Latest news with #USNavy
Straits Times
a day ago
- Entertainment
- Straits Times
Nothing is Impossible: Tom Cruise really did get a US aircraft carrier for his latest Mission
Tom Cruise (left) meets sailors aboard the Nimitz-class aircraft carrier USS George H.W. Bush during a visit to the ship on March 2, 2023. PHOTO: NOVALEE MANZELLA/US NAVY Nothing is Impossible: Tom Cruise really did get a US aircraft carrier for his latest Mission For fans of Tom Cruise's Mission: Impossible series, the Pentagon can answer the incredulous question at the climax of its latest trailer: 'You gave him an aircraft carrier?' Yes, the US Navy and Air Force Special Operations Command decided to accept the mission: help the American actor's secret agent Ethan Hunt save the world. Or, at least make a movie about it. For The Final Reckoning, which is showing in Singapore cinemas, Cruise and the crew spent three days in the Adriatic Sea filming aboard the USS George H.W. Bush, a nuclear-powered Nimitz-class carrier commissioned in 2009. It is the latest cinematic incarnation of Cruise's career-long affinity for the US military and its aircraft (as well as doing his own stunts). It is an example of the Pentagon's willingness to showcase its hardware and martial might through a classic piece of American soft power, the Hollywood blockbuster. The Pentagon has a long history as a supporting character, most famously the 1990 spy thriller The Hunt For Red October – the one where Scotsman Sean Connery plays a Soviet submarine captain. Before getting on board, the US Department of Defense reviews scripts for accuracy and depictions of the military. (The Pentagon declined, for instance, to support Oliver Stone's Oscar-winning 1986 Vietnam War drama Platoon.) The US military charges for equipment use, as well as transportation and lodging for personnel. For 2022's Top Gun: Maverick, for example, the Navy was paid as much as US$11,374 (S$14,600) an hour to use its F/A-18 Super Hornets – which Cruise could not control as he flew in the fighter jet's back seat. For The Final Reckoning, however, movie studio Paramount's reported blowout budget of US$400 million got a break because the carrier and crew were already on scheduled training missions. 'Most, if not all, of the aircraft time was logged as official training requirements, and therefore not reimbursable,' the Pentagon said in a statement. The cast and crew – including Cruise, co-star Hannah Waddingham and director Christopher McQuarrie – were ferried to the carrier aboard Sikorsky Aircraft Corp MH-60S Seahawks, flown by the Helicopter Sea Combat Squadron 5 based in Norfolk, Virginia. While aboard from Feb 28 to March 3, 2023, Cruise hosted a Top Gun: Maverick viewing in the ship's hangar bay and visited sailors , who had been deployed for about six months at that time. 'Given that we were on deployment, operational and safety plans were in place so that if called upon, we were ready to execute our mission on a moment's notice,' spokesman Lieutenant Commander Matthew Stroup said in the statement. The crew filmed flight sequences, a scene in the navigation bridge and Hunt's departure aboard a CV-22 Osprey tiltrotor aircraft, from the 352nd Special Operations Wing out of Souda Bay, Crete, which was on a joint training exercise with the carrier group. The film 'supplemented the already scheduled training and did not interfere with any requirements', said Air Force Special Operations Command spokeswoman Lieutenant Colonel Rebecca Heyse. The USS Hyman G. Rickover, a Virginia-class attack submarine, makes a cameo, shot off the coast of Massachusetts. The interiors, however, were pure Hollywood: stage sets and actors for sailors. They did, however, have the help of a Navy representative and a retired submarine commander as a technical adviser. 'Being able to namecheck an aircraft carrier that you've filmed on lends a dimension of accuracy to the film that elevates it,' Paramount said, referencing a scene in which Hunt specifically requests the Bush carrier. The Pentagon's support 'lends authenticity to the military involvement necessary to help Ethan Hunt accomplish his mission'. BLOOMBERG Join ST's Telegram channel and get the latest breaking news delivered to you.
