Coming To a War Near You: Nuclear Powered Drones 202
An anonymous reader writes "American scientists and engineers are researching a new generation of UAV's that would be nuclear-powered. Why do this? They would have the capacity to stay over a target area for months and only be limited by the ordinance they could drop on a potential foe. They would be similar to a nuclear attack submarine but not limited to the amount of food on-board. The article notes: 'The blueprints for the new drones, which have been developed by Sandia National Laboratories – the U.S. government's principal nuclear research and development agency – and defense contractor Northrop Grumman, were designed to increase flying time "from days to months" while making more power available for operating equipment, according to a project summary published by Sandia,' the paper reported."
Re: (Score:5, Insightful)
Uhhh, you do realize that slashdot is group moderated by users with excellent karma, right?
Super high tech unmanned... (Score:4, Insightful)
... nuclear devices flying around for months over enemy territory ...
What could possibly go wrong? [slashdot.org]
Re:Downed drone plan? (Score:5, Insightful)
In all other cases where we implement nuclear technology, there's not a huge risk of it falling into enemy hands. So how will they address these concerns for a drone?
I don't believe the decision-makers are concerned about that. They have great security and lots of bunkers they can hide out in to maintain "continuity of government" etc.
For them, that risk is probably viewed as political capital (because it's all just a game and winning is all that counts). That's how sociopaths think. The whole 9/11 thing is wearing thin. Imagine how many pointless foreign wars of aggression you could justify if some enemy with an unpronouncable name who dresses funny had NUCLEAR SECRETS! You'd really be super-ultra unpatriotic to oppose THAT one.
If you're a private military contractor with lots of clout in Washington, then even the worst-case scenario is a goldmine. After all, it's not like it will be you personally or your own sons who go off to some foreign shithole to get shot at by the locals.
Re:But they are not working on it (Score:4, Insightful)
That is, assuming they don't waste too much money on something that has serious downsides
Seems to me the very best way to avoid doing that is to restrict the military to securing one's own border (and only one's own border) against unprovoked foreign attacks. Then you could also reduce expenditures until we're only 2-3 times more powerful than the second strongest military.
That's also why I would never make it in politics.
Re:I for one.... (Score:4, Insightful)
I suspect lighter than air technology has less capability for transferring wealth from the poor to the rich and therefore is a non-starter / invalid to the successful continuation of the status quo.
Re:I for one.... (Score:4, Insightful)
I suspect lighter than air technology has less capability for transferring wealth from the poor to the rich and therefore is a non-starter / invalid to the successful continuation of the status quo.
You know, one of the most insidious and diabolical tricks the rulers ever pulled was (through the media they own) to make into a popular notion something so close to the truth of the matter, that the person who accepts it as truth will never see what's actually going on.
Don't let the concern about wealth and wealth envy distract you. It's not about transferring wealth. The people who make things happen already have enough wealth to secure a high standard of living for the next 20 generations of their descendants. They have wealth in effectively limitless quantities.
It's about power. It's about transferring more and more power from the masses to the ruling elite. Money is involved only because money is a form of power; it is economic power. Old-style slaves had to be fed and housed; economic slaves will feed and house themselves. That's why it is not just money.
It is also increasingly intrusive government, declining privacy, demonization of things like guns that are also a form of power, demonization of things like drugs that tend to alter conscious enough to make people see things differently and not through the media-defined lenses, attacks on the family and on religion because those demand loyalty to something other than the state, control of the education system so that childhood immaturities extend well into adulthood, conditioned helplessness instead of independence, obsession with group identity and ignorance of individuality, promotion of left/right either-or thinking, unreasonable laws and burdensome tax codes, marginalization of the tiny minority who can see what's wrong with this, etc.
You really, really want to put a population under your thumb, you subject them to a blitz by throwing all of these at them at once. Then you supply them with charismatic, popular, almost Messianic leaders who claim to understand them. They fall for that one every time, as though telling the truth required slick presentation and the great speaking skill to sway the crowds.
Re:Trolling (Score:4, Insightful)
You left one out: misunderstanding your argument
I think you're the one that misunderstands.
you're an idiot
Right back at you. Look I liked Automan too but it only had like 7 episodes. Nice strawman. :p
Haha that's a good one. Plausible!
Re:I for one.... (Score:4, Insightful)
But to what end? So you have control of everything, to argue hypothetically. Then what? You've established the worldwide government, religious or not, run by elitists, who just happen to still have to drop their drawers to poop, unless they are descendent's of Cuthulu. What is the master plan of the New World Order past conquering everything? If it's the same old bullshit, then they just wasted our collective time.
Or is their plan to implement the Georgia Guide Stones? What is really the master plan? I'd humbly advise the "great ones" who wish to implement the plan of the New World Order that they should pay heed to and meditate upon Puma Punku and what it says if you're open to reading between the lines.
One final morsel for thought: If I were a galactic civilization, I would keep the human race safely contained on the planet like a nasty plague by whatever means necessary, including sending them back to the stone age. Just because of the way we roll...
Re:I for one.... (Score:2, Insightful)
Hopefully we never get to see what would happen, but in the mean time, shitloads of people are getting shot because guns are bloody everywhere. I find guns pretty interesting, but I can see that having an armed population isn't working out so well.