X-37B Secret Space Plane To Land Soon 252
Phoghat writes "The highly classified X-37B Space Plane is scheduled to land soon. It was launched from Cape Canaveral in Florida on April 22 atop an Atlas 5 rocket, and the Air Force is still being very secretive on all aspects of the flight. We do know that it's set to touch down at Vandenberg Air Force Base's 15,000-foot runway, originally built for the Space Shuttle program. In many ways, the craft resembles a Shuttle with stubby wings, landing gear and a powerful engine that allows the craft to alter its orbit (much to the dismay of many observers on the ground). Its success has apparently given new life to its predecessor, the X-34, which had been mothballed."
Yawn (Score:3, Insightful)
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"highly classified...scheduled to land soon...very secretive on all aspects of the flight...set to touch down at Vandenberg
See what they did there? Oh man, this place is better than The Onion sometimes. And yes, an engine capable of orbital changes is easily capable of landing in northern Scotland instead of Vandenberg.
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I was stationed at Vandenberg years ago and really enjoyed all of the secret things that landed and took off from there. What was really interesting was a secret launch say at 2:00 AM and in driving to the launch site there would be a few hundred cars parked around the area. Some secrets were difficult to keep when the husband or wife had to be on site or near the site then everyone knew something was up and the word spread.
part of my job was to optically align missiles for flight and to program in their ta
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Highly classified spaceship carrying highly classified cargo returns to earth semi-unclassifiedly.
I believe that, besides covert installation of satellites, this will be used as an observation platform more mobile than hydrazine-limited satellites. Imagine if you could dip down to 50km, take pictures, and boost back up way more often than any satellite could possible do, because you don't have to conserve all propellent for a five-year-lifespan. You can also replace the optics on a much more regular basis than a satellite could.
Some nations might have developed cool things like ballistic trajectory h
Another launch? (Score:2)
Another launch of the craft may take place as early as this March.
That orbiter? Or another orbiter of the same type?
Launched April 22? (Score:4, Interesting)
You mean it's been in the air for seven months?
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You mean it's been in the air for seven months?
Yep. I think that's part of what makes it so freakin' cool.
Re:Launched April 22? (Score:5, Interesting)
You mean it's been in the air for seven months?
Yup, that's the cool part of it. Imagine the possibilities for an orbiter that is fully automated, can change orbit, and return to Earth & be refueled. Put a nice camera on that & you have a spy sat that can't be tracked easily. You might even be able to put a weapon on that since it can be reloaded.
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You mean it's been in the air for seven months?
Yup, that's the cool part of it. Imagine the possibilities for an orbiter that is fully automated, can change orbit, and return to Earth & be refueled. Put a nice camera on that & you have a spy sat that can't be tracked easily. You might even be able to put a weapon on that since it can be reloaded.
I suspect it would still be cheaper to design the satellites for a shorter life span and keep launching them into different orbits.
Re:Launched April 22? (Score:4, Insightful)
I suspect it would still be cheaper to design the satellites for a shorter life span and keep launching them into different orbits.
The cost of launching a satellite is in the tens of millions of dollars range.
Satellites are made to have longer and longer lifespans as technology evolves, because the higher cost of a more sophisticated satellite is easily compensated by needing less of those costly launch missions.
Maneuverability in a hostile environment (Score:4, Insightful)
I suspect it would still be cheaper to design the satellites for a shorter life span and keep launching them into different orbits.
Consider the advantage of maneuverability in a hostile (as in being shot at) environment, or in a situation where the geographical points of interest keep changing, or changing the time required to orbit so that someone on the ground can not predict an overflight very easily. The X-37 may carry more fuel, or have engines offering greater delta-v, than a satellite.
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I suspect it would still be cheaper to design the satellites for a shorter life span and keep launching them into different orbits.
Consider the advantage of maneuverability in a hostile (as in being shot at) environment, or in a situation where the geographical points of interest keep changing, or changing the time required to orbit so that someone on the ground can not predict an overflight very easily. The X-37 may carry more fuel, or have engines offering greater delta-v, than a satellite.
