US Air Force Launches Secret Flying Twinkie 234
Spectrummag writes "One of the most secretive US Air Force spaceflights in decades, launched this month, is keeping aficionados guessing as to the nature of the secret. The 6000-kilogram, 8-meter X-37B, nicknamed the flying Twinkie because of its stubby-winged shape, is supposed to orbit Earth for several weeks, maneuver in orbit, then glide home. What's it for? Space expert James Oberg tracks the possibilities."
I'll say it... (Score:4, Funny)
"That's a big twinkie..."
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from the thats-one-big-twinkie dept.
I think the editors beat you to it.
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Except Taco misquoted Ghostbusters. I wasn't going to point it out.
Re:I'll say it... (Score:4, Informative)
From IMDB [imdb.com]:
Dr. Egon Spengler: I'm worried, Ray. It's getting crowded in there and all my data points to something big on the horizon.
Winston Zeddemore: What do you mean, big?
Dr. Egon Spengler: Well, let's say this Twinkie represents the normal amount of psychokinetic energy in the New York area. Based on this morning's sample, it would be a Twinkie... thirty-five feet long, weighing approximately six hundred pounds.
Winston Zeddemore: That's a big Twinkie.
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That's the second biggest twinkie I've ever seen!
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That's what she said?
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"That's a big twinkie..."
Not only that - "Twinkie defense" just got a whole new meaning with this...
Just wait... (Score:3, Funny)
Not only that - "Twinkie defense" just got a whole new meaning with this...
until they get the creme filling based weapons operational... It's gonna look like a giant porn attack!
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If it fails, will they take the Twinkie Defense [wikipedia.org]?
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That's no twinkie. That's an ICBM that can linger in space for weeks before hitting its target.
Ya, it doesn't quite have the same ring as "That's no moon. It's a space station.", but hey, it's a freakin' flying twinkie.
They know about the only way (Score:2)
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First, if we're hearing about it now, the technology has probably been used by the black ops folks for a couple of decades.
Second, it wouldn't surprise me to learn that there are technologies in this "twinkie" that do not have terrestrial sources.
Third, whoever is involved, I'd bet that zero elected officials have knowledge of, or have oversight of, the project. Black ops are a fifth branch of the military, better funded than the Marines, that operate completely withou
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Like Velcro and the CD?
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Don't blame me; I voted for Kodos.
If it's a Twinkie... (Score:3, Funny)
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...it should be able to remain in orbit indefinitely without deteriorating.
No, it won't. http://www.snopes.com/food/ingredient/twinkies.asp [snopes.com]
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As someone who's actually eaten a stale twinkie (in the name of science!), it won't deteriorate, but it will get kinda gummy...
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That said, make no mistake about it: after the nuclear holocaust, the only things that will be alive are cockroaches and Twinkies.
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Nasa should reclaim this (Score:2)
What this is is an experimental spacecraft that NASA gave up, and should reclaim in my opinion. Turning this into a manned flight precursor would be a good way for President Obama to regain status in the astronaut community.
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I doubt this has anything at all to do with NASA, and NASA is in no position to reclaim anything from military projects.
This system is built on designs for flight test prototypes developed when the shuttle was being designed, and refined thereafter.
TFA says: "The official description of the mission talks of demonstrating "a rapid-turnaround airborne test bed." That makes sense, but there is no sign that anyone plans to fly the vehicle ever again" which is pure utter nonsense. You don't build a lander to f
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Because the X-37 is a NASA program and the X-37b started out as a NASA program.That is why there are pictures of it on Google images.
Trust me, real secret military spacecraft you learn about 20 years later.
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Its been 20 (or 30) years.
QED.
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Re:Nasa should reclaim this (Score:5, Insightful)
Yet reusables have proven to be the way to go with every other form of transport. Or, to put it another way, it's a really bad idea to draw sweeping universal conclusions based on a first generation system.
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X-15 and Dynasoar were first generation reusable.
Shuttle and Buran were second generation.