Asia Times
a day ago
- Business
- Asia Times
The defense-industrial base and alliances: US Steel and beyond
As last fall's presidential election returns reminded us, massive trade imbalances in products ranging from textiles to automobiles to electronics are making Americans conscious of growing weaknesses in the industrial base of America's heartland. Coupled with rising geopolitical tensions across the Pacific, Europe's first major land war since 1945 made leaders of industrial democracies throughout the world increasingly cognizant of vulnerabilities in America's defense-industrial base. At this time of great transition and uncertainty in global politics, it is important to focus intently on the defense manufacturing crisis and to consider how the United States got here and what might be done. In 1950, US manufacturing produced more than half the industrial product of the entire world. In 1960, America's share was still well over a third. Yet today the American share is less than 16% percent, with the US ranking third as a manufacturing power – behind even Germany, which has a GDP only a third its size. Importantly, the largest global manufacturer – by a considerable margin – is China, with which the US faces an increasingly confrontational geopolitical relationship and on which America relies heavily for manufactured imports. The US does remain dominant in some important manufacturing sectors, most importantly aviation – although China is making advances even there. And the situation is very different in the strategic maritime area, as I point out in my recent book, Eurasian Maritime Geopolitics . Not even 1% of the world's ships are built in the United States – even including production for the US Navy, which requested 2025 budget funds for only six new ships. About five commercial ships are built in the US annually. Over 50% of global shipbuilding is in China, the world's largest producer, with seven of the top ten shipbuilders by order volume being Chinese. The Chinese navy now boasts, by a substantial margin, the largest fleet in the world. Even more ominously, future US defense-production capacity is eroding when its expansion is greatly needed. The average US Navy vessel today is 19 years old. Of the vessels in China's navy, by contrast, 70% have been launched since 2010 – and China's production base is expanding much more rapidly than American. The situation is similar in shipping and in port development. Three of the top ten shipping companies in the world are Chinese. America's largest, the Matson Line, is ranked 28th. Similarly, seven of the ten largest ports in the world are Chinese, with China leading the world in computerized container shipping. America's largest ports, at Long Beach and New York City, rank 22d and 24th respectively. Some attribute America's weaknesses in the maritime area to regulatory challenges. The Jones Act, an arcane law requiring that shipping between American ports be in American bottoms, is justified as bolstering national security by strengthening the US shipbuilding and shipping industries – but critics say that overall it has had the opposite effect. Equally damaging to US shipping is the broader weaknesses in basic industry. Highest on the list is the US weakness in basic steel. There America's flagship firm, US Steel, ranks only 28th in global scale. Much was made, on both sides of the Pacific, of former President Joe Biden's 2024 veto of Nippon Steel's bid to acquire US Steel. Although no doubt short-sighted from an economic standpoint, Biden's stance – similar to that of Donald Trump before his election – was understandable in political terms. US Steel, after all, is the US industrial flagship firm, founded by Andrew Carnegie in 1903, and headquartered in Pennsylvania, the most consequential US swing state of 2024. In a Presidential election year, with the United Steel Workers of America vehemently opposed – if not many local affiliates – it was not surprising that such an iconic firm would be a lightning rod for protectionist impulses. Yet amid the heated debate over US Steel's future course, it is important not to lose sight of the truly crucial national-security issue: the future of America's defense industrial base. Donald Trump's historic May, 2025 reversal – to support Nippon Steel's acquisition, on condition of $14 billion in added investment; an all-American board of directors; and continuation of the US Steel name and Pittsburgh headquarters – was an important step forward in that regard. Reviving America's steel, shipbuilding, shipping, precision-machinery, and capital-goods manufacturing sectors, to name a few, will be a crucial imperative in coming years, given the challenge of China and other competitors. And steel-industry revival will be fundamental to basic-industry revival more generally – not least on the seas. Such Technology and capital, provided largely by the private sector, supported by plausible market dynamics, will be crucial imperatives. Tariffs alone cannot possibly revive American maritime manufacturing. Particularly in the maritime sectors, and potentially in steel and some machine-building sectors as well, democratic allies will almost inevitably be a primary source of both technology and capital, as well as production volume. Strategic advantage in these basic sectors, after all, accrues to those who operate at scale. And China today in the maritime sectors has scale. The US needs its allies to help achieve that, and to move toward integrated capacity at optimal scale. In an era of potentially protracted conflict, as the experience of the Ukraine war suggests, production scale and capacity are looming larger than heretofore. Apart from China, the largest and most productive shipbuilders in the world are all in Japan and South Korea, supplied by their own productive, efficient steel sectors. Their expertise and investment will almost certainly be crucial to the revival of the US maritime industrial base. A ship under construction at a graving dock in the Philly Shipyard in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA. Photo: Philly Ship Indeed, that process has already begun. In 2024 Japanese and South Korean firms agreed to repair US Navy vessels and in December a Korean firm acquired and began rebuilding the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard, which produced some of the US Navy's most powerful capital ships during World War II. Moving to the future, both sides of the Pacific need to build on lessons of the US Steel case – especially the importance of trans-Pacific cooperation in the rebuilding of America's defense-industrial base. Governments themselves need to take a longer view, and to grasp the vital importance to national security of cooperation among allies that does not compromise sovereignty or deeply held values. With the transition to leadership in Washington, and major trans-Pacific summits impending, now is the time both to learn from the past and to let partners play a role in helping to make American manufacturing great again. Kent Calder is Director of the Reischauer Center for East Asian Studies at Johns Hopkins University SAIS, former Special Advisor to the US Ambassador to Japan and the recent author of Eurasian Maritime Geopolitics (Brookings, 2025).
