brent
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The computer you're posting on, the internet itself, the medical technologies that will keep you alive twice as long as your grandparents...none of that would exist without space exploration.

I don't understand how people can view it as wasteful. We are a tiny little planet in a galaxy of a hundred billion stars and there are thousands of visible galaxies beyond our own with estimates that there are tens if not hundreds of billions of galaxies out there.

Certainly we'll never get to explore such things in our lifetimes but to think that we shouldn't look up into the sky and try to find out as much as we can about this vast, immense universe boggles my mind. How can anyone be content with staying on one tiny, insignificant little planet in the suburbs of the Milky Way?

Even just exploring our own solar system could lead to amazing advancements in science. Learning about our universe helps us learn about ourselves, helps us better understand where we came from, how life began, where it's all going.

By the way, you're pretty close about the lunar landers. The LEM computer was less powerful than a modern day graphing calculator and it allowed for the most significant moment in all of human history. Imagine what we can do today and imagine the significance of colonizing another world.
 
Last week the Spirit of Kansas - one of those flying-wing B2 stealth bomber things - crashed. What's that, like a $2 billion loss? Sweeeet.
 
So we lossed a few billion on a downed airplane... So what? we lost thousands of lives in europe in one day.... what was their life worth? YOUR FREEDOM is the answer! How much (in todays monetary value) of our hard to value equipment and oil was lost along the east coast to U-boats? MANY THOUSANDS OF TONS is the answer... You can never devalue what has been spent and you cannot devalue the need of the future military... But I would like a better spent and more responsible set up than we have...
Brent
 
It also shows that we don't bother making sure our $60 million dollar satelites can fly before we pack them full of sensitive spy technology.


"With the radar antenna extended, USA 193 was about the size of a basketball court"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USA_193



Hadn't heard about the B2. That's bad. Did you see the Top Ten Bombers show on Discovery? One of the things that they mentioned was that the B2 was almost too expensive to use. The loss of one represents a significant loss of our budget, like having an entire battleship sunk in WWII.
 
But I would like a better spent and more responsible set up than we have...
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yes, and that's what the whole military spending thread is about. that's what obama is proposing, not putting a stranglehold on the military but making them accountable for the money they get, making them spend it wisely, making them spend it on what we need as opposed to some general's pet project or some congressman's desire to get more votes out of whatever town builds the frame for the Apache

Trim it down so that we can remain ahead of the pack without wasting money that could be better spent elsewhere.
 
Willie, If that one measly plane hurt us than we ain't spending "trillions" on defense.... Heck a couple billion is like me tossing pennies to a stripper! I don't go to stripper joints cuz $ bills ain't no good with out a 1 and a zero or 2 to validate the desire to meet said stripper after hours...
we need to keep focused here fellers... We must maintain the SUPREME military presence to insure a peaceful world...
Brent
 
I suspect that shooting down the satelite was much more than just a contamination issue. If I remember correctly, China shot one their own down last year. I also think Russia is capable of hitting a target in orbit. I am sure it was an opportunity to flex a little military muscle and probably run some tests at the same time. I sure am glad we didn't miss.
 
We must maintain the SUPREME military presence to insure a peaceful world...
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Ya know, if we didnt' stay neck deep in the affairs of nearly every country in the world, and didnt switch sides, selling arms to one country, and then to their enemy a few years later, and we quit trying to be the "world police" We probably WOULD have a more peaceful world.
 
I would take the anti-military spending types, throw them in the Quantum Leap Transporter and have them find themselves in Korea on July 5, 1950.
I agree that lavish military spending on foolish and unwise projects-the Maginot Line, e.g., does not guarantee security and the military profiteer and the congresspersons and government employees on his payroll are as much a
threat to us as our avowed enemies. And those who seek to use the Pentagon budget as a cash cow to pay for such oh so critical things as public
housing and welfare for teenage mothers should also be carefully watched.
 
on going augment over how much

as long as there will be budgets and a military there are going to be money issues. How much armament we need is a very subjective thing at best. Some would never put any limits as they point out all the possible scenarios that might require a military type support. Others fear the endless spending does nothing except profit some manufacturers. Some place there is an amount that is practical and affordable.

