X-37B Secret Space Plane To Land Soon

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."

Comments

Black and White

[ColdWetDog]

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....

Re:Black and White

[onionman]

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.

Re:Black and White

[MichaelSmith]

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 so it is better for a heat shield to be black.

Re:Black and White

[LWATCDR]

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

[pe1rxq]

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.

Re:Black and White

[Atraxen]

Not only would I insist that this is an incorrect statement, that isn't what your link says at all.

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' - an excited molecule will relax through one of these processes:
  - fluorescence or phosphorescence - the light comes out a different (and lower energy) color (these differ by how long they take to occur).
  - photochemistry - they react with something or break apart while excited. Bonds are made or broken.
  - vibrational energy (i.e. HEAT) is given to surrounding molecules.

The third (heat) is by far the most likely outcome, and occurs alongside the other two EVERY TIME! In other words, because it is black it ends up with MORE heat energy. It is not radiating more heat because it's black; it is getting more heat because it's black, which as a result means more heat is given off.

AND - a black satellite will overheat much faster,which goes directly against your logic.

There are a number of different tile types that are black: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Shuttle_thermal_protection_system gives a nice rundown.

The only way that black would help dissipate heat is that when heated up, the blackbody photons they give off would yield a minor loss of heat energy (multiple small vibrational packets of energy put together to make a light photon, if you will...)

Re:Black and White

[Anonymous Coward]

Black items may absorb more light, but they also can radiate heat more effectively. It's not mutually exclusive.

Re:Black and White

[tomhudson]

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!

Re:Black and White

[arth1]

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

[LWATCDR]

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.

Re:Black and White

[MichaelSmith]

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

[LWATCDR]

Actually my bet is that even Cheney has a better sense of proportion then this poster.

Re:Black and White

[sentientbeing]

Not in this house, Lisa

Re:Black and White

[Xaositecte]

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.

Re:Black and White

[sugarmatic]

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 see the mission from 300 miles away after launch with a small celestron telescope with no problem...just look for the large flash. If it were black, I doubt I'd ever find it downrange. Nothing fancy or mysterious about hwy they are doing this. The last thing they want is a mission making Iridium-like flashes all over the place. It's a significant part of the design for a lot of these satellites.

Re:Black and White

[Atraxen]

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 for out 'other' category is NOT color, but material! Color becomes an issue when determining the energy in, not the energy out.

People are getting caught up on the issue of a blackbody vs whitebody. They will both emit light from the 'blackbody' process based on temperature, not color. Remember that the terms 'blackbody' and 'whitebody' are tied to thepractical experimental side that led to the fundamental measurements.. All objects will have both blackbody (emittive) and whitebody (reflective/scattering) behavior in different proportions. Perhaps I was not careful enough in setting that up in my earlier post. In the end, the albedo differences some pointed out are tied to the reflective/scattering behavior generally 'drowns' out and blackbody components. So I are that a low albedo is preferable for a 'spy' satellite (and the sort), but that has to be balanced against the light absorption heating.

So, the discussion is a tangent from the original point - the whatever-paint-body will lose a small amount of thermal energy by emission of a photon. This process will likely be slower than the rate of absorbed photons in all cases I can imagine for an orbiting body (unless perhaps it's parked in the shadow of a planetary body - then we'd need numbers for Mie scattered light around the planet, etc. But now we're really running afield.) So:
      energy out - independent of paint color
      energy in - minimized for low absorptivities (i.e. white or reflective)

So, if you're minimizing solar heating for an orbiting body, black is a poor choice. When you begin balancing this against detectability, you have a more multivariate problem. But even there, I would aim for a high reflectivity approach that is directional, and directed away from potential observers. Or (in the ideal world where we do not live) for 100% efficiency solar panels (in the realistic world, perhaps a transformation of the light into something mostly other than heat can still thread the needle. Again, tangential.)

For my money, I'm going for a surface that's highly reflective but highly directional, and I'd pont is somewhere I never expected an observer. Better yet, I'd have an umbrella (black) set up in that direction in case an observer ever was there. And, while I'm wish listing, I'll put that high efficiency solar converter at this point, to further mask the 'beam' reflected and turn it into useful power, that doesn't heat the real satellite (so we want a tether with minimal heat transfer.)

(Merry Christmas all, the outline for a DARPA grant - if it hasn't already been done.)

Re:Black and White

[Anonymous Coward]

"I'd like to see you naked and blindfolded with a fucking battery charger clipped to your cock ..."

You obviously have never tortured anyone. A battery charger produces 12 volts, which will not
cause any significant pain to the victim.

Those who know use ignition coils, which produce in excess of 40,000 volts.

You should try to learn more about what you're pretending to know about before you post pathetic bullshit, you
sorry little wannabe sadist.

Re:Black and White

[LWATCDR]

Do you have to give this person any ideas?
Frankly I would prefer them to remain ineffectual if it all the same to you. Frankly I don't really understand why they feel I am worth the effort.

Re:Black and White

[Cheney]

Duh. ;)

Re:Black and White

[rossdee]

I would guess the x-37 is black to make it harder to see in space., not because black is the colour of evil.

Re:Black and White

[tibit]

Try 12V via needle electrodes directly into the muscle :) BTDT, no thanks.

Re:Black and White

[fluffy99]

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....

No psychological reason. The radar absorbing material is naturally black. Painting it white would be pointless.

Re:Black and White

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah it's just another Dick.

Re:Black and White

[Anonymous Coward]

Absorption and emission are equal at a given temperature at the same wavelength. So pavement heats up in the summer because it absorbs solar radiation with a peak wavelength of something like yellow better than it emits infrared, so it warms up a bit without violating anyone's precious laws.

Yawn

[Aerorae]

Highly classified spaceship carrying highly classified cargo returns to earth semi-unclassifiedly. Slow news day on /.

Re:Yawn

[History's Coming To]

You missed the bit where they said:

"highly classified...scheduled to land soon...very secretive on all aspects of the flight...set to touch down at Vandenberg ...powerful engine that allows the craft to alter its orbit (much to the dismay of many observers on the ground)."

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.

Re:Yawn

[Sanat]

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 targets, launch codes and operating system.

I really enjoyed that duty.

Re:Yawn

[Kagura]

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 hypervelocity antiship missiles and other things, but I'm glad the United States is generally on the forefront of cutting edge strategic capabilities. I don't want Pax Americana to end, because I don't see any better alternatives humanity is capable of handling right now.

Re:Yawn

[millia]

Years ago, I was a military brat there. One day, everybody spent all day waiting for the MX missile test launch. It was going to happen just after 7. Everybody knew this, even though it was a highly 'secret' event. (They also used to send the MP's around telling everybody to go indoors when there were other 'secret' launches.)7
It wasn't like the Soviets hadn't been informed there was a launch, anyway.

Speaking of, the runway wasn't *built* for the shuttle, it was extended. They used it to land c-5a's and such before.

Another launch?

[MichaelSmith]

Another launch of the craft may take place as early as this March.

That orbiter? Or another orbiter of the same type?

Re:Another launch?

[Anonymous Coward]

The one currently in space is OTV-1 (Orbital Test Vehicle #1), the next launch will be of its sister, OTV-2.

Launched April 22?

[93 Escort Wagon]

You mean it's been in the air for seven months?

Re:Launched April 22?

[onionman]

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?

[Anonymous Coward]

No it's been in space.

Re:Launched April 22?

[Aqualung812]

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.

Re:Launched April 22?

[MichaelSmith]

In orbit. It got dizzy and needs a break.

Re:Launched April 22?

[MichaelSmith]

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?

[wgibson]

Yes, this mission was launched seven months ago, and is not even going on the limit of its capability..

"The X-37B has the requirement to be on-orbit up to 270 days,"

http://spaceflightnow.com/atlas/av012/100225x37arrival/ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USA-212

Re:Launched April 22?

[mangu]

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.