Metro
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- Metro
Script for Top Gun 3 ‘already in the bag' after Tom Cruise's blockbuster sequel
The script for Top Gun three has already been 'cracked', according to scriptwriter and producer Christopher McQuarrie. The original hit the big screen in 1986, following Tom Cruise as cocky naval aviator Pete 'Maverick' Mitchell' as he trains at the US Navy's Fighter Weapons School alongside pal 'Goose' (Anthony Edwards) and rival 'Iceman' (Val Kilmer). In the 2022 follow-up, titled Top Gun: Maverick, the 62-year-old's character was drawn back to the fighter pilot academy to train a new set of graduates for a special assignment. It was a huge success and grossed more than $1.4billion at the global box office but, while there has been speculation of another sequel on the horizon, no one has given concrete answers about Maverick's return. Thankfully, Christopher – who worked with Tom on the Mission: Impossible franchise – has finally shared a much-needed update during an appearance on the Happy Sad Confused podcast, revealing that the idea for the plot has already been figured out. When host Josh Horowitz questioned if the third installment was 'harder to crack' than the second movie, he didn't skip a beat, replying: 'No. It's already in the bag. I already know what it is, it wasn't hard. 'I thought it would be, and that's a good place to go from, as you walk into the room going, 'Come on, what are we going to do?' 'Ehren Kruger [Maverick co-writer] pitched something and I went, 'Hmm actually…'. We had one conversation about it, and the framework is there so no, it's not hard to crack.' 'The truth of the matter is, none of these are hard to crack … why these movies are made the way they are, it's not the action, it's not even the level of intensity or the scope and scale of the action, the engineering around the action – it's none of these things. It's the emotion.' The blockbuster was set more than three decades after the events of the first film, and focused on Maverick returning to the Top Gun training school to teach the latest batch of graduates, including Rooster (Miles Teller) and Hangman (Glen Powell). Shedding light on how they finally settled on the plot for the wildly successful second movie, Christopher added: 'Getting to that place, finding the right emotional balance, wherein you have a conflict between these two characters… 'They kept saying, 'We want more scenes with them together', because they wanted to recreate Maverick and Goose, which, of course, we understood. Your desire is to rush right to what the audience wants. The minute their relationship is resolved, the movie is over. 'Tom, and I inherently understood that balance, and everyone else around us was was pushing for what they wanted in the movie, in the micro, and Tom and I were focused entirely on the macro.' His comments come just days after Tom was asked about the future of Maverick and co, as well as the other projects he has on his plate. More Trending Popping up on the Today show in Australia, he told the hosts: 'Yeah, we're thinking and talking about many different stories and what could we do and what's possible. 'It took me 35 years to figure out Top Gun: Maverick, so all of these things we're working on, we're discussing Days of Thunder and Top Gun: Maverick. 'There's numerous other films that we're actively working on right now. I'm always shooting a film, prepping a film, posting a film. 'I just finished a film with Alejandro Iñárritu too, who did The Revenant, that was an extraordinary experience and [Christopher McQuarrie] and I are always working on several different films.' Got a story? If you've got a celebrity story, video or pictures get in touch with the entertainment team by emailing us celebtips@ calling 020 3615 2145 or by visiting our Submit Stuff page – we'd love to hear from you.
