[HN Gopher] US Air Force awards $13B Doomsday plane contract to ...
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       US Air Force awards $13B Doomsday plane contract to Sierra Nevada
        
       Author : JumpCrisscross
       Score  : 13 points
       Date   : 2024-04-28 19:27 UTC (3 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.reuters.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.reuters.com)
        
       | lionkor wrote:
       | > [...] has become increasingly difficult and expensive to
       | maintain as parts become obsolete.
       | 
       | not sure obsolete is the right word?
        
         | _djo_ wrote:
         | It's the correct term in this context.
         | 
         | e.g. https://www.rowse.co.uk/blog/post/obsolescence-management-
         | in...
        
       | sitkack wrote:
       | That is an insane amount of money.
        
       | xhkkffbf wrote:
       | The beer company? I guess if Doomsday comes, everyone getting
       | really drunk on a stockpile may be as good as any other strategy.
        
         | DarmokJalad1701 wrote:
         | > the beer company?
         | 
         | No.
         | 
         | https://www.sncorp.com/
         | 
         | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sierra_Nevada_Corporation
        
           | JojoFatsani wrote:
           | Buzz killington
        
       | bamboozled wrote:
       | Once the world is annihilated, where does it land? What do the
       | occupants do? Such a strange concept.
        
         | coin wrote:
         | > What do the occupants do?
         | 
         | I would not rule out the chance to preserve a nucleus of human
         | specimens, at the bottom shafts of some of our deepest mines.
         | 
         | It would not be difficult. Nuclear reactors could provide power
         | almost indefinitely. Greenhouses could maintain plant life.
         | Animals could be bred and slaughtered. A quick survey would
         | have to be made of all the suitable minesites in the country,
         | but I shouldn't be surprised if several hundred thousand of our
         | people could be accommodated. Every nation would undoubtedly
         | follow suit.
        
           | ojosilva wrote:
           | I'm just watching Fallout on Amazon Prime TV. I had no
           | previous knowledge about the (video game?) franchise, but
           | what you describe is part of the shows' premise. At one point
           | a character makes a point that these "vaults" are a refuge of
           | a elite, the rich and connected, and does not represent the
           | real world that exists on the face of the Earth.
        
           | kyboren wrote:
           | And before you ask "who decides who goes up and who goes
           | down?", that would not be necessary. It could easily be
           | accomplished by a computer, and the computer could be set and
           | programmed to accept factors from youth, health, sexual
           | fertility, intelligence, and a cross section of necessary
           | skills.
           | 
           | Of course it would be absolutely vital that our top
           | government and military men be included to foster and impart
           | the required principles of leadership and tradition.
           | 
           | Naturally, they would breed prodigiously, eh? There would be
           | much time and little to do. But with the proper breeding
           | techniques and a ratio of say, 10 females to each male, I
           | would guess that they could then work their way back to the
           | present gross national product within, say, 20 years.
        
         | amenhotep wrote:
         | It's an element of deterrence. If you and your enemy are
         | rattling your nukes at each other, and you know for a fact that
         | their command and control apparatus is going to be concentrated
         | in a particular bunker, you might be tempted to see if you can
         | strike that bunker and "win" the exchange with a decapitation
         | strike. Conversely if you know that as soon as the nukes
         | started rattling they launched a plane that can coordinate
         | responses to whatever you do no matter how many bombs you drop
         | on their country, then you will need to destroy all of their
         | forces comprehensively and your path to "victory" looks much
         | worse.
        
       | yourapostasy wrote:
       | Lest anyone think the December Air Force decision to eliminate
       | Boeing from the competition was due to Boeing's ongoing
       | leadership failures manifesting first as engineering and
       | manufacturing quality issues, and now as real-dollar design and
       | manufacturing contract eliminations, the rumored reason for the
       | elimination was over contract issues, specifically data rights
       | and fixed bid terms [1].
       | 
       | Would welcome HN'ers with more detailed insights into the data
       | rights and fixed bid terms that were the bones of contention.
       | 
       | [1] https://www.reuters.com/business/aerospace-defense/boeing-
       | el...
        
       | justinclift wrote:
       | Kind of surprised it's not a "Doomsday spaceship" these days.
       | 
       | Best place to survive a nuke war (ugh!) would probably be
       | substantially outside of the atmosphere for an extended period of
       | time.
        
         | serf wrote:
         | my gut tells me that it would be strategically better to fly
         | somewhere where lots of wingmen and interception capabilities
         | exist.
        
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       (page generated 2024-04-28 23:02 UTC)