US To Launch Military Orbital Spaceplane

An anonymous reader writes "Not only is the US readying its first 100% military spaceplane for a November launch, but it's going to push NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter mission til 2009: 'The USAF and Boeing will launch the X-38B — the first military orbital space plane if you discount the secret military shuttle — on top of an Atlas V rocket in November. They want to test its flying features in space and during atmospheric reentry. And probably its anti-matter rays and nuclear bays and hyperspace engines too (but of course, they are never going to tell you that). However, there seems to be a conflict with the civilian space program which may push one of the Moon exploration missions to 2009.' Screw the moon. We have to defend ourselves against all those alien extremists from Mars!"

Comments

Weird

[SimonGhent]

That is probably the oddest article summary I've ever seen here.

Reads like a promo for the new X Files movie.

Re:Weird

[johannesg]

Yeah, but at least it follows the SSAS ("Slashdot Standards for Accuracy in Summaries") pretty well! Let's see:

- The summary calls the vehicle "X38B".
- The article calls it "X37B".
- But the article also has a picture of a craft clearly labelled "X40A". Of course that could just be a red herring.

Maybe the editors figured they'd just average the numbers from the article to be on the safe side?

Re:Red Planet Mars anybody?

[pacinpm]

Isn't space meant to be like demilitarized zone or something?

Re:Militarization of space ?

[Sqityl]

Isn't there an international treaty signed by US and Russia against this ? Is that the start of a new race ?

You'd be referring to the Outer Space treaty, right? Well, it doesn't actually block the militarization of space, just the placement of weapons of mass destruction. So long as they don't fill this thing with nukes they should be fine. While I'm an outright pacifist, it is good to see actual progress in space travel, perhaps the discoveries made by engineering this spaceplane will advance more peaceful spacecraft in the future.

Re:First Post

[xalorous]

Re-railing this first thread:

1. The first picture on gizmodo clearly shows a X-40A, not an X-37B.
2. Secret military shuttles?
3. Secret orbital bases?

Kind of hard to have secret anything these days, especially aircraft that fly into space, and more so for things that are in orbit. Any nut job with a telescope can see stuff in orbit. Shuttles lifting off are fairly dramatic, and show up on satellite scans like a turd in a punch bowl. As for secret shuttles, why bother when the DoD just schedules a military launch of one of the shuttles and keeps the payload a secret. And where are 'they' hiding the orbital platforms? Behind the moon?

Seriously, what kind of paranoid lunatics write stories over at gizmodo? They should stick to reviewing the iPhone and keeping tabs on Steve Jobs' not so well hidden agenda to take over the Interweb and make it so only Apple equipment is used.

Sheesh!

Summary and article are full of crap

[YA_Python_dev]

Isn't space meant to be like demilitarized zone or something?

Yes, the Outer Space Treaty prohibits military bases, any kind of weapon tests and the permanent placement of WMD anywhere outside the Earth's atmosphere (nuclear ICBMs are OK as long as they stay in space only temporary on their way to their destination).

But the article (and even more so the summary) is mostly sensationalist crap: the real news here is that they are doing a test of the small and unmanned Boeing X-37B technology demonstrator. But I guess yet another engineering step in a slow technology development program doesn't sound as much as newsworthy for people that are not in this kind of thing.

Oh, BTW, there has never been anything like a "secret military shuttle" (you simply can't hide anything like that in space). There where a few NASA Shuttle missions in the 80s dedicated to the deployment of military satellites, but the DoD has for a very long time launched its payloads on Atlas and Delta rockets. If something is broken, it's much chepear to simply launch a new one that to mount a risky STS maintenance mission (and the Shuttle can't reach most of the orbits used by military satellites). So this has absolutely nothing to do with the planned STS retirement in 2010.

checklist

[Patrik_AKA_RedX]

Ion engines: No
Laser cannons: No
Photon torpedos: No
Shields: No
Warpcore/hyperspace drive: No
Matter/antimatter reactor: No
Transporters: No
Long Range Scanner: No
Sort Range sensors: Yes
Space capabilities: Kind of.

Buyers advice:

This space fighter doesn't have any of the selling features of other space fighters on the market. The lack of ion engines make this a very dated craft. It is more appropriate for a museum than the space age. Buyers are adviced to look into more complete craft like the X-wing or the TIE-advance. This craft makes the old and very well known to be unsafe TIE-fighter look good.

Re:Red Planet Mars anybody?

[q-the-impaler]

The US is insane when it comes to overkill. Half of all taxes go to the military, and our forces dwarf Russia, China, and the "axis of evil" combined.

Wow, you pulled that out of your ass.

2008
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Fy2008spendingbycategory.png

21% goes to our dwindling Social Security porgram.
16.6% goes to the DoD
13.3% goes to Medicare
11.2% goes to unemployment
9% pays the interest on national debt
7.2% goes to Medicaid
5% went to the war on terror
2.4% Health and Human Services
etc.

So to summarize: only 21.6% went to the protection of the U.S. whereas well over 60% went to social programs

Because high taxes now...

[bobbuck]

always mean lower taxes down the road! Good plan! I love the theory that once politicians get a certain amount of money, they just don't want any more. I'm guessing your kids will only have to pay 1-2% income tax.