Re:Launched April 22?

[Dausha]

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.

Re:Launched April 22?

[wiredlogic]

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.

Re:Launched April 22?

[TooMuchToDo]

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.

Re:Launched April 22?

[TooMuchToDo]

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.

Re:Launched April 22?

[Anonymous Coward]

You might even be able to put a weapon on that since it can be reloaded.

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.

Re:Launched April 22?

[arth1]

Low earth orbit is still part of the atmosphere, and not space.

Re:Launched April 22?

[0123456]

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.

Re:Launched April 22?

[sznupi]

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.

Re:Launched April 22?

[DerekLyons]

You mean it's been in the air for seven months?

Yup, that's the cool part of it.

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.
 

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.

We've had spy satellites with that capability for over thirty years - and much better ones than this spaceplane can ever be, since they have payloads considerably larger. (Think orders of magnitude.)

Re:Launched April 22?

[mrsquid0]

It has been in orbit for seven months. Technically there is still a bit of air up at 400 km, but not much.

Re:Launched April 22?

[khallow]

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).

Re:Launched April 22?

[sznupi]

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.

Re:Launched April 22?

[khallow]

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.

Re:Launched April 22?

[sznupi]

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.

Re:Launched April 22?

[Dolphinzilla]

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 !

Re:Launched April 22?

[Kagura]

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.

Re:Launched April 22?

[the_other_chewey]

We've had spy satellites with that capability for over thirty years - and much better ones than this spaceplane can ever be, since they have payloads considerably larger. (Think orders of magnitude.)

Do you mean the Space Shuttle? In case you don't, what are you talking about?
(serious question, I'd like to know what I missed.)

Re:Launched April 22?

[budgenator]

The Outer Space Treaty represents the basic legal framework of international space law. Among its principles, it bars States Parties to the Treaty from placing nuclear weapons or any other weapons of mass destruction in orbit of Earth, installing them on the Moon or any other celestial body, or to otherwise station them in outer space. It exclusively limits the use of the Moon and other celestial bodies to peaceful purposes and expressly prohibits their use for testing weapons of any kind, conducting military maneuvers, or establishing military bases, installations, and fortifications (Art.IV). However, the Treaty does not prohibit the placement of conventional weapons in orbit. The treaty also states that the exploration of outer space shall be done to benefit all countries and shall be free for exploration and use by all States. Outer Space Treaty

I don't think you actually read the treaty now have you.

Re:Launched April 22?

[X0563511]

Don't forget though, the craft is (supposedly) unmanned.

Citation: http://www.af.mil/information/factsheets/factsheet.asp?fsID=16639

Re:Launched April 22?

[X0563511]

More info on this actual misson:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USA-212

Re:Launched April 22?

[DerekLyons]

We've had spy satellites with that capability for over thirty years - and much better ones than this spaceplane can ever be, since they have payloads considerably larger. (Think orders of magnitude.)

Do you mean the Space Shuttle? In case you don't, what are you talking about?
(serious question, I'd like to know what I missed.)

Serious answer: You've missed pretty much the entire history of US spy sat development.

Re:Launched April 22?

[camperdave]

Wrong. While yes, technically it is still in the atmosphere, the atmosphere is too thin to be used aeronautically, so anything above 100km is considered to be in space. LEO is in space.

Re:Launched April 22?

[the_other_chewey]

Serious answer: You've missed pretty much the entire history of US spy sat development.

No I haven't. But let me quote what you stated has existed for at least thirty years:

... an orbiter that is fully automated, can change orbit, and return to Earth & be refueled. (bolding mine)

Care to name a single example that isn't a Space Shuttle?

Re:Launched April 22?

[arivanov]

Not quite.

All miscreants out there have a regularly updated almanach which tells them when they are "under the bird". That is why the UAVs have managed to achieve much more than spy satellites. However you cannot launch a UAV over China, Russia or anything more advanced than a banana republic. Here a craft that can be refuelled is priceless.