Maybe but this is the failed argument which killed the space shuttle at birth. It was cheaper to use disposable vehicles. Maybe thats changing now that launchers are getting cheaper, but I don't think USAF launch costs are going down yet.
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I suspect it would still be cheaper to design the satellites for a shorter life span and keep launching them into different orbits.
Consider the advantage of maneuverability in a hostile (as in being shot at) environment, or in a situation where the geographical points of interest keep changing, or changing the time required to orbit so that someone on the ground can not predict an overflight very easily. The X-37 may carry more fuel, or have engines offering greater delta-v, than a satellite.
Maybe but this is the failed argument which killed the space shuttle at birth. It was cheaper to use disposable vehicles. Maybe thats changing now that launchers are getting cheaper, but I don't think USAF launch costs are going down yet.
I don't see how your argument applies here. I don't recall the shuttle being billed as a reconnaissance vehicle. It may have been billed as an alternative method to deliver a recon satellite to orbit but that is not really relevant. I'm referring to the satellite being able to maneuver once it reaches orbit. How it got to that orbit, rocket or shuttle is irrelevant. What is relevant here is the maneuvering capability of a satellite in orbit versus the X-37 in orbit. The X-37 is not delivering a satellite,
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The payload capacity is too small to use for detailed ground observations. We can already scramble a drone in a short time frame if we have actionable intelligence that needs a quick look before a satellite flies over. It is most likely intended to be used for inspection of satellites (think Transformers 2 :)), refueling them, performing simple repairs, and experimenting with spaced based operations.
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The payload capacity is too small to use for detailed ground observations. We can already scramble a drone in a short time frame if we have actionable intelligence that needs a quick look before a satellite flies over. It is most likely intended to be used for inspection of satellites (think Transformers 2 :)), refueling them, performing simple repairs, and experimenting with spaced based operations.
Planes, etc. are sometimes not fast enough. Remember the day Clinton was supposed to have his impeachment trial, but it was delayed? That was when they missed Bin Laden because it took over and hour for cruise missiles to reach the target locations from the launching naval vessels.
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Think about other country's satellites you could steal, gut, and "borrow" they're technology. Anybody can put weapons or cameras in space. But to go up and remotely get something and bring it home? AWESOME.
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Nope, it hasn't been in the air for seven months - it's been in orbit for seven months. Which isn't particularly noteworthy as far as orbital lifetimes goes.
We've had spy satellites with that capability for over thirty ye
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I think the benefit of this is that you can test new high tech space payloads (Cameras, SIGINT ,etc)
without having to commit them to expensive launch vehicles sort of a Satellite rapid prototyping and test capability - pretty genius idea !
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everyone in the UN already agreed to not weaponize space. america would have hell to pay to the rest of the world if they ever found out.
I'm sure the American government would be just _SO_ scared that the UN might get a bit upset with them.
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It should be, other launch capable (them at the least) nations being upset about weaponizing of space is a hint how, at some point, somebody might get fed up enough to trigger Kessler syndrome, it would be fairly easy. Orbit is a great place for asymmetric warfare.
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It should be, other launch capable (them at the least) nations being upset about weaponizing of space is a hint how, at some point, somebody might get fed up enough to trigger Kessler syndrome, it would be fairly easy. Orbit is a great place for asymmetric warfare.
Kessler syndrome doesn't keep space from being used. The resulting mess would favor countries that have more launch capability (that is, they can throw up frequent, short term satellites) and who have assets in geostationary orbit (which would take a lot more effort to disrupt than LEO).
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In other words it would take very little effort to make the whole thing hugely more expensive, risky, and with less in return.
Mission, f****ng, accomplished.
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In other words it would take very little effort to make the whole thing hugely more expensive, risky, and with less in return.
True, but it also widens the gap between countries with serious space capability and those that can only throw up debris. Currently, anyone can put up a spy satellite and expect it to last a while.
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In other words - it won't make a difference for the small players (orbital capabilities of which could be easily targeted individually and destroyed or blinded as is), but will give a serious headache for the major ones.
Getting better.
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In orbit. It got dizzy and needs a break.
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"The X-37B has the requirement to be on-orbit up to 270 days,"
http://spaceflightnow.com/atlas/av012/100225x37arrival/ [spaceflightnow.com] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USA-212 [wikipedia.org]
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It's been in Space for seven months? It is a space ship, after all. A future flight will be one of the last of America's deep space probes. I've heard the pilot is William Rodgers; but I don't remember his call sign.
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The things you can do when you don't need to support a human passenger are pretty awesome. You could leave it up there forever and change orbits as long as onboard fuel allows. I believe this is proof-of-concept of on-orbit first strike capability. You can be anywhere in the world pretty damn quick when your craft in orbit clips along at tens of thousands of miles per hour.
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It has been in orbit for seven months. Technically there is still a bit of air up at 400 km, but not much.
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Low earth orbit is still part of the atmosphere, and not space.
Taxpayers get shit on.. End black budgets (Score:3, Funny)
Yes I notice the first few comments are retarded jokes. How about a serious reality check instead?
These warmongering black budget toys that the common taxpayer funds and has no say-so in need to be completely eradicated from the face of the Earth. There's a secrative corporate cabal operating within the government that is abobe the federal government and the united states congress and president, that answers to absolutely no one and uses your tax dollars to fund whatever they wish; mostly warmongering toys that perpetuate our neverending wars. Yes, you pay for all of this without ever having the privlidge to know what they are doing with your money nor do you have any say so in how the money is spent. This is all done under the farce of of "national security". Fuck the military industrial complex and these corporate cabals. It's time for the American people to wake up and stop being pussified by the CIA propaganda that is terrorism. If you would like to know who the real "terrorists" are, please kindly watch the 2 minute video below:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5XpXpl8uzFk&feature=player_embedded [youtube.com]
Yes, the United States of America are the terrorists, lead by secret societies that go back far before babylon.
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Personally, I blame the Vampirates.
Personally, I agree with the GPP... (Score:2)
I also believe that the Abobe are to blame.
Thank God (Score:5, Funny)
Thank God you didn't forget to post the above message as an "Anonymous Coward"!
I shiver to think what your punishment would be from the "secrative" cabal that goes back far before Babylon.
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Their name is Abobe - for there are many Bobs A-mong them.
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> Yes, the United States of America are the terrorists, lead by secret societies that go back far before babylon.
Cool! How do I join one of these secret societies?
Re:flamebait? (Score:5, Funny)
That's the scary thing. It could have been literally anyone! The conspiracy runs so deep that there barely are any ordinary Americans left. We are all government agents now.
You are one of the tiny handful who are not yet part of the conspiracy. There can't be more than a few hundred of you left, and we are brainwashing you at a rate of about three a month. I wonder if you will manage to uncover the true secret of our ancient mysteries before we discover your identity?
What does the military see in the X-34 (Score:5, Interesting)
The X-37 proved they could have a shuttle successor without the cost, politics and without Orrin hatch telling them what they had to buy.
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Re:What does the military see in the X-34 (Score:5, Interesting)
I thought rods from god was a good idea until I did the calculations... turns out dropping a 16-ton weight at 4km/sec is the same as about 30 tons of TNT.
Except it's not the same. The number of Joules released may be the same, but the TNT is an explosion, the rods-from-god is a bullet. Different game. Even a shape-charge can't put all it's energy into one tiny area.
(15 years or so ago there was a small iron-meteorite impact near here, size of a golf-ball, hit a swampy area, penetrated a metre of water and sludge and a couple of metres of solid rock. Probably had the E(k) of a hand-grenade. Hell of a different outcome though.)
Visibility? (Score:2)
I wonder what magnitudes it's visible at.
Last week I saw a light traversing the sky at ISS speeds, at -1 or -2 magnitude, except it was on a NE to SW vector... and I've only observed the ISS pass over on a west to east path.
I wonder if that was it.
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It's about +3.5 average (2.2 - 4.5) magnitude. It's orbital inclination is 40 degrees making it visible in the twilight sky when conditions are right anywhere between about 45N and 45S latitudes. It's orbital altitude is getting lower and it is maneuvering, both of which make predictions of where to look less precise, but http://www.heavens-above.com has predictions. It travels west to east.
Government By and For the Spies (Score:3, Insightful)
So the broke-ass, deficit-obsessed USA cannot afford to keep the Space Shuttle or any other NASA launch programme in operation for science, but no problem funding an even better shuttle for the CIA/NSA. Because those spooks are doing such a great job protecting us from the Qaeda and copycats, protecting our allies from N Korean bombing, protecting the world from Iranian nuke programmes...
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I wonder if there is some subtle psychological reasoning behind painting the NASA X-34 white and the military X-37B a shining Darth Vader helmet black....
At first I thought, "oh, to make it harder to see with a telescope," but then I RTFA and noticed that amateur astronomers have been tracking the thing in orbit, so I guess the paint job is just to make it look cool. Really, though, if I were in charge of a super secret space plane, I'd want it to look cool, too.
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I wonder if there is some subtle psychological reasoning behind painting the NASA X-34 white and the military X-37B a shining Darth Vader helmet black....
At first I thought, "oh, to make it harder to see with a telescope," but then I RTFA and noticed that amateur astronomers have been tracking the thing in orbit, so I guess the paint job is just to make it look cool. Really, though, if I were in charge of a super secret space plane, I'd want it to look cool, too.
Black surfaces radiate more heat than other surfaces [answers.com] so it is better for a heat shield to be black.
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Try reading before posting next time....
From your answer:
Emmisivity, or the ability of a black body to radiate or re-radiate in some cases, is highly dependent on many variables. Try re-asking the question.
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Ughhh. Wrong. White paints can rival some of te darkest paints for high emissivity. The critical issue is the alpha to epsilon ratio, or the ratio of absorption to emission. I do this for a living...the black is likely used to minimize reflection. In other words, to remain optically stealthy. That's it. Heck, regular white appliance epoxy comes close to .94 emissivity with only around .20 absorptivity. It's gleaming white, and comes close to fancy black coatings by Lockheed or others. The difference? I can
Re:Black and White (Score:5, Informative)
Black items will ABSORB more light. When light (i.e. the energy contained in a photon) is absorbed by a molecule, there are a certain number of likely fates for this energy. Remember, 'what goes up, must come down'
Yes, remember that. Black items will absorb more light, and also radiate exactly that much more heat.
The perfect absorber is also the perfect transmitter. Anything else would be a violation of the first law of thermodynamics, and we can't go around breaking them laws, now can we?
Re:Black and White (Score:4, Informative)
Yes, remember that. Black items will absorb more light, and also radiate exactly that much more heat.
Yeah but for a heat shield some heat comes from conduction and that is the same regardless of the albedo of the surface.
Re:Black and White (Score:4, Funny)
Ha! You're like totally wrong. And stuff.. (Score:4, Funny)
Everyone knows that BLACK is like the coolest color EVAR.
And space is like very cool. And black.
And that is why they paint the cool stuff like the supersecret space plane black - so it would be even more cool.
Like in space cool.
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All the equations I've ever seen modelling the radiation of heat have the emissivitiy value identical for both the absorbtion and emission of heat.
I.E. Absorbtion and emission of heat are the exact same thing mathmatically, they're just arbitrary terms that describe what "direction" the heat is travelling.
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I'm still concerned about the black vs white heat emission issue. The photochem and energy transport phenomena don't change on the 'outbound' side for white vs black. Perhaps the kinetics will change - but that wasn't part of the discussion before. And yes, the heat transport phenomenon will definitely be tied to the material, surface structure, etc. - I agree on those points that others have raised. But, those points are in agreement with my original point, not in opposition - the variable of concern
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The emissivity of a material (usually written or e) is the relative ability of its surface to emit energy by radiation. It is the ratio of energy radiated by a particular material to energy radiated by a black body at the same temperature. A true black body would have an = 1 while any real object would have
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emissivity [wikipedia.org]
The real super secret space plane ... (Score:2)
Was painted in a Cloak of Invisibility color from Sherwin-Williams, which is why nobody saw it. Just ask for it at your local Home Depot; they'll have it (the paint, not the plane).
Probably.
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Sorry but what do you mean black? Only the bottom looks black to me. It looks like almost the same colors as the shuttle. A lot of the colors are for thermal management and some because that is the color of the material. Almost none of it is "paint" except for some of the id stuff.
paint doesn't tend to do well at those temps.
Re:Black and White (Score:5, Funny)
Why don't you pull your head out of your ass? Is there some reason that you seem to walk around with a permanent fucking erection for yourself? Is your shit that fucking radioactive hot? Is your wife a fucking super model or something? Jesus. It's people like you that make me think that there is a purpose for torture, because I'd like to see you naked and blindfolded with a fucking battery charger clipped to your cock, in a dark room shackled to the fucking floor.
Wow. Just ... wow.
Hey everybody - Dick Cheney posts on slashdot!
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Actually my bet is that even Cheney has a better sense of proportion then this poster.
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funny but if you feel that I am incorrect why not post that I am wrong?
If I am correct what is your problem? Wow the fact that you care so much is actually kind of sad.
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"This plane is so easy to fly that your grandmother could land it."
As a 49 yo grandmother, feminist and C programmer of 20 years, I find that offensive. They wouldn't have said "grandfather" instead of grandmother.
Of course not. The chance of having a grandmother that can't fly is far higher than of having a living grandfather that can't fly.
This is for two reasons: Fewer female pilots, and women living longer than men.
The way to fix this is to obtain a pilot's license and fight for increasing the lifespan of men. Then you can feel offended.
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Well, could your grandmother land it?
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Yes she could.
Seeing as thee super secret plane carries no human passengers. pretty much any grandmother could push the button that is labeled, return home.
It is even red.
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which part of you got offended the most? The 49 yo, the grandmother, the feminist or the c programmer? I'm thinkin 20 years of programming is going to make anyone a bit touchy.
I would suspect it's the "49 years old" ... no woman likes to admit they're about to hit the big 5-0, and many of us stay 39 years old well into our 50s just like most guys suddenly have a second childhood, complete with sports car and 20-something girlfriend, around that age. Neither sex is immune to denial :-)
It can't be the 20 years of c programming, because I'm in the same situation - you generally don't stay a coder that long unless you enjoy it.
And it certainly shouldn't be feminists, because fe
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Tom:
Tell your woman to get her own damned Slashdot account.
That is all.
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Tom:
Tell your woman to get her own damned Slashdot account.
That is all.
Please read my slashdot profile [slashdot.org].
Or you could read this article from linuxinsider [linuxinsider.com]:
That is all;--p
-- Barbie
Re:I, for one, have childlike faith... (Score:5, Insightful)
That somebody will explain how our superiority in the highly competitive black-ops space-plane carrying mystery cargo arena will eventually be converted into a solution for the fact that we can't seem to fight a ground war against a 14th century tribal rabble armed with 1950's eastern bloc shit without getting our stuff blown up all the time...
You might find this surprising, but most military powers find it difficult to fight wars without getting their stuff blown up all the time. I think it has something to do with the presence of a "foe".
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Do the math, and you know that the only countries with enough people to actually be able to raise up a large enough army to win a ground war in Afghanistan (pop. 30 million) or Iraq (pop. 31 million) are China or India, and that neither has anywhere near enough trained soldiers to even think about it.
Even Russia, #1 with 21 million troops, couldn't do it.
Today, it's limited to "Go in, do the
Re:I, for one, have childlike faith... (Score:4, Interesting)
Ummmm. no. We could win a war against Afghanistan without putting one person on the group. We could bomb a country like that until not a structure stayed standing and the few who lived would be reduced to living in caves and living off of grass.
We somehow today equate winning a war with winning over the people and making them love us.
Re:I, for one, have childlike faith... (Score:4, Insightful)
We could win a war against Afghanistan without putting one person on the group. We could bomb a country like that until not a structure stayed standing and the few who lived would be reduced to living in caves and living off of grass
And they would still be trying to kill you whenever they could.
We somehow today equate winning a war with winning over the people and making them love us.
