Capt. Kirk to Command Destroyer

[J-Sun]

When I first came across a note about Captain James Kirk commanding a destroyer, it sounded pretty neat. And it turns out to be a stealth destroyer running Linux on IBM blade servers. How cool is that?

But then I got to thinking - this article says they cost 3.5 billion (but I've read 7 billion). The space shuttle Endeavour was built for 1.7 billion (granted, presumably in 1991 dollars). We could have 2-4 space ships for the cost of one of these destroyers (not a battleship or aircraft carrier or anything). And that, as always, brings me back to the fact that the US spends almost as much as the rest of the world combined (40% of world spending) and 6-7 times more than, e.g., China on the military budget - 20% of the US budget (689 billion) goes to defense and 0.52% (18 billion) goes to NASA.

I'm all for having the biggest and best military in the world (though it often just looks like the most fragile - wireless on a multi-billion dollar destroyer that practically runs by remote control? Seriously?) but I'd like to slide, oh, at least a billion or two over to NASA once in awhile.

Anyway - I thought some Chronners might find the destroyer, especially with the Kirk quirk, of interest.

 

[Foxbat]

This is what I don't get. We keep getting told that the new enemy is terrorist extremism. Now, I understand how the use of remote weaponry can nullify a lot of the exteremist threat to military personnel (these extremists willing to die but unable to take enemies with them because what is used against them is used remotely). What I don't get is how a stealth destroyer has any significant advantage against this new threat? Especially when the likes of Al Shabaab and Al Qaeda don't have the means to either effectively fight or detect modern surface warships as it is, and it seems an awful lot of money to use against Somali pirates.

China are our 'friends' now. Russia is flexing its muscles but seems happy to work mainly through diplomatic and financial channels (Gazprom is probably a bigger threat to Western Europe than the Warsaw Pact ever was). Iran has softened its stance.

Perhaps North Korea is a bigger threat than we think?

I'm with you. Let's go explore space a bit more