Business Insider
3 days ago
- General
- Business Insider
I toured the only nuclear-missile submarine in the US open to the public. Take a look inside.
The USS Growler is the only nuclear-missile submarine in the US that's open to the public. Commissioned in 1958, the USS Growler patrolled seas off the coast of Russia during the Cold War. The submarine is now an attraction at the Intrepid Museum in New York City. The USS Growler was once a top-secret US Navy submarine that patrolled the ocean's depths during the Cold War. Armed with nuclear missiles and operated by a crew of 90 men, Growler's firepower acted as a deterrent to keep other nations from using their nuclear weapons in a strategy known as mutually assured destruction. Today, the USS Growler is on display at the Intrepid Museum in New York City housed on the USS Intrepid, a 900-foot-long World War II-era aircraft carrier. The USS Growler floats alongside it in the Hudson River. Visitors don't just get to look at the USS Growler; they can actually climb inside and walk through its narrow confines on a self-guided tour. Submarines remain a crucial component of the US Navy's deterrent strategy. In September, the USS Georgia, a guided-missile submarine, was sent to the Middle East in a show of support for Israel and a show of force to Iran. Submarines are a costly endeavor. The US Navy's Virginia-class submarine program is projected to run $17 billion over budget through 2030 amid delays, House Rep. Ken Calvert, chairman of the House defense appropriations subcommittee, said in September. The Navy has said delays are due to supply-chain issues and "lingering COVID-19 impacts." While a nuclear-powered submarine, the USS Nautilus, is open to the public in Groton, Connecticut, the Intrepid Museum is the only place in the US where members of the public can go inside a submarine that carried nuclear missiles. I visited the Intrepid Museum to tour the USS Growler in May 2024. Take a look inside the only nuclear-missle submarine open to the public. The Intrepid Museum in New York City displays historic vessels used in sea, air, and space exploration as well as military operations. Tickets cost $38 per adult and $28 per child over 4 years old and can be purchased on the Intrepid Museum's website. Veterans and military service members receive free admission. One of the museum's top attractions is a self-guided tour of the USS Growler submarine. Every time I've visited the Intrepid Museum, there has been a line to enter the submarine due to the attraction's popularity and small, enclosed spaces. The line moved quickly when I visited in May 2024 — I only waited for about 15 minutes. The USS Growler patrolled the seas on top-secret missions off the coast of Russia during the Cold War. Commissioned in 1958, the USS Growler carried Regulus II sea-to-surface missiles armed with nuclear warheads. The looming threat of the submarine's firepower acted as a deterrent to prevent other countries from using their nuclear arsenals. The submarine now floats in the Hudson River with its top deck visible from the dock of the museum. Growler was decommissioned in 1964 and awarded to the Intrepid Museum in 1988. The Intrepid Museum spent over $1 million repairing the submarine in 2008 when holes were discovered in its hull during a museum-wide renovation, The New York Times reported. Exhibits provided a brief history of the USS Growler and the nuclear missiles it carried before entering the submarine. The first Regulus missiles had a range of 500 miles. Regulus II missiles could travel twice that distance. There was also a sample doorway to make sure guests could walk through the submarine. The first stop inside the submarine was one of the USS Growler's two missile hangars. Each hangar could hold two Regulus I missiles, which each measured 33 feet long, according to the National Air and Space Museum. In the navigation compartment, crew members plotted courses and tracked Growler's position. Growler used a binnacle — a stand that holds a ship's compass — and SINS — the Ship's Inertial Navigation System — to navigate through the seas. The missile checkout and guidance center was once a top-secret area. Crew members assigned to the missile checkout and guidance center were in charge of maintaining, firing, and guiding the trajectory of the Regulus missiles. Launching a Regulus missile took about 15 minutes. Officers on the USS Growler lived in staterooms that held two to three people. Officers acted as leaders and commanders of the crew, overseeing the day-to-day operations of the submarine. Their staterooms featured folding sinks and desks with chairs that included storage drawers to maximize the tight quarters. Officers had access to their own shower. Crew members shared a separate washroom. Officers used the wardroom to eat, socialize, and hold meetings. The wardroom was furnished with laminate walls and vinyl seating booths, popular interior design trends post-World War II. Officers' meals