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X-37 Flies but Runs Off Runway
mknewman writes "The X-37 drop test was completed today with a lift by White Knight. It had a successful flight but it ran off the end of the runway."
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It took off, it didn't explode ... two out of three aint bad, right?
I hadn't heard about this new project till I read the article. It's neat that Spaceship One's "White Knight" is being used to haul a DARPA-sponsored project into the Ether! This truly heralds a new age of independent aeronautics.
Phoenix, Boston, Little Rock, see a pattern?
The author was insuccessful in spelling "successful."
wouldn't bouncing count?
rewriting history since 2109
Trust me. They don't bounce.
See my journal for slashdot ID's by year. Mine created in 2005. http://slashdot.org/journal/289875/slashdot-ids-by-year
Obviously the runway wasn't long enough.
*sigh* You poor, poor, uneducated man. Don't you know that all you have to do to fly is to throw yourself at the ground and miss?
You're neither facetious nor a troll. You just can't R->C->P.
The article is about something that in fact hasn't been done before. This is the first time they were able to let it go from the White Knight.
Or is there some joke in your post that I'm not getting?
I am the inventor of the hilarious refrigerator alarm.
I don't mean to be facetious, or a troll
So what did you mean to be? A dumbass who can't read?
"Brakes? We don't need no stinkin' brakes!"
Gary Dunn
Open Slate Project
That's not flying, that's orbiting. Otherwise you don't miss, you hit.
We are the 198 proof..
Our president, Dr. Blofeld, has already been working on this for a long time now.
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
i mean come on worse things have been marketed and sold to us :D
I Predict A Riot
But if you miss, you don't hit.
Ow, my head hurts.
Karnal
"USA will likely use this project for warfare and opression." You're probably right about that. From the article:
:)
DARPA picked it up in 2004 for its potential military applications. As far back as 2001, NBC News producer Robert Windrem reported that the craft could be adapted to serve as a "space bomber."
Considering they are thinking about adapting it into a space bomber, I think we can safely say that it will be used for "warfare"
This is not a sig. This is a llama-duck. Quack.
you can walk away from is a good landing
antipaucity
NTSB Transcript:
...
WK Capt: Release!
X37: Shit! Shit! Like flying a goddamned brick!
CWS*: (Warning!Warning!)(Decent rate)(!WHOOP!)(!WHOOP!)
X37: Come on, come on, nose down you fuck!
RSO*: Xray three seven is Flight Level three two zero, droping like a brick!
LA CTR*: rgr Xray three seven, would you like to declare?!
X37: Negative LA, Xray three seven is A.O.K.
CWS: (!WHOOP!)(!WHOOP!)(Decent rate!)
X37 (intercom): Come on you piece of fucking shit!
*CWS - Cockpit Warning System
*RSO - Range Safety Officer
*LA CTR - Los Angeles Center
When they set it free, they said "Fly! Fly!".
It didn't want to stop flying.
Since the flight took place at Edwards AFB where the laid runways are several miles long and the rest of the desert is smooth and flat for miles around, either running out of runway was a non-event, or else it has a landing run of a hundred miles or more... which might need some work to fix. Like fitting brakes.
That won't air until the 15th of April I believe. Maybe someone leaked the first ep (again), but I haven't heard about it.
Both companies make civilian aircraft and rockets, and both do defense contracting.
Sure, and both have vowels in their corporate name, and both are run by men who wear pants to work and not togas. But on what many see as the key point of whether a company is willing to try radically new and different ways of getting into space, ways independent of the heavy hand of NASA bureaucratic design requirements -- and this is the "independent" I suspect the OP meant -- they're as different as chalk and cheese.
Boeing, like all aerospace majors, has tended to be very cautious about space vehicle design, perhaps in part simply because the cost-plus nature of major NASA and DoD contracts has meant there's less incentive to innovate. Why try some weird new design that may fail if the same old boring design, just multiplied by sixty, will work fine? So what if costs $bazillions? Your profit margin is guaranteed no matter how bloated the budget gets. And that does not even get into micromanagement by Congress, changing the mission requirements every 9 months at random, and institutional conservatism in NASA/DoD.
What many people hope is that a small company that is independent of this process, in the sense that they don't have any long history with the Feds, or gigantic conventional-warfare contracts to preserve, can be more innovative, and break the apparent barrier to lowering access to space costs that seems to have solidified in the past 20 years. It seems to these people incredible that it costs no less (or at least not much less) to put x pounds in orbit in 2006 than it did in 1969. They suggest it arises from fossilization in the big aerospace industry, fused with too-close a relationship to NASA/DoD, who are themselves paralyzed by the fickleness of Congress' support and the lack of any clear vision from the President.