Yes, reusable have proven to be the way to go, but other forms of transport aren't going 17,500 miles an hour, getting up to 5,000 degrees and going millions of miles.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/STS-109 [wikipedia.org] - 3.9 million miles
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/STS-80 [wikipedia.org] - 7 million miles
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Yes, reusable have proven to be the way to go, but other forms of transport aren't going 17,500 miles an hour, getting up to 5,000 degrees and going millions of miles.
Being harder isn't an excuse unto itself. Supersonic jets are more difficult than subsonic jets, which are more difficult than prop airplanes, which in turn are more difficult cars, trains, and bicycles. Yet somehow, we have managed up until now, yet I'm certain the same argument has been made throughout history that the next step couldn't be made.
The issue isn't with the reusable portion of the reusable spacecraft, but with its non-reusable parts. Thermal tiles, booster rockets, etc. As well, with the
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Supersonic jets are more difficult than subsonic jets
Interestingly, the useful speed limit of supersonic jets seems to have been exceeded decades ago, and they've abandoned the fastest designs. The B-58, B-70, SR-71, B-1A and Concorde are all defunct and have not been replaced with anything nearly as fast. They've given up. There are a few fast manned fighter planes, but the emphasis today is on gas mileage, not pure speed, and manned fighters may be on the way out in general.
Sometimes certain gee-whiz technologies just really don't turn out to be practical i
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have not been replaced with anything nearly as fast
That is just what THEY want you to think!
Thanks for playing,
Mr Tin Foil
maker of hats.
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In the military sphere large, fast expensive aircraft ma
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You do realize that all newfighter jets do supercruise right? That means Mach speeds without after burners not even the concorde could do that.
Civilian supersonic aircraft fell into the sonic boom is breaking the windows camp with most countries only allowing super sonic speeds outside their international boundries. Not to mention how loud the enginesgot on the Tarmac.
Today's private business jets can cruise effeciently at .95 Mach nearly 30% faster than just a decade previous.
So yes we have given up parti
Re:Nasa should reclaim this (Score:5, Insightful)
One that wasn't an orbital craft, and one that never flew at all. So, no, they aren't first generation craft in any useful sense.
Ok, so what? The shuttle goes fast and far, doesn't mean there cannot be a reusable orbital craft. Not to mention that 99.99999% of the 'far' is spent in almost no stress drifting around. It's nearly meaningless, even though it sounds impressive to the uneducated.
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For that matter, the shuttle itself was redesigned to meet political goals. The original version would have had a titanium body rather than ceramic shingles...but our only source of titanium was in a country that was then considered likely to go communist. So the engineers were told to come up with another design. Some other changes were made to make it cheaper to build (rather than maintain). Etc.
If you want to draw a lesson, it should probably be that you don't want bean-counters to design your equipm
Re:Nasa should reclaim this (Score:4, Informative)
Wrong on every count.
There is no 'original' version of the Shuttle - but there were a couple of dozen competing designs and concepts, some of which used ceramic tiles while others used titanium or other exotic metals in the form of shingles. However shingles were not only very (very) expensive and considerably heavier than tiles, the engineering work required to develop the shingles would have been considerably greater. Nor is there any evidence whatsoever that the thin shingles and their complex system of attachment to the structure (to deal with both thermal expansion of the tiles and thermal expansion of the structure, ditto with vibration) would have been any cheaper to build or operate than the ceramic tiles.
To the extent that NASA was discouraged from using titanium, that was because of the increasing and projected to further increase demand for titanium by the USAF and USN. In the end the superbombers and deep divers that would have used all that titanium were all cancelled in the late 60's and early 70's because of their expense.
Oh wait, wasn't the Shuttle budget sharply limited at the same time? Shit, it was. So much for your bean counter theory - the whole budget was being sharply trimmed around then. Sorry to introduce another fact showing how even more wrong you are, but I like completeness and accuracy.
Duh, that's exactly what happened. The engineers offered a design and the bean counters (or more correctly the engineers responsible for cost estimation) said "no way Jose", and the rest of the engineers went back to the drawing board.
