
Pentagon’s $55B mystery plane is secret, but debate on cost is appearing - adventured
http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/checkpoint/wp/2015/02/27/pentagons-55-billion-mystery-plane-is-secret-but-debate-over-cost-is-appearing/
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desdiv
Northrop Grumman seriously paid for a Super Bowl ad?

Oh sure, next time I'm out shopping for a long range stealth bomber maybe I'll
subconsciously remember the ad and choose a Northrop Grumman one. I've been a
long time Boeing-Lockheed customer but the powerful imagery from that ad left
quite the impression on me.

I get that defense officials and congressmen watch the Super Bowl, but there
must be more cost effective methods of reaching them than buying the most
expensive airtime on the planet.

~~~
tree_of_item
Don't forget the signaling value: Northrop Grumman is not a small shop, and
wants to show these officials and congressman that they're the real deal and
have plenty of money to spend on flashy and super expensive things like Super
Bowl ads.

~~~
c-slice
I think this is completely PR - they want to create buzz and excitement in the
public for the "hot new spy plane" such that its politically impossible for
congress to cancel the program/cut the budget.

~~~
enraged_camel
I doubt it. There is a ton of war-weariness these days, and expensive military
projects aren't very popular. Especially considering the utter fiasco that is
the F-35 program, I really doubt the public is in the mental or emotional
state to support another pricey project.

~~~
bhayden
You say that like the public opinion matters at all.

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smhinsey
So what happens if we find ourselves in a war of attrition again? Most/all of
the potential opponents in such a war are nuclear powers so it's theoretically
not a possibility but history is littered with theoretical impossibilities
made real. It seems like we have all of these incredibly dominant and
expensive weapons but only a relatively tiny supply, no timely and cost-
effective way to replace losses, and not many options if they run out. I
didn't attend a service academy so maybe I'm missing something, but what if
the initial battle is not decisive and after 6 months of somehow-only-
conventional war there are no more LRSBs or F-22s or whatevers?

~~~
adventured
The other major nuclear powers are no more capable of fighting a war of
attrition than the US is.

Further, the US is highly unlikely to be dumb enough to fight a war in China
or Russia. That would require ten million soldiers just to get started anyway.
It simply isn't going to happen, any more than Russia or China are going to
cross the Pacific or Atlantic and invade the US. China has very little
capability to project outside its borders, and is in the process of
modernizing its military and shrinking its forces. Russia has zero capability
of projecting serious conventional might outside of its borders, or those
extremely close by.

So what war of attrition is likely to occur? Whatever that is, it'll be fought
closer to the enemy's backyard, than the US backyard. The US has military
bases all around the planet, nobody else does. So the US can strike,
perpetually, at foreign targets via force projection, while limiting damage to
its domestic manufacturing capabilities. Said manufacturing capabilities would
be, much like WW2, ramped up to meet demand. The US has a massive labor pool,
and if desperately needed, could grant citizenship to tens of millions from
Latin America in exchange for building armaments in factories. Unlike China,
the US is capable of 100% domestic commodity supply, and if pressed can also
fulfill all of its own manufacturing and technology needs (which China can as
well, but they don't have the domestic commodities the US possesses).

To win a war of attrition, in a conventional war, the US could simply spam the
construction of new B-52s and bombs, and then leverage its global bases,
pressing an unrelenting bombing campaign taking out all of the enemy's
manufacturing capabilities. No present or likely future enemies of the US
could strike back at the US domestically for any sustained period of time.

Now, if we're talking China in 30 years, will they be able to project across
the Pacific all the way to Hawaii and California? Interesting question, it's
going to depend on whether their economy melts down due to the hyper debt
accumulation they're undergoing now, and whether they end up in perpetual debt
stagnation like Japan (while their demographics melt simultaneously, and the
demand for entitlements to take care of the elderly soars, sapping their
financial capabilities even further).

~~~
jacquesm
Another way to look at those bases is to think of them as already captive
American troops. You can project power all you want but if your runway has
been bombed you're not going anywhere. Having your troops stationed the world
over is both an advantage _and_ a disadvantage, it allows your enemies to
strike you the world over rather than just on your own soil.

See: USS Cole, Ein al-Asad and so on.

As for the US's ability to strike perpetually at foreign targets: that's
limited to those targets that the US does not depend on in any economic
capacity and only holds true as long as oil flows.

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ricardobeat
Did I seriously just read a cry for "disrupting the combat aircraft market"?
How about disrupting the tobacco business? Disrupting human traffic?
Exaggerations aside, not everything is about making (or saving) money. I sure
as hell don't want military weapons to become the latest startup trend.

~~~
rprospero
I have no love for the military. I turned down a guaranteed job offer that
pays twice what I'm currently making simply because I don't want to work on
things that kill people.

That said, I can also see the other side of this. According to Wikipedia, the
US government spent $66 billion dollars on the F22. I'm naive, so I think that
we could save $66 billion on that by just not having an F22, but congress
disagrees with me and I'm not sure that I'll ever win that fight. However,
imagine that start-ups could do the job 10% more efficiently. That's six
billion dollars that you just saved.

Now, imagine an entire government agency, like the Peace Corp, but purely
dedicated to fighting human trafficking. You could fund that agency for
fifteen years on that six billion dollars. If the startup is 20% cheaper, then
you could have a second agency of similar size that is dedicated to helping
people stop smoking. If the startup managed to be a full 30% cheaper, you can
throw in thirty thousand four-year, full-ride college scholarships.

Again, I'd love to have all of that $66 billion spent on other projects, but
even funnelling part of that into a different area could markedly improve the
world. I'd never work for a start-up that worked on air combat, but I'd be
thrilled to free up some of the air combat budget.

