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> a craft whose cost was estimated at $367B at the time - about $2.5T now. So we can pay for it with just the money mismanaged by the US armed forces.

by creshal 10y ago

aetherson 10y ago
No you can't, Jesus, read the actual article. The entire yearly budget for the US armed forces is around $600 billion. They had $2.5 trillion in adjustment lines that mostly netted out, they didn't actually lose track of $2.5 trillion, because they didn't have $2.5 trillion to lose track of.
- creshal 10y ago
  > The entire yearly budget for the US armed forces is around $600 billion. Oh, only. My point still stands: 2.5T isn't that much for a project at a national, or even global, scale. A mere ten times ISS and ITER and LHC combined? Absolutely doable.
  - tptacek 10y ago
    No part of your original point appears to have survived that rebuttal.
- Houshalter 10y ago
  That's a yearly budget though. This craft could be built over many years, so the comparison makes a bit more sense.
  - creshal 10y ago
    It would be built over several years anyway, you can't get a project of that scale done and ready in a year.
madaxe_again 10y ago
Or just repurpose the incredibly expensive relict stockpile of nukes, which is where most of the cost sits. The tricky bit is reliably getting hundreds of tonnes of thermonuclear goodness into orbit without a single accident, which is why Orion died a death.
- GunboatDiplomat 10y ago
  Well, you just launch them on one Orion-drive space ship. A few dozen nukes to get it into orbit probably will only cause a few dozen cancer cases, if you do it right.
throwaway7312 10y ago
We'd get there even faster with the money mismanaged by the US welfare system. Armed forces is only 23% of the US federal budget. Welfare's a whopping 40%. Of course, without American armed forces and the Pax Americana, the unprecedented world peace (relatively speaking) we have right now likely would not endure. And without welfare spending, morale would decline when old people and children that didn't need to die do. Both outcomes would likely lead to economic decline. Then we might not get there so fast after all. Sometimes the expedient-seeming solution isn't always the best one.
- riffraff 10y ago
  remember the US military expenditure is almost the total sum of the next 14 countries, 12 of which are allies. I'm sure the "pax americana" would hold with some cuts.
  - vonmoltke 10y ago
    Arguably those twelve allies have such low budgets because the US budget is so high.
- creshal 10y ago
  > Of course, without American armed forces and the Pax Americana I didn't know that mismanagement and embezzlement of funds was a vital core aspect of the Pax Americana. Similarly, the US health care system is about twice as expensive as comparable foreign systems for the same level of service provided. You can reform it and make it more efficient without compromising its mission.

> a craft whose cost was estimated at $367B at the time - about $2.5T now. So we can pay for it with just the money mismanaged by the US armed forces.

by creshal 10y ago

> a craft whose cost was estimated at $367B at the time - about $2.5T now. So we can pay for it with just the money mismanaged by the US armed forces.

aetherson 10y ago

No you can't, Jesus, read the actual article. The entire yearly budget for the US armed forces is around $600 billion. They had $2.5 trillion in adjustment lines that mostly netted out, they didn't actually lose track of $2.5 trillion, because they didn't have $2.5 trillion to lose track of.

creshal 10y ago
> The entire yearly budget for the US armed forces is around $600 billion. Oh, only. My point still stands: 2.5T isn't that much for a project at a national, or even global, scale. A mere ten times ISS and ITER and LHC combined? Absolutely doable.
- tptacek 10y ago
  No part of your original point appears to have survived that rebuttal.
Houshalter 10y ago
That's a yearly budget though. This craft could be built over many years, so the comparison makes a bit more sense.
- creshal 10y ago
  It would be built over several years anyway, you can't get a project of that scale done and ready in a year.

madaxe_again 10y ago

Or just repurpose the incredibly expensive relict stockpile of nukes, which is where most of the cost sits. The tricky bit is reliably getting hundreds of tonnes of thermonuclear goodness into orbit without a single accident, which is why Orion died a death.

GunboatDiplomat 10y ago
Well, you just launch them on one Orion-drive space ship. A few dozen nukes to get it into orbit probably will only cause a few dozen cancer cases, if you do it right.

throwaway7312 10y ago

We'd get there even faster with the money mismanaged by the US welfare system. Armed forces is only 23% of the US federal budget. Welfare's a whopping 40%. Of course, without American armed forces and the Pax Americana, the unprecedented world peace (relatively speaking) we have right now likely would not endure. And without welfare spending, morale would decline when old people and children that didn't need to die do. Both outcomes would likely lead to economic decline. Then we might not get there so fast after all. Sometimes the expedient-seeming solution isn't always the best one.

riffraff 10y ago
remember the US military expenditure is almost the total sum of the next 14 countries, 12 of which are allies. I'm sure the "pax americana" would hold with some cuts.
- vonmoltke 10y ago
  Arguably those twelve allies have such low budgets because the US budget is so high.
creshal 10y ago
> Of course, without American armed forces and the Pax Americana I didn't know that mismanagement and embezzlement of funds was a vital core aspect of the Pax Americana. Similarly, the US health care system is about twice as expensive as comparable foreign systems for the same level of service provided. You can reform it and make it more efficient without compromising its mission.