were cooked in the galley and served from the wardroom pantry. The USS Growler carried all of the food and supplies it would need to sustain itself during patrols that lasted over two months. A storekeeper kept track of non-food supplies such as light bulbs, pens, and toilet paper. The USS Growler's commanding officer enjoyed the only private room on the entire submarine as its highest-ranked leader. The chief petty officers' quarters were nicknamed the "goat locker." Chief petty officers helped train new submariners and acted as leaders and liaisons between officers and crew members. The nickname "goat locker" dates back to 1893, when the rank of chief petty officer was established. Chief petty officers were put in charge of the goats that were kept on ships to produce milk, and the animals' pens were located in their quarters, according to the Naval History and Heritage Command. Yeomen handled clerical and administrative work aboard the USS Growler's tiny office. A ladder in the bridge trunk led to the bridge of the submarine. When the USS Growler traveled on the surface of the water, the bridge provided a vantage point for crew members to surveil the surrounding ocean. Seeing how far down I was in the submarine was striking. I couldn't imagine what it must have been like to serve on a two-month-long patrol with no fresh air or sunlight. The control room and attack center contained a dizzying number of buttons, dials, and other instruments. Here, the commanding officer would give orders to the crew. The crew members who sat in the chairs directed the USS Growler's movements with three steering wheels that controlled different angles and movements. The room also featured two periscopes: one for observation and one for attacks. A call signal station could signal different areas of the submarine such as the wardroom, the office, and the control room. The sonar room also aided Growler's navigation. Sonar stands for sound navigation and ranging. The USS Growler used passive sonar, a system of underwater microphones that listen to the ocean and detect sound waves, to track other vessels and navigate its own positions. Passive sonar is a more discreet alternative to active sonar, which sends a pulse of energy through the water to detect objects. Crew members communicated with other ships in the radio room. The USS Growler could only send messages at periscope depth. Lower down in the ocean, it could receive low-frequency signals, but couldn't send any outgoing messages. Meals were prepared in the galley. A meal schedule from 1962 listed dishes such as fried chicken, clam chowder, hamburgers, and meatloaf with gravy. In the scullery, Growler crew members washed dishes and compacted trash. Trash was disposed of in weighted tubes that wouldn't float to the surface and give away the submarine's location. The crew's mess was the only common space on the USS Growler. It functioned as the dining room as well as a place for crew members to play games and watch movies. Growler's largest sleeping area contained 46 bunks. The green straps on the beds kept crew members from rolling out of the bunks during rough seas. The crew's washroom featured two showers. Showers were a rare luxury for crew members on the USS Growler. A plaque displayed in the room read that some sailors said they never showered once during their two-month patrols. A distillation system boiled seawater, filtering out the salt to supply fresh water. The distilled water was used for cooling the submarine's diesel engines, cooking food, washing dishes, and bathing. Growler's three diesel engines were located in the engine room. The engines were soundproofed. Sailors controlled Growler's speed in the maneuvering room, with officers communicating orders from the control room. The USS Growler's maximum speed was 12 knots, or 14 mph, while submerged and 14 knots, or 16 mph, while surfaced. In addition to carrying nuclear missiles, the USS Growler was also armed with torpedoes. Nine crew members slept in the aft torpedo room, where weapons like the Mark 37 torpedo were kept. I was relieved to see the sky again as I exited the USS Growler, and in awe of service members who spent months at a time on the vessel. As the only nuclear-missile submarine in the US that's open to the public, visiting the USS Growler is absolutely worth a trip to the Intrepid Museum. I was fascinated by how self-sufficient the submarine was as it carried out top-secret patrols. It was hard to believe that 90 crew members operated in such small spaces for extended periods of time. With its supply of nuclear missiles kept at the ready during the Cold War, the stakes couldn't have been higher to keep the USS Growler running smoothly and efficiently. The stakes remain high today as US Navy submarines continue to patrol waters connected to regional conflicts.
Yahoo
3 days ago
- Science
- Yahoo
A 17-year-old designed a cheaper, more efficient drone. The Department of Defense just awarded him $23,000 for it.
