Why did the half-plane, half-helicopter not work?

Re:Why did the half-plane, half-helicopter not work? by johnjackamend on Saturday February 13, 2016 @07:51PM (#11096535)

Eh. The total cost of its program ($35.6 billion) almost came to exactly $1 billion per death incurred by accidents during its testing from 1991-2000(36 fatalities). All that money and life spent on a somewhat functional newly minted freedom boner.

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Re:Why did the half-plane, half-helicopter not work? by yongjik on Saturday February 13, 2016 @08:01PM (#11096564)

I don't think "death per budget" is a meaningful metric, unless talking about weapons or serial killers. You can't just take two numbers we want to minimize, divide one by another, and claim significance.

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Re:Why did the half-plane, half-helicopter not work? by rbanffy on Saturday February 13, 2016 @08:03PM (#11096573)

Multiplying them would be more meaningful.

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Re:Why did the half-plane, half-helicopter not work? by melling on Saturday February 13, 2016 @09:22PM (#11096849)

Is $35 billion a lot of money? We did get a step forward in engineering. The lessons learned advanced our knowledge forever. The money spent in actual wars for little things like air conditioning, for example, cost more:

http://www.npr.org/2011/06/25/137414737/among-the-costs-of-w...

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