• Pentagon tests long-range hypersonic weapon
    74 replies, posted
[QUOTE=GunFox;33332582]The speed with which it can strike is the only notable thing here. Not really sure what you are getting at.[/QUOTE] Here, lemme copypaste something real fast: [QUOTE]SLAM was perhaps the most fearsome weapon ever conceived. The missile was designed to deliver as many as 26 nuclear bombs over the Soviet Union in a single mission. It would do this while flying at Mach 3 and less than 1,000 feet above ground level. SLAM’s shock wave overpressure alone (162 dB) would devastate structures and people along its flight path. And, as if that were not enough, the type’s nuclear-fueled ramjet would continuously spew radiation-contaminated exhaust all over the countryside. [/QUOTE]
-snip- bad reading me
[QUOTE=ewitwins;33332610]Here, lemme copypaste something real fast:[/QUOTE] Wait why are we talking about that now? We were talking about the hypersonic cruise vehicle. EDIT: oh oh oh, I see. That was another pointless endeavor.
[QUOTE=GunFox;33332582]The speed with which it can strike is the only notable thing here. Not really sure what you are getting at.[/QUOTE] The kinetic energy of something traveling at Mach 5 is quite astounding. You could have the missile without a warhead and it'd pack around 12500 joules per kilogram it weights.
[QUOTE=GunFox;33332646]Wait why are we talking about that now? We were talking about the hypersonic cruise vehicle. EDIT: oh oh oh, I see. That was another pointless endeavor.[/QUOTE] OH! Oh okay, yeah, woops. We got way off track here.
The thread title alone scared me.
[QUOTE=ewitwins;33331923]...and the same amount of money could be spent rebuilding our crumbling infrustructure, which could literally put tens of thousands of people to work across the country. The two are hardly comparable job-wise.[/QUOTE] Yeah and those jobs would be temporary, as soon as the bridge is built, your construction worker is out of a job Infrastructure jobs are generally temporary solutions to a serious problem that are proposed by politicians so that they can say "look, we generated 100,000 jobs!!" even though those people will be unemployed by the time the politician's speech is aired.
[QUOTE=Big Bang;33332680]The kinetic energy of something traveling at Mach 5 is quite astounding. You could have the missile without a warhead and it'd pack around 12500 joules per kilogram it weights.[/QUOTE] [img]http://img155.imageshack.us/img155/7005/800pxminutemaniiimirvpa.png[/img] Minuteman III missile. Obviously it can deploy nuclear warheads (three at a time to different targets), but really there is no reason it can't just drop conventional munitions as well. Ultimately you can't launch anything remotely resembling this without running the risk of it being flagged as a nuclear launch. Effectively making any and all intercontinental conventional munitions entirely too dangerous to employ. If your plan relies on being able to hit a target in a couple of hours, then you have already made a grave error in your strategic plan by failing to have strike aircraft and tomahawks inside easy strike range. If the problem isn't immediate, then we have strategic bombers that can carry out the strike in less than 18 hours. Now had they continued to fund then manned variant and actually produced a high speed strike aircraft, that might have been interesting, if tactically useless, but a missile powered by something other than a rocket engine? How much money do we want to waste here?
[QUOTE=Loriborn;33331986]Well, we all are going to die[/QUOTE] you dont know much about medicine
[QUOTE=Kopimi;33332717]Yeah and those jobs would be temporary, as soon as the bridge is built, your construction worker is out of a job Infrastructure jobs are generally temporary solutions to a serious problem that are proposed by politicians so that they can say "look, we generated 100,000 jobs!!" even though those people will be unemployed by the time the politician's speech is aired.[/QUOTE] I'll admit, it was a poor example, but at the same time, this is something that needs to get done. Instead of spending money developing weapons-systems that wind up never being used, we could be rebuilding our country as a whole. Sure, building a high-speed rail network across the country would cost billions of dollars, and the jobs would be temporary, but at the same time, it would also jump-start the economy. Think of all the jobs an entirely new network would create. Think about all of the new clerk, accounting, rail maintenance, conductor, security, engineer, and other jobs something like that would create. It just feels like, with projects like this and the railgun project that was scrapped, we're throwing money away that could otherwise be used to defib our economy.
