Re:USN AN-1 Submarine Aircraft Carrier (2018)
by jjk166 on Thursday January 21, 2021 @11:11AM
(#25860398)
Probably not a lot, paper is cheap. Typically a concept like this is explored by a team of 6-10 engineers over the course of 3-6 months, and they may work on multiple projects simultaneously.
Even if the project doesn't move past the concept phase, there can still be developments along the way that make it into other projects. Further, if a concept is abandoned because it is not technically feasible, identifying that it can't be done also identifies the limits of what currently can be done, which is good for determining research goals.
The cost of such a project should also be compared to the alternative: it's much cheaper to work through a design on paper and finding it's a dead end than to commit to something without that evaluation and find out 80% of the way through building it that it's a dead end.
Even if the project doesn't move past the concept phase, there can still be developments along the way that make it into other projects. Further, if a concept is abandoned because it is not technically feasible, identifying that it can't be done also identifies the limits of what currently can be done, which is good for determining research goals.
The cost of such a project should also be compared to the alternative: it's much cheaper to work through a design on paper and finding it's a dead end than to commit to something without that evaluation and find out 80% of the way through building it that it's a dead end.