Well, seeing as you're wrong about the bean counters and the Shuttle, it's only symmetrical that you're wrong about the Saturn being viable. It's one of only two launch systems that make the Shuttle look like a bargain. (The other being the late and unlamented Titan IV.)
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Moderate it as a Troll if you will - but it's the truth. Yeah, it clashes with what 'everyone knows' about the Shuttle - buts that because most people know roughly nothing about the Shuttle beyond a haphazard collection of rumors, myths, and urban legends.
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Yet reusables have proven to be the way to go with every other form of transport.
Articulated arms/legs/fins were the way to move, yet manned inorganic transport didn't work until the Wheel.
Also all flying animals did the flapping wing thing, airplanes were never successful until that was given up.
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Right. Money pit.
That't why Scaled Composites http://scaled.com/ [scaled.com] and Virgin Galactic http://www.virgingalactic.com/ [virgingalactic.com] are all betting money on re-entry vehicles.
Come on guy! Just because government projects do not have a profit motive does not mean it can never be workable.
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Is Virgin Galactic SS1 going into orbit?
No.
Is Virgin Galactic SS2 going to go 3 million miles a mission and reach 17,500 miles an hour?
No.
SS2 is a VW T2 Microbus to the Shuttle/Buran being Bugatti Veyron EB 16.4s
SS2 will reach 2600 mph and 68 miles for up to 10 minutes of weightlessness
Shuttle reaches 17,580 mph and up to 385 miles for up to 17 days
Apples and grapes.
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You have to start somewhere.
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Because you can't see it doesn't make it impossible or unlikely.
Look, the weight of fuel needed to get the shuttle up to the altitude where the white knight drops spaceship one exceeds the weight for the rest of the trip to orbit.
The rockets are expended and jettisoned, and the external tank is half empty.
For you to state that it fundamentally won't cut it with no credentials, no studies, no NOTHING, that, my friend, is what won't cut it.
By the time the Shuttle reaches the altitude at which the White Knight launches Space Ship 1, its already well past Mach 3 and rapidly accelerating - and its speed that counts when achieving orbit.
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No. Reusable has been shown to be a money pit and failed too much. It was expensive for the US, it was expensive for the Soviets.
Um, you can't make statements like that based on 2 data points utilizing technology from 30 years ago. The X-37B's requirements are quite a bit simpler (e.g. don't have to carry 50,000 pounds to orbit, don't need extreme crossrange capability, don't need to carry humans, etc.) than the Shuttle or Soviet Buran, and technology has progressed quite a bit since the 1970s. Heck, I'll just paste from Boeing's fact-sheet:
http://www.boeing.com/defense-space/ic/sis/x37b_otv/x37b_otv.html [boeing.com]
The X-37B is one of the world's newest and most advanced re-entry spacecraft. Designed to operate in low-earth orbit, 110 to 500 miles above the Earth at a nominal speed of about 17,500 miles per hour, the vehicle is the first since the Space Shuttle with the ability to return experiments to Earth for further inspection and analysis.
Because the X-37B can be returned to Earth, reused, and is designed to be highly flexible and maneuverable, its contributions to space exploration will result in making space access more routine, affordable and responsive.
The X-37B features many elements that mark a first in space use. The X-37B is one-fourth the size of the Space Shuttle, and relies upon the same family of lifting body design. It also features a similar landing profile. The vehicle was built using lighter composite structures, rather than traditional aluminum. A new generation of high-temperature wing leading-edge tiles will also debut on the X-37B. These toughened uni-piece fibrous refractory oxidation-resistant ceramic (TUFROC) tiles replace the carbon carbon wing leading edge segments on the Space Shuttle. The X-37B will also use toughened uni-piece fibrous insulation (TUFI) impregnated silica tiles, which are significantly more durable than the first generation tiles used by the Space Shuttle. Advanced conformal reusable insulation (CRI) blankets are used for the first time on the X-37B.
All avionics on the X-37B are designed to automate all de-orbit and landing functions. Additionally, there are no hydraulics onboard the X-37B; flight controls and brakes use electromechanical actuation.
