Reply #46: Because technology marches on

[jeff47]

"why is this thing even being built at this time?"

Well, it isn't being built. Solicitations like this allow the AF to take a look at what could be built, but it doesn't pay for it to move beyond the conceptual phase.

That useful to 1) Figure out what other people might be able to build, 2) figure out if our own stuff is going to be suddenly obsolete, and 3) find out if the new plane is going to be a big enough improvement to make it worth building them.