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Re:Superfast military plane hit Mach 20 before crash by patio11 on Monday August 22, 2011 @03:36AM (#2911713)
It's wish fulfillment for sci-fi geeks, a deus ex machine made out of unobtanium which purports to answer the question "Is there any reason to go to space other than fulfilling the fantasies of sic-fi geeks given that getting to space is so fantastically expensive as to swamp all benefit of commercial activity other than artificial communications satellites?"
Re:Superfast military plane hit Mach 20 before crash by metachris on Monday August 22, 2011 @07:05AM (#2912072)
It's not quite that expensive -- NASA's budget from 1958 to 2011 was about $800 billion. To put it into perspective, the US has a yearly military budget of about $660 billion.
Re:Superfast military plane hit Mach 20 before crash by onemoreact on Monday August 22, 2011 @09:52AM (#2912423)
US military budget is well over 660 billion. You only get that low by separating things like military pensions and healthcare costs.
Re:Superfast military plane hit Mach 20 before crash by seclorum on Monday August 22, 2011 @05:33AM (#2911920)
Make it cheaper, move manufacturing to asteroids parked in Lagrange orbit = global warming solved.

Delivery of all goods is simply a drop shipment.

Re:Superfast military plane hit Mach 20 before crash by stcredzero on Monday August 22, 2011 @08:44AM (#2912252)
It's wish fulfillment for sci-fi geeks, a deus ex machine made out of unobtanium

What I'm proposing isn't made of unobtanium. Spectra has the required tensile strength.

Re:Superfast military plane hit Mach 20 before crash by kronusaturn on Monday August 22, 2011 @04:26AM (#2911802)
Okay, they're geeks, but what've they done to deserve that much snark?