~~~
jmgao
The F-22 at least more or less accomplished what the program set out to do.
It's hilarious to compare it to its "replacement", the F-35, a plane that
attempts to shoehorn three mutually conflicting roles into one airframe to
reduce costs, except it's going to cost something like a trillion dollars. The
best (worst) one is the jumpjet version, designed to operate from temporary
airfields and catapult-less aircraft carriers, except it melts anything it
tries to land on [1], the fuel trucks that service it need to be painted white
to keep the fuel cool enough so the plane doesn't fall out of the sky [2], and
it can't even carry the bombs it was designed to carry [3]. At least, it's not
alone in that problem though, the F-35A can't shoot its (pointless) gun [4].

[1] [http://aviationweek.com/defense/opinion-f-35b-vertical-
landi...](http://aviationweek.com/defense/opinion-f-35b-vertical-landings-
doubt-uk)

[2]
[http://www.af.mil/News/ArticleDisplay/tabid/223/Article/5555...](http://www.af.mil/News/ArticleDisplay/tabid/223/Article/555558/luke-
afb-changes-refueling-truck-color-mitigates-f-35-shutdowns.aspx)

[3]
[http://www.defenseworld.net/news/12313/F_35B__Incapable__Of_...](http://www.defenseworld.net/news/12313/F_35B__Incapable__Of_Carrying_Small_Diameter_Bombs)

[4] [http://rt.com/usa/219255-f35-fighter-jet-
glitch/](http://rt.com/usa/219255-f35-fighter-jet-glitch/)

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zo1
This may be an overall drop in the budget. But could we all agree that this
money could have been spent for better causes? You know, the concrete stuff
people expect of a government. Things such as homelessness, poverty, health,
retirement, crime.

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DanielBMarkham
I think the key question for space and aviation enthusiasts is whether or not
the Pentagon is building a hypersonic suborbital manned bomber.

If they are -- and it's a big "if" \-- then that means the technology for
civilian use is just a couple/few decades away. I haven't seen the numbers,
but in my mind the market for suborbital commercial flights, say, New York to
Sydney in an hour or two, is already there. It's a place on the road to
reducing cost-to-orbit where the money's already there. Somebody just has to
go get it. Plus DoD will end up solving most of the problems by being the
first mover.

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Pxtl
I don't know, I don't think the market for any kind of supersonic passenger
vehicle is there. Look at the Concord.

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babby
The title is a bit misleading.

    
    
        Pentagon's $55B mystery plane is secret...
    

Yet the planes only cost half a billion each:

    
    
        ... The service estimates it will cost
        $55 billion to build as many as 100 of
        what it calls the Long Range Strike Bomber ...
    

Here I was thinking they built the most reckless single aircraft ever.

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vvpan
The best defence is probably not bombing the hell out of nations on the other
side of the world to start with.

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venomsnake
Isn't the future in 3d printed automated drones, with absurdly low cost, that
can saturate any defense.

~~~
ojbyrne
"Absurdly low cost" won't work with the giant welfare system that is the DoD.

~~~
venomsnake
There are nations that have the outdated ideas of winning wars and not
stimulating the economy ... for them the ideas of mass produced drones built
at BOM, with some stolen IP from US are tempting.

~~~
hessenwolf
Wasn't war always about stealing people's stuff or preventing your stuff from
being stolen? I mean, my country had independence wars every generation for
800 years, but they were all about not getting our potatoes robbed.

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ponyous
WTF US, why do you need/want to build this? Do people support this?

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madaxe_again
Aw, c'mon, nobody has mentioned Aurora yet?
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aurora_%28aircraft%29](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aurora_%28aircraft%29)

~~~
johnnyyousef
"Aw, c'mon, nobody has mentioned Aurora yet?"

What on earth does that?

"nobody has mentioned Aurora yet?" you've obviously checked nobody mentioned
it, so why not just give us the link and say how it's relevant.

"Aw, c'mon" what the hell is that? Who talks like that? What does "aw" mean?
You're disappointed nobody has mentioned something is relevant? Why does that
upset you? Why shorten "c'mon" from "come on" like that?

Why post this nonsense? Just give us the link and why it's relevant.

~~~
madaxe_again
What died up your arse? The link is right there. Would you like me to click it
for you?

~~~
johnnyyousef
I don't have a problem with the link or reading it myself.

I have a problem with 'Aw, c'mon, nobody has mentioned Aurora yet?'. What do
you mean by 'Aw, c'mon'? That's an illiterate sentence. And why say 'nobody
has mentioned it yet?' Why ask that question? Why not check for yourself if
anyone has mentioned it yet?

What you probably meant was 'This may be related to the Aurora project
[link]'.

~~~
madaxe_again
Yet you start a sentence with "And", use single quotes inappropriately, and
add absolutely nothing to the discussion, whereas I, colloquialisms
notwithstanding, did.

Go and do something productive with your time - this isn't, and I'd bet it's
just annoying both of us.

~~~
johnjackamend
Not being able to start a sentence with "And" is actually quite common and is
found in vast amounts of professional writing. And if that wasn't true this
sentence wouldn't make sense.

