Word: month
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...strange predicament for the modest jet that was supposed to be the cheap end of the military's high-low warplane mix of F-22s and F-35s. The Pentagon launched the F-35 Lightning II program a month after 9/11. Over the past eight years, the price-per-plane has doubled - from $69 million to as much as $135 million - even as none of the 2,443 on-order planes have been delivered. The program's cost has soared from $197 billion to as much as $329 billion. Plans to profit from prospective sales of more than...
...After burrowing into the F-35's cost and schedule, President Obama's Pentagon team - including Bush Administration holdover Gates - recently discovered deep-rooted problems. "Things are more complicated than people imagined they were going to be," Ashton Carter, the Pentagon's top weapons buyer, told reporters earlier this month. "You can't control costs, you can't control schedule if you're being unrealistic about costs and schedule...
...rush to build the F-35 has led to ever-changing blueprints, which has led to slowdowns on the production line, which has delayed flight testing. How bad is it? Last year, engineers expected to churn out 200 changes - a month! - to the F-35's design, but actually generated about 500. Even after Gates' restructuring, taxpayers could spend close to $60 billion on more than 300 F-35s before flight testing is finished, meaning costly modifications will be required...
...scars. Bad breath, body odor and a snoring problem are all immediate disqualifiers. And if China's spacemen are expected to satisfy an unlikely string of qualifications, so too are its new spacewomen - with two notable additional criteria. China's first two female reserve astronauts, selected earlier this month from a pool of 15 female fighter pilots, were required to be wives and mothers...
...Netanyahu reportedly balked at White House demands earlier this month that Israel refrain from further construction in East Jerusalem. Indeed, he used his time in Washington to repeatedly restate his government's policy on Israeli settlement in East Jerusalem that had triggered a crisis during U.S. Vice President Joe Biden's recent visit to Israel. And the White House made no effort to conceal the discord, condemning new Israeli construction plans revealed during Netanyahu's visit and dispensing with the traditional photo opportunity and joint statement during Netanyahu's White House visit Tuesday evening. While U.S. officials sought to press...