I thought you invaded Afghanistan to capture bin Laden, and bring democracy and human rights to the people there? Or is this one of those 'we had to kill the people in order to save them' things?
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And if you tried that then the other major world powers (Russia, China etc) would put you down like the mad dogs you'd have become. It's one thing to invade a smaller, shitty country, quite another to start mass exterminating its populace. You'd be a radioactive hole in the ground 15 minutes after you started to try.
That depends how many nuclear weapons you have. The rest of the world might start a total nuclear war to stop a genocide, but I wouldn't bet on it. More likely, they'd act through well armed proxies, trade embargoes, and other conventional, relatively subtle means. Those have been very effective in the past. For example, how could the US do a genocide in Afghanistan if a) no country will willing grant them safe passage, b) Russia and China smuggle in a huge amount of supplies to Afghanistan insurgents (some
Re:I, for one, have childlike faith... (Score:5, Insightful)
We somehow today equate winning a war with winning over the people and making them love us.
Well, isn't that the point? I mean, why are we in Afghanistan? Because many of the people there hated us and blew up some buildings. So we decided to kill a bunch of the people who hate us and leave only the people who love us, and make them love us more because we've invaded their country.
(I have to admit, it does sound pretty stupid when you put it like that.)
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That might be because it is stupid. Yet that's what the official justification for the wars amounts to, pretty much.
Unfortunately people weren't thinking enough of that back when all this crap was getting started.
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Air war weapon stockpile runs critically low [guardian.co.uk]
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If your definition of "winning" is "the other guy is dead", then yes, bombing them back to the Stone Age would work.
However, leaving aside the moral dimension, that's rarely a useful outcome. Bombing Afghanistan back to the Stone Age wouldn't serve as a deterrent to other nations like Saudi Arabia that actually provided the 9/11 terrorists, so you'd have to kill them too (if you need an example of this, notice how many bloodbaths the Soviet Union perpetrated, such as Hungary or Czechoslovakia, and how they
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I'd say that any plan to make a country friendly through war is unlikely to work unless you're willing to invest at least three decades and a few hundred billion bucks. Your investment into the country (in terms of supplied infrastructure, economic stimulus etc.) needs to greatly outweigh the damage you did during the war and it needs to be delivered over a longer time. Otherwise you're just th
Re:I, for one, have childlike faith... (Score:4, Interesting)
I've seen interesting comparisons between Germany/Japan and Afghanistan/Iraq by historians, and they make the point a little more bluntly than you do: Germany and Japan were beaten in war, which is to say the entire country went to war and lost, so the victor rebuilding the country in a friendly fashion was, not a right so much as about what a defeated enemy expected. The population absorbed the psychic shock of losing, of being on the wrong side, and so were receptive to pretty much whatever happened afterwards.
Not so in Afghanistan and Iraq, where 1) there was little popular identification with the regime in charge, and 2) individuals felt little personal loss when Coalition forces toppled the government in a surgical way. The populace never felt beaten. They never felt like they simply had to accept the replacement government, and judged it in the same way they judged the previous regime: Something outside their personal lives that had to be dealt with, either with acquiescence or insurgency or some straddling of the two options.
The upshot of this analysis is that it simply wasn't possible to execute "regime change" in Iraq and Afghanistan because the population was never going to be receptive to an American government. Government-by-forceful-imposition is doomed to fail.
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"The upshot of this analysis is that it simply wasn't possible to execute "regime change" in Iraq and Afghanistan because the population was never going to be receptive to an American government. Government-by-forceful-imposition is doomed to fail."
Your conclusion makes no sense given that you stated it worked in Germany and Japan.
"1) there was little popular identification with the regime in charge, and 2) individuals felt little personal loss when Coalition forces toppled the government in a surgical way.
Re:I, for one, have childlike faith... (Score:4, Insightful)
Except the British in (what was then) Malaya managed it against a force of communist insurgents and they didn't have 4 x the population of the country. Malaysia (as it is now) is now one of the most developed, peaceful and stable Asian countries - a testament to so many people there striving hard for peace. Other advantages: a reasonably respected 'prime minister' and population who bought into the idea that independence had to wait (over a decade) until the insurgents were defeated and potential communist recruits / supporters being looked after instead of massacred (with one possible exception).