Military funding requires some level of taxes. Pure and simple. The military has never said they had enough of anything when it comes to stockpiles. One example: there are still millions or rounds of small arms munitions from pre WW2. Some would even go so far as to say we have millions of rounds stockpiled for arms the military no longer has in its arsenal. Some proponents believe we should still have horse calvary. Meanwhile we have smart bombs that hit targets with unbelievable accuracy. Is the cost of maintaining enough nuclear arms around to completly destroy the word three or four time a necessity or is it wasteful?

We are never going to see the end to a military budget. We might see a more practical approach to how to limit that same budget. Taxpayers are the ultimate control factor: higher military budget with higher taxes are not going to keep happy campers.

Yes there are other programs that use taxes. That does not mean military spending should not be controlled.
 
As much as I despise space "exporlation" as a waste of spending I admit it helps...
We got Tang and more.... Heck I hear the first lunar landers were computerized but the 'puter was of less capacity than a 2$ calculator...
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FAR less capacity. My parents worked for the space program during the late 50's and early 60's. My mom was a mathematician. They hired rooms full of them. Only the head of the department had a machine (mechanical, not electrical computer) which would calculate square roots, and she would try to get hold of that machine when he did not need it. Dad was an engineer working on tracking systems and he says they had huge computers which filled entire rooms, with rows and rows of vacuum tubes, and the entire contraption had less capability than handheld calculators by the late 1970s.

Forget Tang. We got WD-40 from the space program! :D
 
Do I understand this right? How much is too much to prevent us from being exterminated by the left? 1 dollar, 100 dollars, ...? Tomorrows Hitlers, Stalins, Maos, Pol Pot democrats are waiting. Chavez, Castro and Kim Jung Il are pushing to get on the top of the list now. If we side with a leader who loves evil, how will we prevent history from repeating?
 
Why don't they just put a self-destruct mechanism inside the satellite before they launch it, just in case something like this happens? Seems a lot simpler to me than having to shoot it out of orbit.
 
We have a "destruct" mode in most all space travel machines but this is dependent on contact with earth born OPERATORS. This device was a failure to COMMUNICATE from right after orbit.... it is thus our job to protect even a tiny part of earth from impact....
Brent
 
Yes I think the satellite shoot down was a tech coolness but what I want to know is what we have capable of defending satellites. We have to have something otherwise the whole hog reliance our military has on GPS makes zero sense.

Talking about technology and the apollo computer. It was probably about 73 when I was 13 my birthday present just blew away the geekier kids. It was a digital calculator about the size of a paperback book that cost a hundred dollars. I don't remember how to use one but I still consider the slide ruler one of the more ingenious contraptions mankind has produced.

I am a little muddled on military and the role America has assumed in the world. I do know we have not had war on the scale of WWII and that is largely a product of American might. Pax Americana? I dunno but the world world is largely more peaceable and profitable. I would like to think America's investment in treasure and blood is reaping dividends even if at times it does not seem worthwhile or intangible. I do believe we should stay way way ahead of other nations on technology. History has too many examples of an innovative weapon totally catching opponents off balance and rendering their capacity moot. The confederate ironclad USS Virginia totally stunned the union navy and had the potential to wipe out their entire wooden ship fleet by itself.
 
Yessiree, the US Navy shot down a non-weapon satellite with no counter-measure equipment, on a known orbit, in a non-hostile environment, with ships perfectly placed for the mission.

Yeah, that's a prize winner alright.

Yes I think the satellite shoot down was a tech coolness but what I want to know is what we have capable of defending satellites. We have to have something otherwise the whole hog reliance our military has on GPS makes zero sense.
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When all you plan to do is bully third world countries with fifth world defenses, you don't need much in the way of defensive measures.
 
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