Message posted by FromAcrossTheOcean (Member since 04/21/2021) on July 10, 2021 at 20:01:05 PST:

Is that your opinion or offical US government policy these days (seriously asking out of interest)?

An ICBM has a total flight phase of approx. 30 min until doom, so once released it will not matter much what happens to an individual missile, while the B-2 range is given by Wikipedia as 6900 miles with a cruise speed of 560 mph, thus approx. 12 hrs in the air un-refueld and possibly only limited by crew fatigue when repeatedly refueled mid-air.

A lot of things can go wrong during such a long time and it does not need a James Bond-like scenario for an unpiloted plane to go out of control, keep in mind the RQ-170 lost in Iran.

Would anybody seriously allow this for a plane carrying nuclear weapons?

In this light, one would argue that the requirement for a manned option is mostly due to that nuclear role.

In Reply to: Re: Edwards AFB's South Base posted by Mark on July 10, 2021 at 19:29:07 PST:

Replies: