[S-99]

I've always consitered the JSF as a good 'companion blade' to the F-22, it's a nice little fighter that can do a few things well and a whole bunch of things passably.

I guess the jsf is the new apollo.

[Mars]

Eh.. sorry to bust your bubble, but if the US was bent on the destruction of the world, it would be rubble.  Nucular is da bomb, man!    Seriously, if we didn't have moral considerations, it wouldn't take too much...  We'd just build nuclear proof bunkers and let 'em rip.  The rest of the posts before that will have to wait until I have time to reply in further detail.

Nuclear annhialation doesn't make any money, the US for instance prefers to consume it to death.

[jr2]

If we'd switch to nuclear power, that wouldn't be so much of a problem.  (Like the rest of the world )  But, no, we've got NIMBY pansies squeaking every time we try.  (Which we haven't for 30 years.)

[S-99]

Nuclear power is clean, efficient, and good for the environtment. The only exhaust it has is steam from stack towers. I feel bad for the army base here in alaska. Ft. greely had a nuclear power plant a while ago, until someone sabotaged it. Reminds me of the anti-ballistic missile base i live 5 miles outside of, ****ing greenies come up out of nowhere and protest no nukes (the anti-ballistic missiles are not nuclear based in anyway). I hate stupid green people. Stupid green people fail to realize as technology advances and new innovations are found, less energy is consumed, and emissions get cleaner. The only exception to this rule is some certain weapons mainly in the area of explosives and bombs

[jr2]

How about the not-so-advanced, yet still more efficient diesel engine?  Some of those get 50 - 70 mpg, but they hate those.  Although now they are finally getting around to putting better filters & injectors etc into them to improve their eco friendlyness.

[Janos]

jr2 why aren't you answering our questions about how wars should be fought

[AlphaOne]

well or one wars should not be left to politics. If politics rules a war well....er... you have a disaster like vietnam or the more current day Iraq war which IMO is a political war first based on money and politics it has notjing to do with nuclear biological or other such threats.

Sure politics can guide the course of a war because if we leave it up to warmongering generals then we would never have peace but politics should only go so far in the developement of a war.

As for the rocket tech of the russians can remember what was the name of the roket but it was a documentary on this subject a while back. I'l do some searches and get back to you.
As for the way they aquired the tech well let's just say the same way the US did smugling out what they could of of Germany. The US smugld out papers and scientists the russians the rokets and what else they could find so the are both square in this regard.

Btw. why dont they use the russian space shuttle Buran to make flights to the ISS cuz from what i read it is somewhat safer then its american counterpart. It doesnt use ceramic tiles for heat shielding but something else if i'm not mistaken (cant remember what).


Also when does the new NASA space shuttle make its firts flight?? I heard it doesnt use external tanks or roket solid boosters. Is this corect?

[IceFire]

The new space shuttle isn't a space shuttle at all.  Its an Apollo like design under the overall name of "Orion".  I've seen bits and pieces and its basically a "conventional" rocket with rocket boosters.  Its supposed to be a heavy lift system so they can go back to the moon.

[AlphaOne]

But wouldnt they be actualy gooing back to the same problem they have with the existing shuttle i mean with the damaging of the heat shield and so on ?? Also will they be using the same roket solid boosters or liquid  boosters?? I was under the impresion that liquid boosters were somewhat more safe and powerfull.

[Mongoose]

Here's the main page about the new NASA vehicle, which is known as the Constellation program.  It's actually somewhat of a "back to the future" plan; the crew will ride in Apollo-esque capsules (though these are much larger, accomodating 4 people for lunar missions and 6 for ISS trips), and I'd assume the heat shield material would be something vaguely similar to what was used back then, although obviously upgraded.  There are actually two separate booster rockets (called Ares) in the program; the smaller Ares I rockets will be used to launch the crew capsules (called Orion), while the larger Ares V is the heavy-lifting vehicle that will take over the shuttle's current role of cargo-carrier.  (It will also be used to launch the lunar module portion of lunar missions.)  Both rockets have a certain degree of interchangeability and feature both liquid and solid booster segments.

[IceFire]

Oh...so now the crew capsule is Orion.  Good info!

[Mefustae]

NASA should just go right back to basics. Start from the ground up in a new direction...

Monkeys from outer-space, protecting the future of the human race!

[jr2]

jr2 why aren't you answering our questions about how wars should be fought

When I get around to it.*

*When I feel like it.

[Janos]

well or one wars should not be left to politics. If politics rules a war well....er... you have a disaster like vietnam or the more current day Iraq war which IMO is a political war first based on money and politics it has notjing to do with nuclear biological or other such threats.

Do wars exist in a vacuum completely independent of greater political enviroment surrounding them?

Sure politics can guide the course of a war because if we leave it up to warmongering generals then we would never have peace but politics should only go so far in the developement of a war.

How far? Do you agree with my previous statement?
Do you think that wars are just another way of continuing politics - as cliched the Clausewitz citation might be? Are all wars similar (you already said no so I assume your answer would be no). And since they are not similar, then they cannot be conveniently handled as similar because the circumstances and objectives of each war are different. Then how come it is possible to make a blanket statement that "wars should not be left to politics", since all wars are different in strategy, geopolitics, objectives and execution?

