Eh. e.g. the north atlantic tracks have been around since the 1960s. GPS wasn't available to the public until Korean Air Lines Flight 007 in the 1980s.
Assuming identical efficiency (no clue on this point), you would end up paying about 50% more for the same amount of "energy." We would also be dramatically increasing the worldwide demand for diesel and we'd still have the leftover residual product from refining that was previously used to fuel these ships.
50%+ margin increase on containerized shipping seems pretty significant.
Newer ships aren't necessarily much better. Mærsk's E class container ships still burn bunker fuel. The Triple E Class made improvements in efficiency and emissions, but are still burning bunker fuel at about 50% of the emissions per container than the previous class.
The 747 is certainly iconic, but I hate to be the one to tell you that 747 production may be coming to an end as the industry has zero interest in inefficient four-engine jets.
Basically no interest in the passenger or freighter model at this stage (the newest series, the -8I/-8F, has attracted barely over 100 deliveries). Same story for the A380, whose orders basically stopped in 2014. Freight and passenger service are both moving to more efficient twin-engine wide-bodies.
The hilarious thing is that the KC-46 is basically a means of keeping the Boeing 767 production line open and operating and producing airplanes even though Boeing has replaced it with the 777 and 787 for commercial customers. They may be new production aircraft, but they are not modern in any sense of the word. See also: The POTUS being about the only customer actually interested in purchasing the 747-8i these days.
The B-1 was designed for a role (low altitude nape of the earth bombing) that was obsolete before they worked out the bugs in the jet (Russian interceptor and fighter aircraft got look-down shoot-down capability). The B-1 was kept alive because of its electronic warfare capabilities, but efficiency of the bomb trucks matter more than high-speed delivery in a hostile radar environment these days.
There have never been very many operational Tu-160 bombers in service. The Tu-160 is focused on the standoff weapon role, and is ideally meant to delivering tactical ordinance while enemy air defense is still in effect. Standoff weapons are expensive, even compared to "smart" conventional weapons.
Tu-95 is a big dumb bomber much in the way the B-52 is; since it also has/is getting the standoff capability, it's hard to argue the purpose of the Tu-160.
A lot of the newer bombers were built with the nuclear role in mind; in reality the world went in the direction of smart conventional weapons instead. For that role, aircraft like the Tu-95 and BUFF are more ideal, as they can just act as a large "bomb truck" and drop a large quantity of guided conventional munitions very efficiently once air defenses are suppressed.
The shuttle's promise (inexpensive frequent launches) never materialized. Instead it was an incredibly complicated and expensive system to operate, launch, service, and recover. SpaceX's approach is to take the approach that's cost-effective and simple (but no more simple than necessary) and then to try to iteratively improve it to achieve reusable spaceflight. The "works like an airplane" thing is a great strategy if the thing can take off and get to orbit like an airplane, but to this point we (humanity) have not had the technology to produce a single-stage-to-orbit reusable spaceplane. Once we have to stage it and add boosters of various sorts, it quickly has all the same problems as a "traditional" rocket, but with all of the added complexity of a space plane. The Skylon approach purports to tackle this, but at this stage is more fiction than science (funding aside, there's a long way to go).
The Energia (Russian shuttle) program originally planned to have a system like the Shuttle with even more of the rocket returnable to launch site (boosters/core stage (Energia had the "main engines" on the tank rather than the orbiter)) but also abandoned that plan (and indeed the entire program, shortly thereafter).
There's been Russian military use of grid fins on supersonic rockets and missiles for many decades. It's my understanding that supersonic flow is not a problem, rather transonic (mercifully a relatively short period on either an accelerating or decelerating rocket) behavior is the problem.
It's a launch platform without clear future missions or funding. After the surplus RS-25 engines from the shuttle program are used (designed to be re-usable, they are heavy and expensive and will be destroyed by the launches) it's not clear what will power the launch vehicle. It's a very expensive big rocket with an unclear future in both engineering and political terms.
I guess this is my concern as well. I'm not sure what the need is for the shiny new object in this case; I've never felt limited by Vim, but perhaps there are particular features or capabilities that the author is interested in?
I'm not sure it makes sense to assume that all launch companies want to scale up and build vastly bigger rockets. SpaceX did it to go after the CRS launches, and now onto larger commercial/military payloads. Their endgame was never lightweight launch class.
Firefly is making it their business plan to go after a lucrative business, and one that is likely to grow dramatically in the coming years. They're competing with the capabilities currently offered to secondary payloads on larger launch vehicles or as primary payloads on e.g. Orbital's solid fuel vehicles. Orbital/ATK is the real competitor here, not SpaceX.
I don't think it is accurate to suggest that this company is competing with SpaceX. It is accurate that SpaceX is trying to provide lower-cost launch capability and it is accurate that SpaceX is trying to make parts of its launch vehicles and spacecraft reusable.
With that said, the addressable markets for the two companies are vastly different. Firefly is targeting the <1000kg payload market, with the hypothetical initial launch vehicle targeting <400kg. The Falcon 9 is designed for an order of magnitude more payload, with upcoming vehicles targeting an even greater capability.
So, at this stage there may be a small amount of talent competition (at ~25 employees) and hypothetically it could provide competition for secondary payload capabilities in the future if things work out.
I'm nowhere near talented enough to talk in terms of "odds" with respect to satellite collisions, but it's worth noting that certain orbit geometries are going to naturally see a lot more density because several satellites want to be in a somewhat similar orbit for various reasons.
Can't speak to the plan for the second stage (which will do a once-around and de-orbit if I understand correctly), but the first stage will not be following a ballistic trajectory and re-entry like a normal suborbital launch. Its goal is to return to the pad a few minutes after launch.
The assumption with the F-35 seems to be that technology (better sensors & automation) will overcome performance & armament disparities. This is not a new assumption in the air superiority game, but I don't think history's been kind to it to this point.
To their credit, the F-117 also wasn't a multirole fighter, was built in low quantities, wasn't planned for export uses, and was relatively quickly retired. It's a one-trick pony designed to sneak in, drop a precision bomb, and get out.
Range, thrust, and power to weight are just a few performance parameters.
It's somewhat more difficult to get accurate turn performance and acceleration information about the F-35. If I understand correctly (again, can't really find anything but conjecture for performance charts) while the F-35 has more sophisticated aerodynamic designs, the large cross-section looks to be a disadvantage in turn rates and acceleration (especially trans sonic).
This is more conjecture, but I don't think this is so much a capability problem (they're already mounting stingers on drones; larger models with large electronic sensor platforms/radar and sidewinder/amraams are just a matter of time). The problem remains rules of engagement, which are currently easier to verify/enforce with a human in the seat.
Gotta be careful about history; when the F-35 program started, drone-based warfare was pretty infantile.
Drone payloads are still relatively light compared to heavily-laden fighter-bombers (or indeed outright bombers). This will likely evolve over time (the future bomber program requires both manned and unmanned capabilities in some proposals).