Airbus A-400 range reduced

Der Spiegel | 20.03.2006 | Spiegel

[El Gato]

Typical results of a government run "public/private" partnership. The product turns out bloated and does not perform as intended.

Pretty much the same happens with virtually all of *our* military R&D projects. Eventually, after the thing is fielded, and many ECP's later, it eventually gets back to the original capability. Most of them do anyway. Or they get stretched out in time, and then canceled after we've spent a gazillion dollars on them.

[Calvin Locke]

Just guess, but isn't Airbus having trouble with certain composites?

The way the US DoD used to work: The History Channel ran the F-14 show last night. I thought I saw one of end-of-segment
tidbits state that Grumman faced a $440K penalty for every 100lbs over the contract.

So I looked up and found this at http://www.anft.net/f-14/f14-history-f14a.htm

As an incentive for the contractor to fullfill the requirements, the Navy put some penalties on the project
if Grumman would fail on some of the contract guarantees:

* Empty Weight: $440,000 for each 100 lbs overweight
* Acceleration: $440,000 for each second slow
* Escort Radius: $1 million for each 10 nautical miles short
* Approach Speed: $1.056 million for each knot fast
* Maintainability: $450,000 for each extra maintenance man-hour per flight hour
* Delivery to Navy Board of Inspection and Survey: $5,000 for each day late

Yeah, I know, it's not the DoD, and it's not a carrier-based aircraft...

[democrats_nightmare]

French fought bravely in WWI losing huge number of soldiers. They were not cowardly in WWII, they got defeated because of superior German strategy. Then they fought bravely several wars after WWII - one was in Vietnam. They maintaned order in large part of Africa. Now they are the main force in Afghanistan fightin alongside USA.

Why are there lots of trees in Paris? Answer --> The Germans like to march in the shade ;-)

[No Truce With Kings]

"Seriously: the Air Force had a nice, "incremental steps" based Space Program going."

Well, they *thought* it was a nice program. It just did not serve any military purpose. Take MOL -- Manned Orbital Laboratory. It was essentially a manned Keyhole (Big Bird) satellite. It proved simpler and cheaper to launch unmmaned versions of the same system.

The only real reason for putting men in that system was to make them hostages. The Soviets could not shoot down a spy satellite without killing people -- which would trigger a military response in a way that simply shooting down a satellite would not. Unfortunately, the cost of getting crew to and from the platform cost more than launching new unmanned spysats.

I can think of many reasons to for manned space travel, but I cannot think of a single military purpose that can be served by manned spacecraft that cannot be more effectively served by unmanned platforms. Neither can the Air Force.

[null and void]

I cannot think of a single military purpose that can be served by manned spacecraft that cannot be more effectively served by unmanned platforms. Neither can the Air Force.

Perhaps China has figured out one?

[No Truce With Kings]

"Perhaps China has figured out one?"

China may *think* they may have some military mission for manned spaceflight, but that does not guarantee that they are right. I can think of some military applications for a manned moonbase, but not for orbital applications.

Life-support systems for humans takes up a *lot* of mass. They also leak gasses and heat, making manned systems much more detectable than unmanned systems. You might be able to hide a moonbase, but it would be difficult to conceal a manned orbital military platform, and even harder to harden it against attack.

A SCUD could launch enough BBs to take out an orbital platform in low-earth-orbit (LEO) -- anything less than 1000 miles from the Earth's surface. All you need is a rough ephemeris for your target, and launch straight up 10=15 minutes before the target flies overhead. The rocket goes up, sets off a warhead 150 above the surface, and lets the buckshot go up to 100 miles above the altitude of the target. Even one BB hitting a satellite at the satellite's orbital velocity is going to have a *lot* of kinetic energy. (Lots of V-squared to make up for the low mass.) The BBs that miss just fall back to earth and burn up in the atmosphere.

I think you are going to need manned space colonies to make manned space military applications feasible.

[ArrogantBustard]

I can think of some military applications for a manned moonbase,

And now we get to my point: you're not going to have a moonbase without first establishing a strong presence in Earth orbit.

'Spam in an can' was never intended, nor able, to establish a presence anywhere. The USAF program might have been able to do so.

Now we have neither the Air Force program, nor spam in a can. At the moment, all we (USA) have is unmanned satellites. The Russkies, at least, have spam in a can. I guess they're winning the space-race right now.

[No Truce With Kings]

"And now we get to my point: you're not going to have a moonbase without first establishing a strong presence in Earth orbit."

Do you mean like the Europeans could not colonize the New World without a strong permanent manned presence in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean? I guess that is why no one moved here until after 1900.

[ArrogantBustard]

More like how the the world's navies couldn't function without coaling stations in Godforsaken little pestholes all over the globe ... although flawed, that analogy is a whole lot better than yours.

[No Truce With Kings]

"although flawed, that analogy is a whole lot better than yours."

Not even close.