That's why the entire "wars shouldn't be political" is pretty dumb - some wars are very political in both motivations and execution (see Iraq for the latest example) and some are not as explicitly political (see World War 2 since that's so obvious), but they all have very strong underlying currents.
Negotiations, limitations and control. Governments control the military, not vice versa, because military could decide just how wars would be fought USSR and USA would have been in shooting war in April 1945 and Iraq wouldn't have happened the way it happened. I cannot stress the fact that the military is just the arm of the nation, meaning that the nation controls the military and military does the heavy hitting when appropriate.

Btw. why dont they use the russian space shuttle Buran to make flights to the ISS cuz from what i read it is somewhat safer then its american counterpart. It doesnt use ceramic tiles for heat shielding but something else if i'm not mistaken (cant remember what).

They don't use Buran becase Buran flied only one flight in 198something and the only unit was destroyed when a house fell on it like 18 years later so there aren't any Burans.

[S-99]

In ww2 the russians had the most interesting fighter planes. They had so many designs employing scramjets and rockets. They even made a way to towe tanks in back of airplanes. The one russian fighter that didn't make it off the drawing books was a fighter that could go underwater and back out again.

[MarkN]

The russians didn't actally have Scramjets in WW2, due to a lack of basic understanding of sonic shockwaves. Of course they had Ramjets, which they then mounted on a biplane. Their basic production was underarmed, under-protected, and massively supplemented by Mustangs, Thunderbolts, Spitfires and Hurricanes. Their only top-notch production aircraft was the Il-2 due to it's massive armament and protective armour.
It has to be said that Russian fighter pilots died far too easily.

[Mika]

But on the other hand, it didn't matter if they had lots of them.

I remember that Soviet Union calculated they needed some 10 tanks to destroy a single German Tiger. So naturally the tank crews refused to attack them. But, when the central command heard about this, they simply calculated the numbers and came to conclusion there was no need to develop a better tank because the Germans would run out of Tigers long before Soviets would run out of tanks, even with these casuality ratios. And ordered the Soviet divisions to attack.

There are other examples, like a truck that didn't have a fuel tank that could be refilled. Useless waste of time when the truck will be destroyed anyways.

The same goes with the Air Force. Which brings me to my former question, are those 450 F/A-22s surely enough?

Mika

[IceFire]

The russians didn't actally have Scramjets in WW2, due to a lack of basic understanding of sonic shockwaves. Of course they had Ramjets, which they then mounted on a biplane. Their basic production was underarmed, under-protected, and massively supplemented by Mustangs, Thunderbolts, Spitfires and Hurricanes. Their only top-notch production aircraft was the Il-2 due to it's massive armament and protective armour.
It has to be said that Russian fighter pilots died far too easily.

Mmmmm...well the Russians received P-39's in the largest numbers.  They outright rejected the P-51, and used the P-47 and Spitfire in PVO (city defense basically) duties only because the high altitude performance was better than their frontline fighters.  The Russians also didn't much like the Hurricane and Spitfires tempermental engine (by Russian standards) and didn't like the Hurricane at all.  Most of the Hurricane action with the Soviet Air Force (VVS) was at Murmansk (at the hands of RAF pilots often working to train the Russian pilots) and at Leningrad where it was used mostly as ground attack.

The primary fighter in the Russian air force was the Yak series which came in a number of different types and were produced into the many thousands.  The Yak-9U produced in early 1944 is essentially equal to the Mustang and in many ways better than the Mustang (depending on altitude) and should not be discounted or discredited.  The LaGG-3 wasn't much of a performer but Lavochkin did turn that plane around with the La-5 (particularly the FN model) and the La-7 which was an extremely capable performer.  What the Russian planes didn't have were good radios, sophisticated gunsights, pilot comfort (the P-47 was like a Cadillac of WWII fighters), or long lasting air frames.  The majority of the frontline VVS in WWII was Russian made...IL-2s were excellent once they got the details worked out but the Yak series carried the VVS through the war with continual improvements.  The Yak-3 in particular was a hot little fighter and there is an oft quoted Luftwaffe report suggesting that the Yak-3 (identifiable by its radiator configuration) not be engaged under 10,000 feet (3000 meters).

FYI.

EDIT: And yes the Yak series in general did subscribe to the same kind of ideals as with the T-34 tanks.  Produce large numbers and wear down the enemy till they run out of superior aircraft and the skies are flooded.  Unfortunately for the Germans the Yak's at the end of the war were just as good if not better for the tasks they were given so it was a huge problem being out performed (usually only at low altitude where the Russians flew most of the time) and outnumbered.

[DeepSpace9er]

NASA should just go right back to basics. Start from the ground up in a new direction...

Monkeys from outer-space, protecting the future of the human race!

THat would require many billions more and might make the program unaffordable for the time frame they are looking at. They want to get man back to the moon by 2020 so they are going with the tried-and-true method rather than a ground up program. I dont blame them for wanting to get back to the moon so quickly. Face it.. sending probes into deep space and other planets is boring and, as many people in the general population see it, doesnt further mans reach into space because people arent actually there. NASA is trying to revitalize the publics interest in space to get more funding.

[AlphaOne]

Well since they believe Ice is also located on the moon on the dark side of the moon we might even see some sort of a base or lauch platform for Mars missions somewhere in th enear future. Actualy it is rather funny we already have the tech to go all the way to Mars and eve beyond(if money alows it) but we are just not suited for these long term exposures to no gravity. Kinda funny dont ya think?