The on-orbit duration of the X-37B will vary based upon mission requirements, but has the ability to perform missions lasting up to 270 days.
The objectives of the first flight are to demonstrate that the X-37B is able to conduct long-duration operations, and to enable scientists to understand the long-term effects on system components, such as the structure and future payloads. The successful first flight will include achieving orbit, de-orbiting, and safely landing at the primary return location, Vandenberg Air Force Base, or Edwards Air Force Base, if necessary.
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Recover, Repair, Refuel Satellites (Score:3, Interesting)
A scaled up version of this could replace capabilities that the shuttle provided to the military.
Sure they launch sats on rockets now, but they can't do any of the maintenance with a rocket. Also is folks listened to the MIT lectures on building the shuttle, they mentioned that the engines in the shuttle wouldn't have to be torn down and rebuilt between flights if the electronics were built onto the engine such the engines could be tested without removing them.
I'm sure there are other what if style improvements that the shuttle built from blueprints could benefit from in the age of CAD that would aid in the rapid turnaround of any new vehicle designed with the Twinkie's test data.
Re:Recover, Repair, Refuel Satellites (Score:5, Interesting)
That's relevant to the things that electronics can test for. (A very small subset of the things that are tested/inspected on and SSME.) Not to mention that if such things were truly practical (electronics substituting for inspection and/or teardown), commercial aviation would be using it for jet engines.
Not to mention that they haven't removed the engines after every flight for over fifteen years, and haven't rebuilt them every time they're removed for over a decade.
This vehicle's (single flight) test data is roughly meaningless compared to the thirty years of flight experience for the Shuttle itself. Seriously, the Shuttle's problems don't stem from lack of CAD. CAD is just a fancy version of Microsoft Paint - you still need the engineering information behind the design. Without that information it doesn't matter if you use chisels on stone tablets or the latest engineering workstation.
There lies the key problem with the Shuttle, lack of funding, lack of basic technology research, lack of engineering development, and a healthy helping of excess ambition on the part of NASA and successive Congresses and Administrations. The Shuttle went wrong when those three collectively decided not to expand on the groundwork laid by the X-15 and the various lifting body projects in favor of Buck Rogers stunts.
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>they mentioned that the engines in the shuttle wouldn't have to be torn down and rebuilt between flights if the electronics were built onto the engine such the engines could be tested without removing them.
Getting into space is about as extreme an environment as any mechanism is likely to face.
As long as teams in the NHRA have to dissassemble and reassemble their engines bewteen races, NASA will likely have to do the same.
Speculation in the article (Score:5, Insightful)
So the article speculates that this is a testbed for on-orbit threat detection systems, which given the number of countries getting into the space gig seems like a reasonable thing to be working on.
So here's why bit I don't get: Why build it into a space plane rather than a regular satellite? Seems to me that you're adding an order of magnitude to the complexity of the mission -- do they really need the sensors back that badly, or is this maybe for something else?
Re:Speculation in the article (Score:4, Informative)
Some more speculation from the Register based on the same reasons that the shuttle had such large wings, this gives it cross-range capability to launch and return in a singular polar orbit.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/04/21/x37b_secret_launch_options/ [theregister.co.uk]
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If you always have 1-5 of these guys in the 'air' at any one time, there's your plausible deniability. If the flights are routine enough, it's no longer out of the ordinary to launch a kill vehicle, since it's otherwise identical to the other (non-military or weaponized) launches.
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"one of our satellites just went dark" and work out what probably went down.
Maybe you have the wrong "our". What if one of our broken fancy-sats were going to deorbit over a particularly inconvenient location?
Re:Speculation in the article (Score:5, Interesting)
I'd actually think that something like this would be ideal to TAKE OUT a satellite, or a satellite interceptor.
A polar orbit means that its relative velocity would be large compared to any less inclined orbit.
Ability to launch and return in a single polar orbit means that it would be hard to shoot down - it would have to fly right over an enemy launch site to do so since they wouldn't spot it until it was entering their airspace and there would be no time to vector an interception from elsewhere. You only have a few minutes to launch even if you happen to have an ASAT missile right on its flight path (which obviously the US would avoid anyway when they put it into orbit).
