Senate bill to go to Mars

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Simon_Jester
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Re: Senate bill to go to Mars

Post by Simon_Jester »

Eh, if we scrap the B-21 project then the Air Force will lose its heavy bomber force in the mid-21st century. It is probably not a good idea to completely give up that capability. Especially since that gives us more reason to maintain a huge, expensive network of forward airbases around the world, so that we can have a runway within F-35 range of every dangerous hotspot on Earth.

What's really expensive with the military isn't developing new hardware, it's maintaining that hardware and the infrastructure to use it. The B-21 replaces planes we already operate and uses infrastructure we already have, so it is unlikely to represent that big of a cost increase over the B-52/B-1/B-2 fleet we already have.
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