Part of the problem is that the Navy and most of America’s naval contractors put all their eggs in the now clearly failed LCS basket and the very troubled DD-X project. We no longer have any modern designs between the two ready to go and the modern threat picture is such that we do not have time to start from scratch and retrain people to design a new one.
We simply don’t have any strategic thinkers.
We knew the Space Shuttle was going to sunset for a decade before it did. We didn’t plan any replacement.
Here you lay out the case for our Navy having a shortfall of the designs and ships in the pipeline.
I’m sure there are a number of other issues out there like these.
This really disgusts me. Obama, and even Bush should have been looking down the road. They didn’t.
Our last shuttle flew in 2011. We hadn’t even started on a replacement.
I’m not convinced a new shuttle should be the goal. I did think a strategic space plane was called for, but our guys didn’t follow through.
There was talk of that clear back in the early GHW Bush days.
I do think we have dark opps aircraft and technology that might get us a long way toward our goal of getting into space, if we just turn Lockheed loose and told them to make it happen.
We haven’t yet..., of course that we know of.