So, the USAF identifies a bunch of satellites they want to shoot down, then they put this thing into orbit which parks interceptors in polar orbits that will hit each of the targets. Then it re-enters and returns to base.
Another option is recon - this thing could be launched at any inclination to get to any point in the earth quickly and then be able to return to base more quickly with cross-range capability.
Those are just some wild guesses. Wings do give you options - no sense having them unless your mission demands them.
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Single orbit?
Even the prototype is planned to fly for weeks.
Payload in orbit with cross range re-entry capability allows for retrieval of payload. Or DELIVERY of payload.
With a fleet of these, a few would always be within range is to almost any land mass on earth, on less than an hour's notice.
After all, if you can put the wheels on the hash marks at the end of any runway, you could also but the entire vehicle through any given window of any given building.
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Re:Speculation in the article (Score:5, Interesting)
My logic (against a rival spacefaring nation): If you build it on a satellite, a strategically deployed paint fleck can render you defenseless until you can arrange for another satellite and launcher. Make a satellite maneuverable enough to dodge strategically deployed paint flecks and the fuel requirements may make your satellite huge and/or short lived. Put it on a space plane and you can dodge all you want, and just relaunch as needed if you don't dodge well enough.
My logic (against rogue states): if you build it on a geostationary satellite and guess wrong as to where the next threat is coming from, you now need another satellite. If you build it on a network of satellites, you need the whole bloody network to not have blind spots. If you build it on space planes, you just fly them over whomever is the rogue of the moment.
My logic (against the UN): satellites are subject to international treaties regarding the weaponizing of space. Planes-that-work-like-satellites are less so.
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My logic (against the UN): satellites are subject to international treaties regarding the weaponizing of space. Planes-that-work-like-satellites are less so.I
I don't think this is right. The only governing law on this topic (to date WRT the USA) is the Outer Space Treaty, which makes no distinction between planes, satellites, shuttles, etc. The method of carry isn't relevant, only the weaon's location: "stationed in outer space" and "in orbit" are both specifically banned, in addition to the surfaces of hea
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Strategically deploying paint flecks is a *lot* harder to do than you might think. Unpowered intercepts on the sort of trajectory that would matter for an item that small would require truly amazing knowledge of spacecraft disturbances, not to mention precise knowledge of starting position and velocity.
Everything is harder in space than people outside the industry like to think it is.
Re:Speculation in the article (Score:5, Interesting)
Really this just sounds like a fancier version of the SR-71/U-2 spyplane. Spy satellite are great things and can photograph pretty much anything given a long enough period of time; the problem is they're only going to be over the exact patch of dirt you're interested in perhaps once a week, and it might be cloudy (or night time!) when that happens.
Enter the spy plane. The U-2 and SR-71 (and A-12, but that was discontinued in the 60's) are designed to get "now" pics without having to wait. Call up Bobby Hill AFB in California or Hank Hill AFB in Virginia and in 8 hours you can get an up to date photograph of exactly what's going on anywhere in the world.
Now imagine you combine the two. The availability and speed of a spy plane, but the international benefit of staying out of of your enemy's airspace. Plus, due to the momentum it has, it stays in orbit for weeks, so after you buzz Moscow, you can do a course correction to your flying twinkie and hit up St. Petersburg, Beijing, Pyongyang, or Tehran to see where the weapons shipments are headed. Course corrections cost a lot of fuel for a satellite, which will be in orbit for years or decades, but course correction fuel on a reusable satellite that will only be up for a matter of weeks is cheap.
Also it's a lot harder to hit a new sattelite with an unknown and changing orbit. The chinese have proven that they can knock a U-2 flying at 90,000ft out of the air [google.com].
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The U-2's you speak of probably weren't at 90k (there was considerable speculation that Francis Gary Powers' altimeter had been tampered with as well), and had had their jamming equipment altered / sabotaged. They didn't just lob a couple of SAM's up and knock them out of the air.
