Air Conditioning the Military Costs More Than NASA’s Entire Budget

[onehandle]

According to Steve Anderson, a retired brigadier general who served as Gen. Petraeus' chief logistician in Iraq, the Department of Defense spends $20 billion air conditioning tents and temporary structures for the military. That's more than NASA's entire $19 billion annual budget.

That cost comes out of the fuel needed to heat and cool tents on the front lines. However, the trucks that transport this fuel have become targets for IEDs used by the insurgency in Iraq and Afghanistan. According to Anderson, at least 1000 soldiers have been killed moving fuel.

Anderson believes that a simple solution would be to instead spray tents with polyurethane foam, kind of like the foam sealant you would use in your own home. In fact, an active $95 million contract to insulate tents is producing $1 billion in cost avoidance, proving it's both safer and greener than air conditioning the desert. Doing this while also searching for other energy-efficient solutions would save both money and lives.

http://gizmodo.com/5813257/air-conditioning-our-military-costs-more-than-nasas-entire-budget

[Merlot]

1. Solar portable A/C units

no fuel needed.

[Lorien]

2. How about we just get the f*ck out of the Middle East instead?

We could use the solar here at home.

[uponit7771]

5. +1!!!!

[Dokkie]

8. wow

such a simple solution to a comlex problem.

[awoke_in_2003]

9. hear, hear. nt

[Honeycombe8]

7. Never heard of that. Do they really exist? Aren't they expensive?

Everything solar that I've checked into for residential has been uber-expensive. That's why we're not seeing solar used much for residential, except by Hollywood movie stars and such.

[customerserviceguy]

3. I don't begrude our servicemembers a single moment of comfort

But I'd like them to get it stateside.

[uponit7771]

4. Anyone serious about cutting the budget has to include defense, the DoD is breaking the country

[Kaleva]

6. Here's a portable power station a cousin of mine is building:

http://www.x3energy.net/

[boppers]

10. Foam makes the tents stationary.

We'd then have to spend more on replacing tents.

That being said, foam does not cool anything down. It's insulation, but hot air is hot air, regardless of which side of a insulating barriers it's on.

That being said, what is with these swampland solutions to desert problems? They don't need A/C, the air is dry enough for evaporative coolers.

[Brigid]

11. How the hell do you air-condition a tent?

Yep, bringing them home is the simplest solution.

[joshcryer]

12. Wow, this is incredibly asinine.

And this is with tents that appear to at least have a shade on them as to prevent considerable heat buildup.

I'd like to have been in the room with the tent manufacturer and the air conditioner manufacturer when they got this deal...

[Mudoria]

13. I don't want to deny our service people anything that makes their lives more comfortable

But I wouldn't mind seeing about 50-100 billion redirected from the Pentagon to NASA. The knowledge and new technology derived from the space program is incalculable. One day I'd like to this planet sending explorers to the stars like the sci-fi novels I read. Can't do that on the cheap.