Cooper Taylor, 17, aims to revolutionize the drone industry with a new design. Taylor designed a motor-tilting mechanism to lower manufacturing cost and increase efficiency. His innovation won awards at science competitions adding up to $23,000. Cooper Taylor is only 17 years old, but he's already trying to revolutionize the drone industry. Taylor has spent the last year optimizing a type of drone that's being used more and more in agriculture, disaster relief, wildlife conservation, search-and-rescue efforts, and medical deliveries. His design makes the drone more efficient, customizable, and less expensive to construct, he says. He's built six prototypes where he 3D-printed every piece of hardware, programmed the software, and even soldered the control circuit board. He says building his drone cost one-fifth the price of buying a comparable machine, which sells for several thousand dollars. Taylor told Business Insider that he hopes "if you're a first responder or a researcher or an everyday problem solver, you can have access to this type of drone." His innovation won him an $8,000 scholarship in April at the Junior Science and Humanities Symposium, funded by the Department of Defense. Then, on May 16, he received an even bigger scholarship of $15,000 from the US Navy, which he won after presenting his research at the Regeneron International Science and Engineering Fair. "Ultimately having people in STEM careers is a matter of national security," Winnie Boyle, the senior director of competitions at the National Science Teaching Association, which administers JSHS, told BI. Even though most students who compete won't end up working in the military, she added, "we as the community will still benefit from the research that they're doing." It all started when Taylor's little sister got a drone, and he was disappointed to see that it could only fly for about 30 minutes before running out of power. He did some research and found that a vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) drone would last longer. This type of drone combines the multi-rotor helicopter style with the fixed wings of an airplane, making it extremely versatile. It lifts off as a helicopter, then transitions into plane mode. That way it can fly further than rotors alone could take it, which was the drawback to Taylor's sister's drone. Unlike a plane-style drone, though, it doesn't need a runway and it can hover with its helicopter rotors. The problem is that VTOL drones are very expensive. As Taylor learned more about them, though, he realized he could improve a key inefficiency and maybe drastically reduce their cost. VTOL drones use helicopter-style rotors to lift off straight from the ground, but once airborne, the motors running those rotors turn off and the drone switches to a plane-style motor to travel horizontally. Motors are some of the most expensive parts of a drone, Taylor said, so having some motors sit idle during flight is "a big waste of cost and a big waste of energy." He wanted to solve this problem by designing a motor that could start out helicopter-style for liftoff, then tilt back to become an airplane-style motor. That's not a new concept. Aerospace companies have tinkered with tilting rotors for decades, according to David Handelman, a senior roboticist at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory. However, Taylor designed his rotor-tilting drone to be completely 3D-printed and completely modular. A user can pop the tail and wings out of their sockets and replace them with any custom appendages. Similarly, a port for cameras or scientific instruments leaves room for customization. The cost savings come from the fact that his drone uses fewer motors, but the modular nature means users could upgrade or replace parts of the drone for a lower cost than buying a whole new drone. Handelman, who mentored the high schooler, told BI in an email that Taylor's drone "could appeal to users who need a versatile platform but can't afford large or complex systems." Taylor spent an entire summer solving this VTOL problem. "It was a wonderful summer, really focused," Taylor said. "I'd wake up, I'd go into my basement, I'd work on the drone, I'd look outside, and it's 12 a.m." When he hit a barrier in his knowledge of coding, design, or circuitry, he would look for advice in online forums or take a relevant course on the website Udemy. His first three prototypes crashed. One of them soared 50 feet up and then face planted. "That sort of hurt. That's a few hundred hours right there," Taylor said. Each flight and crash revealed a problem he needed to fix until, finally, the fourth drone flew and touched down in one piece. "I actually love doing this," Taylor said. "It's so much fun for me." Taylor's latest prototype weighs about 6 pounds with a wingspan a little over 4 feet. He's flown it for up to 15 minutes at a time, but he has calculated that at the rate it uses power it should last for 105 minutes cruising at 45 mph. He doesn't want to push those limits just yet though. "Cooper brought both curiosity and discipline to the project, working at a level I usually see in strong college students," Handelman said. "The fact that he got the aircraft flying is a testament to his persistence, creativity, and problem-solving ability." Now Taylor is building his seventh iteration of the drone. Eventually, he wants to make it small enough to remove the wings and fit it in a backpack. This summer, though, the high schooler says he'll be working on a different drone project through a program with the Reliable Autonomous Systems Lab at MIT. Read the original article on Business Insider