The worrying element however is Russia's rumoured response to these developments. It is considering unfreezing the development of the Uragan space interceptor. http://www.astronautix.com/craft/uraeptor.htm That is an outright military platform armed to the teeth. It was frozen back in USSR days because USA stopped launching the shuttle from Vanderberg same as the freezing of Polus/Skif. However most parts exist till this day in storage and reviving them will not take long. That will take the ABM and weapons race to a whole new level.

Re:Launched April 22?

[MichaelSmith]

But it can't be fuelled while in orbit. It has to land, be refitted, and launch again. Before then you can launch another vehicle.

But I wonder if the X-37B could do something like a scoop run, but pushing laterally off the atmosphere. Consider putting this vehicle into an eccentric orbit with a period of half a day or so and a perigee low enough for aerobraking. Every pass drops apogee somewhat but you have a lot to spare. A lateral impulse while aerobraking gives you enough of a plane change that the vehicles location can't be predicted, and the bad guys don't know when to hide.

Re:Launched April 22?

[stiller]

Well, they should be. The whole point of this was to prevent the arms race from escalating further. Remember the cold war? No probably not.

Re:Launched April 22?

[Phoghat]

It seems that we might have a BSG situation sooner or later. I can just imagine a X37, with a pilot and gunner, equipped with missiles and maybe a Gatling gun or 2 going up against a Uragan that's "armed to the teeth"

Re:Launched April 22?

[Dr La]

Several classified reconnaisance satellites have been operational for up to 20 years (e.g. the Lacrosses) without a need for refueling or return to earth. This while they manoeuvre several times a year.

Lacrosse 2, a radar reconnaisance satellite, is still operational and was launched in 1991, 19 years ago. USA 129, a KH-12 Keyhole, is still operational and was launched in 1996, 14 years ago. All these manoeuvre several times a year.

The only real benefit from a space plane that you can land over an ordinary reconnaissance satellite, is that you periodically can upgrade the equipment. But then, you can alternatively just periodically launch a new upgraded version of a satellite (as has been done the past decades) and reach the same benefits in terms of reconnaissance.

So the question really is, what edge such a space-plane has over an ordinary satelite. It is clearly not the manoeuverability and refuelling.

Re:Launched April 22?

[Anonymous Coward]

The UN, better known as the "see, you can be a whole man again after castration" government.

Re:Launched April 22?

[Dr La]

The only benefits of a space plane are in the realm of what can be considered offensive military action

A space plane can be used to inspect and even retrieve enemy satellites. Inspecting foreign satellites can also be done with conventional satellites however, and the USA has satellites capable of this (the MiTex satellites, which they used to inspect a mal-functioning military early warning satellite, DSP-23, straying out of its designated orbit). So the only real advantage here is the option of retrieval.

Re:Launched April 22?

[Anonymous Coward]

You think the American Government would be cool with China putting some weapons up in orbit?

Yeah thats why we have a thing called diplomacy. If you don't put weapons in space, then we won't either. You break that agreement, maybe its not a big deal that UN get pissed off, but you've implicitly given everyone else permission to break it too.

You don't abide by UN rules because you're afraid of the UN. You do it because you want the other members of the UN to abide by them too.

Re:Launched April 22?

[605dave]

I think his call sign was Duck.

Re:Launched April 22?

[Anonymous Coward]

You mean it's been in the air for seven months?

Well, very, very thin air ;)

Re:Launched April 22?

[ALeader71]

Even better. Just as the settlers followed the pioneers and explorers and trucks followed the more exclusive horseless carriages, a private firm could build repair bot versions and start the first industrial space enterprise. With near Earth space filling up, this will be a necessity.

Re:Launched April 22?

[Muad'Dave]

The Lacrosse and Keyhole birds can maneuver in altitude, but can't change their inclination as the X-37 is thought to be capable of doing.

Re:Launched April 22?

[Dr La]

You are wrong: the Lacrosses and Keyholes can and occasionally do manoeuvre to change their inclination. It is one of the reasons why they usually manoeuvre when perigee coincides with nodal passage (in that way, the inclination can be changed with minimal power and fuel needed).