Proviso: I say British, but the force that countered the insurgents was composed of Malayans, British, Gurkhas, Indians, New Zealanders and Fijians (possibly others too). The UK masterminded most of the plan. In case any reader is curious, the method was to consider it a police action - ie, really led by police intelligence working with civilians. The military was brought in only when killing was going to happen.
It's worth reading about as it's one of the few times that insurgents have been soundly defeated and a stable country left behind once the military have left.
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Also, the Falklands population is 3,140. Britain deployed a lot more than 4x that number of personnel in the Falklands war.
And if I recall my history correctly, Germany lost both world wars.
On to matters closer to home, the US planned to invade Canada [glasnost.de], and the information was declassified in 1974
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You might find this surprising, but most military powers find it difficult to fight wars without getting their stuff blown up all the time. I think it has something to do with the presence of a "foe".
Tell that to the Conquistadors.
Look at that. One counterexample in the past five hundred years and yet my statement still remains true!
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In fact...
A new University of Georgia study has found that despite overwhelming military superiority, the world's most powerful nations failed to achieve their objectives in 39 percent of their military operations since World War II.
39% hardly equates to *most*.
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As to the study, I hope you realize that they discussing a totally different criteria than whether or not both sides of a conflict are bloodied.
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we can't seem to fight a ground war against a 14th century tribal rabble armed with 1950's eastern bloc shit without getting our stuff blown up all the time...
Because for some reason we insist on not using 14th century tactics, which would be roughly "kill them all, God will know his own" (actually, 13th century). If we didn't care about non-combatant casualties it'd be over in a week.
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I logged in to post almost the same thing. If we were not a liberal democracy but had the same military firepower, we could wipe out Iraq and Afghanistan and not devote 1% of our firepower. Not that I want to see that.
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Google for Iraq ammunition shortages (and no, nukes are not viable / would hit hard your "allies", remember? Soviets didn't use them)
Re:I, for one, have childlike faith... (Score:4, Insightful)
Explain the Soviet Union's sojourn in the deserts of Afghanistan, then. They didn't seem to have a problem with civilian casualties.
The answer to the grandparent is that military force can't create a particular civil society. It can sure as fuck destroy a particular civil society, but getting the populace to actually vote the way you want them to isn't easily done by bayonet, unless the bayonet is right there, pointing at them.
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
These space planes were developed largely in response to fears that the NASA space shuttle program would be cancelled as a result of the Challenger incident in 1986. Further problems with Columbia forced the Air Force to pick up the pace and sealed the fate of the remaining space shuttle program.
Re: (Score:2)
There never will be commercial space ships. Get over it.
As trolls go, I'm afraid I can only give you 2/10 for that one.
Re: (Score:2)
Not needing to lug your oxidant along on the first stage is a HUGE win. The same $ would give you a 5x to 10x greater LTO capacity. At that cost, it's not a stunt - it's a true space tug, unlike the shuttle.
Re: (Score:2)
Not needing to lug your oxidant along on the first stage is a HUGE win. The same $ would give you a 5x to 10x greater LTO capacity.
Ignoring the small detail that, when the actual technical case studies (or even basically aborted, later, efforts) take a closer look, the gains turn out to be negligible at best to "dumb rocket" using comparably advanced tech.
Re: (Score:2)
We don't need to pipe liquid hydrogen through the wing to cool it, so there goes all the dead weight of the plumbing associated with it, and the associated losses of carrying enough extra H2 that won't be used for thrust for cooling on re-entry.
It makes a big difference. The space shuttle wouldn't have been possible either without it.
-- Barbie
Re: (Score:2)
What? Many approaches didn't envision the cooling systems that you mention. They still turn out to not give any returns, at best, when studied closer.
