Awesome Yet Practical: Difference between revisions

* 3D Printers. Allow you to make virtually anything on demand easily from a variety of materials.

* Nuclear Weaponry. Since their first and last deployments in World War II, they've become essentially a signal that a nation is now an advanced power, possessing the wealth, the infrastructure, and the knowledge base to create them. Largely due to their existence, disputes between the great power, though still, sadly, involving bloodshed, have become notably less violent and smaller scale. Like it or not, they're the only weapons ever created that really are effective deterrents, and a nuclear blast is most certainly an awe-inspiring event.

* The F-35 Lightning II (a.k.a. the Joint Strike Fighter) is intended to be this in comparison to contemporary fighter jets. In particular, it has a much lower price tag than the F-22 Raptor, has stealth coatings that don't need to be reapplied after every flight (F-117 Nighthawk), and the Marines' version features VTOL that doesn't allow exhaust to get sucked into the intakes (Harrier).

** Sadly (for Americans anyway), the F-35 is turning into [[Awesome but Impractical]]. Much lower price? Not anymore (F-22 unit cost per plane $150 million, F-35 now at $122M to $184M). The stealth was in 2006 downgraded from "very low observable" to "low observable". In November 2011, a Pentagon study team identified 13 areas of concern that remained to be addressed in the F-35.