Flying Twinkie? (Score:2)
I wonder what they’re calling it behind closed doors, though?
Two Words... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Two Words... (Score:5, Funny)
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FarScape.
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But twinkies are sponge cake and can be delicious and moist.
What the X-37 is REALLY doing in orbit... (Score:3, Interesting)
This is just conjecture. On a 'big' war day we are going to want to disable enemy satellites. We have ground based interceptors -- but there can be delays in launch windows, plus the 'bad' guys are going to be on guard and can take some evasive actions.
How about our little X-37 with a cargo bay and manipulator arm goes and pays those 'nasty' satellites a visit right now and attaches a few pounds of high explosive with a radio detonator. When the war starts you push a button and they all disappear!
Just in case they send a maintenance flight up, our little bomblets can also be equipped with a radio controlled 'spring' that detaches them from the satellite. No one is the wiser.
Possible?
Re:What the X-37 is REALLY doing in orbit... (Score:5, Insightful)
few pounds? a single hand grenade would take out any satellite. Imparting the energy from a single grenade or even a C4 charge will spin it out of control that the bird will never recover from.
you don't have to destroy it, just make it useless.
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Possible?
No not really.
Besides its not like it would need high explosives. Squirting some water on the satellites would cause some interesting damage that would be hard to track down.
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Or, more efficiently, a small cloud of undetectable debris, released on a colission course from an alternate orbit to impart a sufficiently large relative velocity. Make the orbit suitably eliptic and any debris that misses would burn up in the atmosphere within several orbits, and you can avoid collateral damage.
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Squirting water in a near-vacuum environment will result in what; either water vapor (instant evaporation) or ice chunks, right?
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Or..., attach something that can futz with the function of the bird. Killing it outright certainly removes an asset from enemy hands, but turning that asset can, under certain conditions, be even more valuable.
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Why an arm? Too slow.
Regular gun fire from a nose cannon or radar controlled short range rocket would do as well. Sats are thin skinned vehicles.
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Launch capabilities.
Armor is expensive to lift.
Doesn't matter. Kinetic energy tearing thru a sat destabilize it and disables it.
We've already seen what happens
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123438921888374497.html [wsj.com]
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Why would it deploy satellites when it is a satellite itself?
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The Flying Twinkie? (Score:2)
Look up there! It looks like... (Score:5, Funny)
Colonel: What is it, son?
Radar Operator: I don't know, sir, but it looks like a giant...
Jet Pilot: Dick. Dick, take a look out of starboard.
Co-Pilot: Oh my God, it looks like a huge...
Bird-Watching Woman: Pecker.
Bird-Watching Man: [raising binoculars] Ooh, Where?
Bird-Watching Woman: Over there. What sort of bird is that? Wait, it's not a woodpecker, it looks like someone's...
Army Sergeant: Privates. We have reports of an unidentified flying object. It has a long, smooth shaft, complete with...
Baseball Umpire: Two balls.
[looking up from game]
Baseball Umpire: What is that. It looks just like an enormous...
Chinese Teacher: Wang. pay attention.
Wang: I was distracted by that giant flying...
Musician: Willie.
Willie: Yeah?
Musician: What's that?
Willie: [squints] Well, that looks like a huge...
Colonel: Johnson.
Radar Operator: Yes, sir?
Colonel: Get on the horn to British Intelligence and let them know about this.
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this [imdb.com].
Secretive? (Score:2)
Is it just me? (Score:2)
Or does 6000 Kg annoy other people? Shouldn't that be 6 Mg?
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!nerds (Score:2)
It's obviously Thunderbird 2. You can all leave your geek cards at the door on your way out.