Inclination changes with these satellites usually are low though, for the simple reason that they are part of a fixed constellation of sister ships, so want to maintain their respective orbital positions with regard to each other. This is actually the very reason why they need to be able to and indeed do adjust their inclinations from time to time (as these otherwise would start to drift from the target inclinations).

Re:Launched April 22?

[Muad'Dave]

Thanks for the correction.

Offensive

[Anonymous Coward]

From the article:

"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.

Re:Offensive

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:Offensive

[Anonymous Coward]

Of course they wouldn't, grandfathers are men so it's obvious THEY could fly it.

Re:Offensive

[tomhudson]

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 feminists nowadays recognize that we don't all have to be pant-suit-wearing, bra-burning, man-hating asexual clones.

And it can't be the "grandmother" thing ... unless you're granny and you re afraid that your relatives want to stick granny into one of these and fire you into orbit for 9 months without life support. We all probably have one relative who, in our darker moments, we like to imagine might "benefit" from such treatment, but we don't REALLY wish that on anyone.

No, I'd guess it's the age thing.

-- Barbie

Re:Offensive

[Anonymous Coward]

Strange, yesterday you were a "radar antenna designer of 20 years". Maybe instead of "grandmother" or "grandfather", we should just say "cut-n-paste troll".

Re:Offensive

[Anonymous Coward]

Tom:

Tell your woman to get her own damned Slashdot account.

That is all.

Re:Offensive

[arth1]

"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.

Re:Offensive

[guyminuslife]

Well, could your grandmother land it?

Re:Offensive

[peragrin]

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.

Re:Offensive

[tomhudson]

Tom:

Tell your woman to get her own damned Slashdot account.

That is all.

Please read my slashdot profile.

Or you could read this article from linuxinsider:

On the other hand: "The holiday season is coming, so I suspect I'll be giving a couple of blu-ray players as presents," offered Barbara Hudson, a blogger on Slashdot who goes by "Tom" on the site.

That is all;--p

-- Barbie

Re:Offensive

[tqk]

Oh wow, you programmed C for 20 years? incredible.... oh wait, guess what, any kid can program in C, it's taught at high schools, that's no accomplishment. When you get a Nobel prize for an incredible Scientific discovery (which is what Men have been doing, we've created all Science and Technology you see around you, you ungrateful cunt) then you can run your mouth about equality and what is and is not offensive, until then, STFU.

Wow. The most egregiously asshole-ish asshole I've yet to come across. Huh.

High praise, assholish-wise. Do you specialize in this? Done research to hone your skills? It's paying off. I never want to come closer to a parsec between us. Great job. You're officially an imbecile.

Re:Offensive

[NoSig]

Most mens' mid life crises with the sports cars and such have nothing to do with denying the man's own age. It has to do with being acutely aware of the age of same-age women, hence the 20-something girlfriends. The other behavior is an attempt at attracting those.

Re:Offensive

[NoSig]

As a [...] feminist [...] I find that offensive.

Wouldn't it be easier to list the things not offensive to feminists? There can't be that many bra-burning-like activities. Consider it a form of data compression.

Re:Offensive

[93 Escort Wagon]

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.

The person to whom you're responding basically cuts and pastes that same response to most every story. It's bogus - the story didn't include the supposed statement that "offended" them.

I'm beginning to suspect it's a 12-year-old boy that thinks repeatedly posting that same anonymous response is funny.

Re:Offensive

[RubberDogBone]

It also has to with earning power. By the time a man hits 45 or so, he's probably achieved either the best income he will ever have, or at least a lot more than he had at age 20 or 25. Generally he has solidified his standing in his job and community and is successful (or not). Trends should be set to keep him heading in that direction for the rest of his work career.

So now that he has the cash, he wants to acquire the toys he always wanted. Usually this is sports cars, motorcycles, boats, collectibles and memorabilia, and arm candy. All things the man wanted when he was 20-25 but could not afford or obtain.

