The U.S. Air Force will invest $235 million to help a start-up manufacturer build a jet with a blended-wing body that officials say could provide greater range and efficiency for military tankers and cargo planes and perhaps eventually be used to carry airline passengers.
Let’s just hope that company isn’t secretly owned by Mockheed Lartin.
I’m curious how the public funding element of this works. Does the government end up owning/profiting off of the company or earn some form of royalties if this concept takes off?
How it always works: someone keeps it and the public gets nothing, with the military getting a new toy they can spend more public money on.
While I see your point, it’s also important to point out that a lot of technological advancement in human history has been spearheaded (ha) by military advancements, which eventually get developed at a far more reasonable cost for civilian use.
So the takeaway here: yeah, they’re throwing a few hundred million at this, but in terms of developing a brand-new, clean-sheet transport airframe in a style that’s never been done before - and which, if successful, will potentially lead to a diametric shift in civil aerospace design - it’s really not that expensive, and there is real potential benefit here.
It would be nice to get out under the thumb of behemoths like Northrup and Lockheed. Motherfuckers build $1 proprietary bolts and charges the government $700 for that bolt. It’s fucking gross and it’s even grosser that it’s still going on. We need startups and new innovations to break to spending cycle STAT
here’s an interesting piece 60 minutes did on the subject https://www.cbsnews.com/news/pentagon-budget-price-gouging-military-contractors-60-minutes-2023-05-21/
