With all this going on, I wonder if it is too late to kill oneself? The CIA has been accused of deliberately over estimating foreign capabilities in apparent support for maintaining very high millitary spending. There is apparently a connection between retired CIA analysts and the private sector. However, Russia has leap-frogged us before in certain technologies. With Russia's continued aggression and focused leadership towards the US, it does seem appropiate we aggressively persue millitary capabilities in space. It is a risky business either way. The key for us is to increase the "bang for the buck" we get from our huge defense budget. We need to start thinking in terms of having parts that work across several application types, more efficient electrical systems, more streamlined repair processes, increased utilization of known capabilities, and greater endurance to maintenance ratios. We may need to harden domestic manufacturing, transportation, and resource infrastructure as well. It seems to me that some of our weapon system's "product life cycles" are managed to the point of obsolescence by our defense contractors. If a real shooting war comes with a major power, we need to be able to field the most advanced capability for any hope to at least hold our own. Indeed, by maintaining a formitable capability should deter our opponents from taking escalating actions in the first place.
You guys are off your game: You forgot the portrait of Hitler in the background and a Jew, a Blackman, and a Hispanic child in a cage off to the side.
OT: NPR tonight did a thing on rhino poaching in Africa. Was that your old gig? I mean stopping that.
Yep, though not stopping it was pretty much what happened. I saw some of the early use of poison in waterholes and figured I'd just start killing some people soon. Kid to raise so quit the work. What was going to happen was pretty inevitable and it has not stopped. 2836 short closed off to bed, start this loop again at 5am.
Agree but who knows what's available that's never been rolled out? The first stealth strikes on Sadam we unleashed, those planes had been sitting in hangers for years. Just saying, I'd bet we have a few skunkworks specials to awe and amaze our adversaries.
I would think we have some bitching drones by now that make any manned striker a dinosaur. Maybe even w/some AI :O
If I can imagine certain practical uses of nano technology, special materials, and "special" energy technology, the professionals in our military certainly have sophisticated weapons systems and intelligence gathering capabilities that should give our enemies pause. And like you said, we are probably not deploying some of our capabilities in order to keep our more dangerous opponents from being able to develop an effective counter. However, our more dangerous opponents certainly have their own tricks up their sleeves. Bottom line, we need to learn how to work with each other and avoid major millitary conflicts as the inevitable result will be heavy losses on both sides, regardless of whether one side "wins" or not.
I'd think drones are the future, if not already here like you say. I vaguely remember several years ago watching a documentary on one of the retired skunkworks engineers, he had worked on the stealth technology going back in the early 70's. That's almost 50 years ago. I can't imagine what they have working on the boards today?