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USAF's Robotic X-37B Orbiter Launched For Test Flight
An anonymous reader writes with this excerpt: "The United States Air Force's novel robotic X-37B space plane is tucked inside the bulbous nose cone of an unmanned rocket that blasted off Thursday from Florida on a mission shrouded in secrecy. ... The unmanned military Orbital Test Vehicle 1 (OTV-1) — also known as the X-37B — lifted off at 7:52 pm EDT atop an Atlas 5 rocket on a mission that is expected to take months testing new spacecraft technologies. ... Key objectives of the space plane's first flight include demonstration and validation of guidance, navigation, and control systems – including a 'do-it-itself' autonomous re-entry and landing at California's Vandenberg Air Force Base with neighboring Edwards Air Force Base as a backup."
oh no watch all the left wing closest conservatives whip themselfs for daring to read news from fox!
If you mod me down, I will become more powerful than you can imagine....
I agree, this is fantastic. After Obama's cancellation of our space program....
NOTE: Is anyone else sick, tired and disgusted about the people who disagree that cancellation is what he has done? As I explained to my kids: he says he wants to send a ship to a asteroid, and another to mars; however, he canceled the heavy lifter rocket that would have made either mission possible; What he has actually done is given just enough money to heavy lifter development so that he can deny shutting it down (800 million a year for development), and postponed anything that might require big expenditures until after his current term of office is up. read anything that Neil Armstrong is writing lately; he's as disgusted as i am. .... I'm frakking ecstatic about the x-37b; if it makes it safely back down from orbit, we could have a way to get people and small packages in to space WITHOUT relying on Russia, China or India.
This indicates to me that the U.S. military just might have a shuttle replacement waiting in the wings; I'm not talking "Blackstar" which would be great if it actually existed, I'm talking something with similar capabilities to the shuttle.
If Obama canceled our civilian space program so that the funding can go to the military project, I forgive him.
Why, yes, I AM a Pagan Libertarian.
I think it is cute that you believe that the President which is systematically demonizing one industry after another in order to create a fig leaf excuse for his administration to seize control is suddenly interested in helping to privatize space technology.
Obama did what he did to NASA in order to weaken the US and make it increasing vulnerable to the whims of other countries. His BS promises of submitting designs for a new launch system five years from now mean nothing.