[QUOTE=Kopimi;33332717]Yeah and those jobs would be temporary, as soon as the bridge is built, your construction worker is out of a job Infrastructure jobs are generally temporary solutions to a serious problem that are proposed by politicians so that they can say "look, we generated 100,000 jobs!!" even though those people will be unemployed by the time the politician's speech is aired.[/QUOTE] The idea behind massive public works projects is that A) Yay, better physical infrastructure and B) Almost nobody actually wants to be doing it. But by decreasing unemployment, and temporarily eating a massive portion of the cost, you can inject enough money back into the market to jump start it. This produces jobs, and all those people who don't want to be building roads and dams, go back to doing other stuff. [editline]18th November 2011[/editline] [QUOTE=ewitwins;33332768]I'll admit, it was a poor example, but at the same time, this is something that needs to get done. Instead of spending money developing weapons-systems that wind up never being used, we could be rebuilding our country as a whole. Sure, building a high-speed rail network across the country would cost billions of dollars, and the jobs would be temporary, but at the same time, it would also jump-start the economy. Think of all the jobs an entirely new network would create. Think about all of the new clerk, accounting, rail maintenance, conductor, security, engineer, and other jobs something like that would create. It just feels like, with projects like this and the railgun project that was scrapped, we're throwing money away that could otherwise be used to defib our economy.[/QUOTE] Oh man a high speed rail system would be so ridiculously beneficial to the US that it isn't even funny.
Wait, the us has no highspeed trains for public transport?
Guess third time's the charm.
[QUOTE=sami-elite;33332946]Wait, the us has no highspeed trains for public transport?[/QUOTE] We have a few, but they cover very small distances.
[QUOTE=sami-elite;33332946]Wait, the us has no highspeed trains for public transport?[/QUOTE] We have railways everywhere, but I'd guess that 95% of them have no passenger service and probably 99% are not high speed. They (the normal railways) are extensively used, but almost only for freight transport. The United States embraced the rise of aircraft a little too much. We now produce some of the most advanced aircraft on the planet, but at a serious cost to intranational transportation.
Wow I hope this piece of shit detonates in its silo if it's ever used, it sickens me how much research and resources are poured into killing people.
[QUOTE=Falchion;33333207]Wow I hope this piece of shit detonates in its silo if it's ever used, it sickens me how much research and resources are poured into killing people.[/QUOTE] And when it detonates it kills people who didn't do anything wrong.
[QUOTE=Zillamaster55;33333332]And when it detonates it kills people who didn't do anything wrong.[/QUOTE]Yea let it fly away and kill people who did nothing wrong further away.
Except try to kill other people who probably didn't do anything wrong.
[QUOTE=GunFox;33332758] Minuteman III missile. Obviously it can deploy nuclear warheads (three at a time to different targets), but really there is no reason it can't just drop conventional munitions as well. Ultimately you can't launch anything remotely resembling this without running the risk of it being flagged as a nuclear launch. Effectively making any and all intercontinental conventional munitions entirely too dangerous to employ. If your plan relies on being able to hit a target in a couple of hours, then you have already made a grave error in your strategic plan by failing to have strike aircraft and tomahawks inside easy strike range. If the problem isn't immediate, then we have strategic bombers that can carry out the strike in less than 18 hours. Now had they continued to fund then manned variant and actually produced a high speed strike aircraft, that might have been interesting, if tactically useless, but a missile powered by something other than a rocket engine? How much money do we want to waste here?[/QUOTE] That "Hitting anywhere in the world in 1 hour" is just sensationalist propaganda I believe. They're not going to be firing this thing from America to the Middle East. This is just a faster cruise missile. You must have heard the story Obama is using as an excuse to continue this project, the story of how a cruise missile missed Osama because it took too long to reach his hideout before he moved away. You can't exactly make strategic plans and move cruise missiles around when the information you're getting is constantly changing(like a terrorist leader moving from hideout to hideout) you only have a couple of minutes to act and that's what this missile is for.
and when they present this to a group of officials and dignitary's they will stand and clap, they will clap for the fact that we have developed a better way to kill other human beings. and we think we've progressed passed the dark ages.
[QUOTE=GunFox;33333160]We have railways everywhere, but I'd guess that 95% of them have no passenger service and probably 99% are not high speed. They (the normal railways) are extensively used, but almost only for freight transport. The United States embraced the rise of aircraft a little too much. We now produce some of the most advanced aircraft on the planet, but at a serious cost to intranational transportation.[/QUOTE] Not to mention the US auto industry killed the LA subway system. That would have been very helpful
WUBWUBWUBWUBWUBWUBWUBWUBWUBWUB
[QUOTE=Loriborn;33331813]Hey look more ways to kill each other even faster.[/QUOTE] What a pun.
Scientific progress?Yes Useful or needed?No Pointless?Yes
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It's a lot of fun and cheap to take a train in the US. It's just not in a timely manner. At all.
Still not fast enough to defeat the S-400 SAM platform and people say the US-Russian arms race is dead, pfft
Yay mankind! We still haven't cured AIDS or even the common cold, But we sure can kill eachother fast! Wooo! Yay! Woo! Yeah! Wooh!
[QUOTE=sami-elite;33332946]Wait, the us has no highspeed trains for public transport?[/QUOTE] Yeah, you can't even take a train to the other side of the city in most cases, if there is a train to take at all. San Francisco has one of the best public transportation networks in the state, and it's not even used as much as private automobiles in a city with [I]very[/I] cramped streets.
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