Whether this is a true diagnosis of the situation remains to be seen, and people like Scaled, SpaceX, X-Cor, Virgin Galactic, et cetera will prove it one way or the other fairly soon.
"It had a successful flight but it ran off the end of the runway."
These guys need the White House spin doctors to make this look good...
"The test was successful because it ran off the end of the runway, after all, isn't "run" the operative word here?"
The H2G2 reference there went right over your head.
"USA fears Chinese millitary so it tries to develop weapons that Chinese army cannot shoot down or destroy"
Personally, if I were China, I'd spend less time worrying about Buck Rogers and more time worrying about the Seventh Fleet. You know, something far more terrestrial, closer to home, and something the Chinese military really can't do much about. But that's just me.
For those who prefer to get their news from industry-specific sources rather than general media, or for those who are boycotting the Microsoft-owned MSNBC, this space.com article might help.
r op.html
http://www.space.com/missionlaunches/060407_x37_d
It had a successful flight but it ran off the end of the runway.
It's not a bug, it's a feature!
Moderator hint: a comment is neither "Flamebait" nor "Troll" if it is true.
Just make the runway longer.
"A couple of well placed nukes would finish the 7th fleet."
Including the submarines? A single Ohio class carries 24 SLBMs, and any nuclear attack by China would result in a nuclear response from the United States, which China would assuredly loose (China's nuclear arsenal is nowhere near parity with the United States).
China's nuclear arsenal is about as much a meaningful threat to the US as space-based weapons are a meaningful threat to China. Again, it would make more sense for China to get back down to earth and modernize and expand the PLA Navy.
Apparantly the X-37 wasn't properly distracted at the critical moment. Either that, or one of the project's critics jumped out and said "You can't possibly be flying!", at which point, it became true. Yes, yes, I know the issue wasn't exactly with the flight, but with the landing. However, landing is arguably part of flight, and still needs control...
Hey, thanks for the insider's perspective. It was very interesting reading. One of the reasons I enjoy /. at random moments.
As a taxpayer and space enthusiast from the Apollo days, I'm not that unhappy with government and NASA. I figure they do pretty much as best as they can, given what Congress and by extension we the people tell 'em to do.
Now I'm older, and have experienced more government for myself, I think maybe it just has to go into private hands. You need someone like Musk or Branson at the top, someone with a driving passion and vision, to keep things moving and organized, and to encourage appropriate risks. Some of those guys will crash and burn, but some will succeed, and then we all win. I hope it works out, I really do. I always thought I'd maybe get a chance to take a trip to the Moon -- it seemed a cinch when I was 10 and watching Apollo 17 lift off. Now....well, maybe my son will get to go. I'd like that.
There really isn't any answer to your post. You've said it all. Perhaps the US might give away such equipment ; they would thus render the nuclear bomb obsolete and world peace closer. Perhaps you should stop watching "Star Trek". Perhaps you should get out more.
I just don't know.
How many beans make five, anyhow ?
I don't want to seem insincere here, but I really liked this bit
How are we to measure success (or the lack thereof) in this context (or is it a contest?) ? How are we to make a comparison between 2 dumbasses ? Their relative success in the speciality must be remarked ! What is the correct plural form of "dumbass" ? The need of a plural form is a worry !Oh s**t, never mind !
How many beans make five, anyhow ?
"Perhaps" was as far as I wanted to go - my feeling is that limits are required if you're dealing with other people's ideas. Didn't (and don't) want to disagree with anybody - just express my thought - if possible quietly.
Since this is Slashdot however, we do have the "because you can" syndrome. So, "because I can", I'll come down with my firm opinion about something - no perhaps.
But there, of course, you have but my opinion.As for your more obscure sci-fi reference, I have a question. Is this security through obscurity ? Don't know the reference, sorry. My daughter went to a "jammy party" not long ago. Is this what you're talking about ? She told me that they watched sci-fi films, but it was more a question of "proton jammers" if I have understood correctly. Don't know. Don't really see what this has to do with the Seventh Fleet. Unless, of course, they're sailing around the Pacific in their pyjamas ? This is "perhaps" a possibility - but I don't think we should consider it (if we can avoid it, that is).
How many beans make five, anyhow ?
I think you'll find China is something the Seventh Fleet can't do much about, not the other way round :)
Why would we care what's going on in mainland China? Without an effective counter to the US Navy, China can't realisticly threaten anything that would involve crossing water. The closest thing we have to an ally that shares a land border with China is India, and they have their own nuclear weapons. Forget Japan, PRC can't even stage an amphibious invasion of Taiwan if we were to decide to intervene.
Control of the Pacific Ocean means it would be far more likely for the US to invade PRC, not the other way around.
So you're saying China couldn't take out the seventh fleet? :)