Germans Respond . . . (Score:2)
Article written before launch; more details (Score:5, Informative)
First off, while the article is a good one, it was actually written before launch. After the launch, there have been some intriguing details, particularly the fact that NOBODY outside of the classified world has been able to actually locate it in the sky. Normally amateur skywatchers are pretty good at locating satellites after they've launched, but apparently not in this case. Here's two possible explanations for this:
* the X-37B is testing low-visibility features, possibly either a stealthy payload shroud, low-visibility solar panels, or some other sort of camouflage/stealth system
* One possibility posited by Jim Oberg (the article author) elsewhere is that this may be the first test ever of an atmospheric orbital plane change, a technique desired since the 90s or earlier, where a spaceplane uses its wings to dip into the atmosphere while travelling at hypersonic speeds to alter its trajectory. The X-37B apparently doesn't have a high enough L/D ratio to perform an extreme plane change (e.g. near-equatorial to polar), but it may be able to alter its trajectory enough to make it damn hard to track from the ground.
Now, some people have been asking why a reusable spaceplane would be useful to the US Air Force. Some possibilities:
* The atmospheric plane change capability mentioned above, which would allow the Air Force to deploy satellites into trajectories unknown by those observed. One major problem with satellites is that other countries typically know when they'll be overhead, so they just make sure that anything they're trying to hide doesn't occur during those hours.
* If you add a retrieval arm or some other docking interface, you can potentially use the craft to alter the trajectory of existing satellites
* Although the X-37B was launched on an expendable Atlas V rocket, the Air Force recently put out a solicitation for proposals [hobbyspace.com] for a first-stage Reusable Booster System utilizing a technique known as boost-back. With boost-back, after the booster boosts the payload and/or 2nd stage, it then does a 180 and boosts/glides back to a landing strip so that it can be easily reused. Lockheed Martin tested a secretive prototype of such a system (which they dubbed "Revolver") a couple years ago. If you combine such Reusable Boosters with a beefier successor to the X-37B, you have a rapid-launch reusable "surge" capability long desired by the Air Force. Such a surge capability could be useful when you need to quickly launch many satellites, such as when you need to deploy many satellites over a particular region in wartime or many of your satellites are knocked out by anti-satellite weapons or solar storms. Currently the Air Force has to wait for several weeks or months per satellite.
For anybody interested in watching video of the launch (a rather beautiful launch of the Atlas V rocket), you can find it here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AdCpuv9RCwE [youtube.com]
Also, for those who are interested in finding out more, there's a lot of good discussion with plenty of current and former space professionals (including some posts by Jim Oberg, the author of the submission article) over at this NASASpaceFlight.com thread on the X-37B: http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=21122.285 [nasaspaceflight.com]
Secret... (Score:2)
One of the most secretive US Air Force spaceflights in decades
wow I wonder if 1 billion of /.ers can keep a secret...besides we don't have any friends to tell, do we?
What the shuttle can do that Orion can't... (Score:3, Interesting)
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SSTO is kind of a dumb idea, because in all configurations it involves dragging heavy, spent boost motors around with you while you maneuver in space on limited fuel.
But invent a booster that is 100% fuel and consumes its structure as it burns and you might have something.
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1. a. No need for a refueling ship to have to return, repair?
b. Maybe but it would have to be cheaper to launch this, bring back the satellite, repair it, and relaunch than to just replace with a new and probably better model. Plus will it be faster? Can you live with that bird out of service that long?
c. Monitoring? Maybe but why a return capability?
3. We already have Sigint and Commint satellites so an EW version is not to far fetched
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A KH-12 costs about 1.4 billion (at least) to build and launch, and are big enough that only Shuttle could bring them back, so refueling would be a good option there.
I really think this is an on orbit weapons platform, maybe a system that could be tasked with Rods from God and/or ASAT systems.
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Refuel yes but why put wings on what will basically be an empty tank when you are done?
What might be an even better solution for a photoint sat would be to separate the sensors from the propulsion module.
You could just launch a relatively cheap new propulsion unit on a smaller booster and swap it in for the old one in orbit. The old propulsion unit would separate and the new one would then doc with the sensor module.
Put a robotic arm on the propulsion bus so it could grapple the sensor bus. The old module w
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> Old news. It launched two weeks ago and disappeared going Mach 20 (ish). The atmosphere apparently has a sweet tooth.
That was the HTV-2, not the X-37B. They launched in the same week, but are two entirely separate projects.
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In fact, they launched within 52 minutes of each other.