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> It's basically a moonshot project. That's good considering it costs several times more than a literal moonshot ($400b vs ~$110b for Apollo in today's dollars

> It's basically a moonshot project. That's good considering it costs several times more than a literal moonshot ($400b vs ~$110b for Apollo in today's dollars). I would describe it as less a moonshot and more a transfer of wealth to military contractors.

adventured 9y ago
The F35 hasn't cost $400 billion and probably never will (maybe over 40 years with upkeep, spread across all branches and ignoring any foreign sales). The number of planes to be ordered will be cut drastically over the next 10-15 years, as with just about every program from the last few decades. The notion that the US Air Force was ever going to actually purchase ~1700 F35s was a bad joke. They might buy 300 or 400 at a high cost. It's not a great comparison to Apollo anyway, as most of the cost of the F35 program will be spread over decades of maintaining the planes, Apollo's cost was far more concentrated to a short period of time. If we had to keep the Apollo program up to those former levels on a perpetual basis, adjusted to today's costs, the cost would be running in the trillions.
- jonknee 9y ago
  > It's not a great comparison to Apollo anyway, as most of the cost of the F35 program will be spread over decades of maintaining the planes, Apollo's cost was far more concentrated to a short period of time. FWIW the $400b figure is to buy the planes, the Pentagon estimates a further $1 trillion to maintain them.
  - adventured 9y ago
    I understand. I'm saying that will never occur. They're not going to ever actually buy all of those planes, and the maintenance cost will be far lower accordingly. All you have to do is look at the F22 program to understand what's actually going to happen; there are numerous other recent examples of how they tend to slash & burn on ordering however. Ten years out they'll be on to the new new thing, and they'll be slashing the purchase program toward zero accordingly. The planes are costing $93 million per unit currently, they'll buy less than 500-600 of them across all branches of the military, that's ~$60 billion, give or take $10-$15 billion on cost inflation over 10 years. Then reduce the maintenance cost accordingly for that number versus the laughable former numbers (thousands? ha ha ha).

adventured 9y ago

The F35 hasn't cost $400 billion and probably never will (maybe over 40 years with upkeep, spread across all branches and ignoring any foreign sales). The number of planes to be ordered will be cut drastically over the next 10-15 years, as with just about every program from the last few decades. The notion that the US Air Force was ever going to actually purchase ~1700 F35s was a bad joke. They might buy 300 or 400 at a high cost. It's not a great comparison to Apollo anyway, as most of the cost of the F35 program will be spread over decades of maintaining the planes, Apollo's cost was far more concentrated to a short period of time. If we had to keep the Apollo program up to those former levels on a perpetual basis, adjusted to today's costs, the cost would be running in the trillions.

jonknee 9y ago
> It's not a great comparison to Apollo anyway, as most of the cost of the F35 program will be spread over decades of maintaining the planes, Apollo's cost was far more concentrated to a short period of time. FWIW the $400b figure is to buy the planes, the Pentagon estimates a further $1 trillion to maintain them.
- adventured 9y ago
  I understand. I'm saying that will never occur. They're not going to ever actually buy all of those planes, and the maintenance cost will be far lower accordingly. All you have to do is look at the F22 program to understand what's actually going to happen; there are numerous other recent examples of how they tend to slash & burn on ordering however. Ten years out they'll be on to the new new thing, and they'll be slashing the purchase program toward zero accordingly. The planes are costing $93 million per unit currently, they'll buy less than 500-600 of them across all branches of the military, that's ~$60 billion, give or take $10-$15 billion on cost inflation over 10 years. Then reduce the maintenance cost accordingly for that number versus the laughable former numbers (thousands? ha ha ha).