this post was submitted on 08 Jul 2024
266 points (97.5% liked)

News

23387 readers
2588 users here now

Welcome to the News community!

Rules:

1. Be civil

Attack the argument, not the person. No racism/sexism/bigotry. Good faith argumentation only. This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban. Do not respond to rule-breaking content; report it and move on.

2. All posts should contain a source (url) that is as reliable and unbiased as possible and must only contain one link.

Obvious right or left wing sources will be removed at the mods discretion. We have an actively updated blocklist, which you can see here: https://lemmy.world/post/2246130 if you feel like any website is missing, contact the mods. Supporting links can be added in comments or posted seperately but not to the post body.

3. No bots, spam or self-promotion.

Only approved bots, which follow the guidelines for bots set by the instance, are allowed.

4. Post titles should be the same as the article used as source.

Posts which titles don’t match the source won’t be removed, but the autoMod will notify you, and if your title misrepresents the original article, the post will be deleted. If the site changed their headline, the bot might still contact you, just ignore it, we won’t delete your post.

5. Only recent news is allowed.

Posts must be news from the most recent 30 days.

6. All posts must be news articles.

No opinion pieces, Listicles, editorials or celebrity gossip is allowed. All posts will be judged on a case-by-case basis.

7. No duplicate posts.

If a source you used was already posted by someone else, the autoMod will leave a message. Please remove your post if the autoMod is correct. If the post that matches your post is very old, we refer you to rule 5.

8. Misinformation is prohibited.

Misinformation / propaganda is strictly prohibited. Any comment or post containing or linking to misinformation will be removed. If you feel that your post has been removed in error, credible sources must be provided.

9. No link shorteners.

The auto mod will contact you if a link shortener is detected, please delete your post if they are right.

10. Don't copy entire article in your post body

For copyright reasons, you are not allowed to copy an entire article into your post body. This is an instance wide rule, that is strictly enforced in this community.

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
rjc@lemmy.world
Thekingoflorda@lemmy.world
Tenthrow@lemmy.world
JonsJava@lemmy.world
gedaliyah@lemmy.world
little_cow@lemmy.world
jeffw@lemmy.world
enu@lemmy.world
266
New Sentinel nuclear warhead program is 81% over budget. But Pentagon says it must go forward (apnews.com)
submitted 4 months ago by Stamau123@lemmy.world to c/news@lemmy.world
91 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

WASHINGTON (AP) — The new Sentinel nuclear warhead program is 81% over budget and is now estimated to cost nearly $141 billion, but the Pentagon is moving forward with the program, saying that given the threats from China and Russia it does not have a choice.

The Northrop Grumman Sentinel program is the first major upgrade to the ground-based component of the nuclear triad in more than 60 years and will replace the aging Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missile.

It involves not only building a new missile but the modernization of 450 silos across five states, their launch control centers, three nuclear missile bases and several other testing facilities.

The expansiveness of the program previously raised questions from government watchdogs as to whether the Pentagon could manage it all.

Military budget officials on Monday said when they set the program’s estimated costs their full knowledge of the modernization needed “was insufficient in hindsight to have a high-quality cost estimate,” Bill LaPlante, under secretary of defense for acquisition and sustainment, told reporters on a call.

The high cost overrun triggered what is known as a Nunn-McCurdy breach, which occurs if the cost of developing a new program increases by 25% or more. By statute, the under secretary of defense for acquisition then must **undertake a rigorous review of the program to determine if it should continue; otherwise the program must be terminated. **

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] BombOmOm@lemmy.world 85 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (3 children)

The old nukes are very, very old. MAD doesn't work if people question if your weapons actually still work. They need an update.

[–] NOT_RICK@lemmy.world 51 points 4 months ago (2 children)

The way military contracts work doesn’t sound like it’s working anymore either

[–] BombOmOm@lemmy.world 11 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (3 children)

In what way? Them coming out more than expected? That isn't a new thing, in fact I would say it is the norm for basically all contracts, and not just military ones.

[–] grue@lemmy.world 22 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Maybe I'm overly cynical, but it being "only" 81% over budget makes me pleasantly surprised.

[–] Transporter_Room_3@startrek.website 6 points 4 months ago

I mean, I would love for all that money to go to things that help people directly, instead of "big scary stick to keep other people from maybe hitting us with their sticks at some theoretical point in the future"

Buuuuut honestly when it comes to it's nuclear arsenal, I just assume all government contracts will eventually be 150%-200% over budget, with at least 3 committees assembled to investigate the expense.

[–] NOT_RICK@lemmy.world 2 points 4 months ago

It has seemed to get worse as systems get more complex but I’m admittedly an outsider to that world

[–] Maggoty@lemmy.world 8 points 4 months ago (1 children)

The article explains that the scope of work was so big it was very hard to make a real estimate.

[–] ChaoticEntropy@feddit.uk 5 points 4 months ago (1 children)

I can imagine that they also probably didn't agree to use a contractor who made a more realistic estimation.

[–] Maggoty@lemmy.world 5 points 4 months ago

A program this big likely has a lot of contractors. The guys designing new rockets aren't going to be the guys refurbishing the silos. Every so often the government does have projects that have "known unknowns" meaning they can't effectively be accounted for. Should they have run 1,000 smaller projects? Maybe, but they didn't and there's trade offs with that too.

[–] bitwaba@lemmy.world 3 points 4 months ago

Seems to be working for Russia. No one has bothered to call their bluffs in the last year over all the nuclear posturing.

[–] wintermute_oregon@lemm.ee 2 points 4 months ago

They need an update but we can reduce the number of warheads we have to save money. I forget the exact number but it’s around 3k war heads.