How most of the flight must happen outside the atmosphere (which dumb rocket knows, getting the hell out of it as quickly as possible - while spaceplane you envisioned lingers), the basics of rocket equation / how spaceplane wastes lots of payload fraction for airframe - probably means things won't change significantly for a long time, except for some niche us
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Second, the Saturn V, with a truly huge throw weight (262,000 pounds to LEO), could launch full assemblies into orbit that would require many smaller missions to
Re: (Score:2)
It turns out the fuel itself is only a small fraction of the total cost of a rocket launch. Turning to a more complex air breathing launch mechanism raises the overall cost, rather than lowering it, because of the technical difficulty involved.
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So the ideas looked at the time involved circulating liquid hydrogen through the wing to keep it cool - sort of workable for the launch portion, despite the increased complexity and additional dead weight, since you can then burn it, but a
Re: (Score:2)
They should come down from one of the slow orbits?
If you are an adult you are beyond help.
If not pay attention to your science teachers.
We can't help you here.
Re:Can anyone tell me? (Score:5, Informative)
The direction of that fall is mainly controlled by the forward motion of the craft and the centrifugal effect by that speed allows it to stay in orbit above the atmosphere.
So once you start breaking this forward speed, usually by firing rockets, the gravity starts to win from the centrifugal force and the craft starts to come down.
When you brake carefully the craft will slowly enter the atmosphere and now be slowed down when encountering the high altitude atmosphere, the problem is the speed at that time is still extremely high causing a lot of friction heat.
Would you brake hard with the rockets the craft would fall out of orbit much quicker and enter the denser parts of our atmosphere much sooner causing extreme friction braking and heat, basically the craft would burn up like a meteorite.
So the trick is to brake in a sensible way and have a craft that can withstand the inevitable friction heat long enough to slow down and enter navigable levels of the atmosphere where the wings can take over.
Re:Can anyone tell me? (Score:4, Informative)
I was looking at the photos and was thinking about the wing size. "That's because they fly very fast because they re-enter the asmosphere really fast." But then I thought "why do they need to re-enter that fast? Surely they could use the atmosphere to slow themselves down, and enter at a much slower, cooler and more relaxed pace." Then I thought "well maybe the gravity has a fair amount of time to act on the craft before the atmosphere really begins, therefore giving plenty of opportunity for speed, well before a viable way to slow down"
Am I right? Does someone have a better explaination?
Here's a link with the basics: Nasa's Landing 101 [nasa.gov]
When the shuttle de-orbits, it fires it's engines in the opposite direction to it's orbit's travel to slow it's forward velocity, which is several magnitudes faster than ground speed (17239.2MPH for the ISS). At this point, the shuttle's inertia stops counteracting the pull of gravity, and the shuttle starts "Falling", like swinging a bucket full of water around on a string, then slowing down the rotation.
Given that there is no atmosphere at this height, the shuttle can accelerate (at 9.81m/s^2) to speeds well in excess of "terminal velocity" as there is no drag to slow it. It typically hits the atmosphere (80 miles up) after 30 minutes of freefall, travelling at speeds of at least twice the speed of sound.
The orbiter then uses it's aerodynamic profile to control its descent, making a series of sharply banking turns to brake it's speed as it descends through the atmosphere, the friction of the air moving against the underside of the orbiter heating the heatproof ceramic tiles up to white hot.
So, here's the answer to you question is "Because gravity has been pulling them down for half an hour before they even hit the atmosphere". In theory, they could use retro thrusters to brake their descent before they hit the atmosphere (Like the Apollo missions did with their lunar landers), but as that would take immense amounts of fuel (close to that required for blast-off) it would make the orbiter's payload capacity virtually nil. Therefore it is easier for them to take the descent into the atmosphere with the best high-speed aerodynamics they can, using the friction of wind resistance to slough off the excess speed, trading it for heat that can be dealt with as they aerodynamically slow their descent and approach the ground at a safe speed.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
on the parent. Why exactly don't we do low-speed, low-friction
reentries by using the upper atmosphere's low-density layers for slow
braking?
Slow reentry is a thing that has been seriously considered for a long time:
Just slowly drop down in increasingly dense air, use the increasing lift you
can get there to stay aloft, and wait. After a while, the spacecraft will be
low and slow enough to land, with much less stress on crew and