RE: http://www.military.com/features/0,15240,178183,00.html

Just because someone can do something, doesn't mean they should. If this was the ONLY means for gathering that over the horizon intel, it'd be one thing but I doubt it is. Instead it looks like another way to throw more hard to find money after a project that in the end won't end up being used because it's either too costly or unreliable.

It couldn't cost more than a few billion to develop and a couple of million each to launch It's not like we are shorts of money or anything like that. The printing presses are still working and China has said our credit is still good.
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I’m asking “ALL” military.com members to carry this number with them. Be ready to give it to any vet you meet who may need someone to talk to. You could be a life saver.

Thank you, Bruce
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Some guys will gripe at anything. Don't you think it fantastic that a submarine can have an eye in the sky. No longer will they be blind as a bat.

What makes you think they don't already
have eyes? Perhaps not self launched, but
eyes all the same.

What are those things called a satellite UAVs.





But if it is, in the best interest of out national defense, then let’s buy it. There is a difference between the military industrial complex developing something to sell to the government and the government going ot them and saying we need you to develop this new item.

While there's no way anyone can say for sure that the program will or won't meet projected costs, here's a bit of recent news to think about. From 2000 through 2007, major DOD acquisition efforts ran over budget by a total of 401 Billion dollars. Something as complex
as this system is sure to run into problems. To be fair, some of blame for that overrun
was due to requirement creep, which consists
of changes in service requirements, engineering and schedule changes, plus other factors.

Where is Everett Dirksen when America needs his common sense about government spending.

On Government Spending and Growth

I know how easy it is to say, "Oh, it is only $20,000,000," or, "it is only $80,000,000," or "it is only $240,000,000" a year that will be taken out of the pockets of the taxpayer." But where will it finally stop? I do not know. An old man once taught me what a million is. He said, "Look at your watch, and watch the second hand. You can see it every second, every minute, every day, every night, every week, every month, every year – and in 3 years it would go around 1,000,000 times."

[Congressional Record, March 15, 1951, p. 2479]

A hundred million dollars, Mr. President, is only a "drop in the bucket." I grew up at a time when on Sunday, if I had been a good boy for the whole week, my mother gave me a penny and said to me, "My son, don't spend it all in one place."

We have come a long way from then. The classic example is here tonight, when the Senator from Colorado says a hundred million dollars is "a drop in the bucket."

No wonder we are nursing a $295 billion debt.

[Congressional Record, June 8, 1961, p.9896]

Why spend more money on this when the real threat to our way of life in waiting for Nov 4th to lead us into a "new and socialistic way way of l;ife".