20-something women aren't looking so deeply at his 401(K) and stock portfolio. The 40-something woman is normally deeply concerned with property resale value and ROI and doing things that perhaps make financial sense but are extremely boring. The man wants to live on the edge. It's part of being male. The woman wants to blunt that edge and make sure nobody runs with the scissors. This increasing incompatibility is what starts to fractures marriages.

A young woman into having fun matches the desires of the middle-age man to have fun and reject the pile of responsibilities set upon him.

I'm in my 40's and making a good living. About age 38, all by itself, a Mazda Miata suddenly started seeming like a reasonable transportation solution. Previously I had ridiculed that kind of car purchased by a friend during his midlife. I did not go buy that car. My existing boring car is fine. But I have ramped up buying collectibles because I want them and my income supports it.

There is no wife telling me not to and I'd absolutely bristle at the idea of such a thing. So finding a wife my own age is simply impossible. I'm not going to surrender who I am for such a thing. Not now.

That said, I haven't had any luck with the younger arm candy. Oh well.

Re:Offensive

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh wow, you programmed C for 20 years? incredible.... oh wait, guess what, any kid can program in C, it's taught at high schools, that's no accomplishment. When you get a Nobel prize for an incredible Scientific discovery (which is what Men have been doing, we've created all Science and Technology you see around you, you ungrateful cunt) then you can run your mouth about equality and what is and is not offensive, until then, STFU.

Wow. The most egregiously asshole-ish asshole I've yet to come across. Huh.

High praise, assholish-wise. Do you specialize in this? Done research to hone your skills? It's paying off. I never want to come closer to a parsec between us. Great job. You're officially an imbecile.

It's only offensive if you think it has truth in it... Otherwise it's just poking fun at a few cliches.

Re:Offensive

[tomhudson]

About age 38, all by itself, a Mazda Miata suddenly started seeming like a reasonable transportation solution

You do know that the Miata just screams "chick car", just like the VW Cabriolet and New Beetle? Especially the convertible models.

-- Barbie

Re:Offensive

[thesandtiger]

Things are a bit more complex than you think. I'm a woman who is about to hit 40, and I have a rather different perspective:

I chose not to have kids because I wanted to live for me, not for them. As a result, I have had a pretty good career so far and have financial security and a nice disposable income, though I spend my money mostly on travel rather than on gadgets. Given a choice of companions, I can have:

- A 40-year-old guy who is now at a phase in his life where he's financially secure (as you say), but is also starting to, if not already, falling apart physically, losing his interest in sex while mine's still on the increase, and generally can't be footloose and fancy-free because he's worried about all his stuff. Oh, and who if he is single now is *probably* looking at marrying for kids since he's worried about his "legacy" (or is looking for arm candy, as you say)

OR

- A guy in his mid-to-late 20's who's not making a bundle of money (not that I care), but who's near his peak physically, is going to have a lot fewer obligations tying him down, is likely more looking for a fun time than anything particularly serious, etc. Sure, he is not going to have as much life experience (then again, another 15-20 years of rotting in an office isn't all that enriching), but he'll be a bit more fun for the kinds of things I'm looking for.

Mind you, I'm not saying all men in their 40's fit the first paragraph or those in their 20's fit the second, but I'm willing to be a bit picky, and it's worked out for me so far :D Good luck in your search!

What a strange derail!

Re:Offensive

[Moofie]

Spoken like somebody who's never driven one hard.

Re:Offensive

[tomhudson]

Urban dictionary: Chick car

#1 A car that is mostly driven by females, but is occasionally driven by the males as well.
Common examples are: beetles, sunfires, neons, miatas, civics

# 2: An automobile preferred by women, usually 'toylike', most often white in color.
Classic examples- VW Rabbit convertible, Mazda Miata, new VW Beetle.

Dude, you bought a girl car? That's a Miata at the top of the page.

Car Talk - "The Ultimate Chick Cars of All Time"

#3 Mazda Miata

.."I discovered this phenomenon when I got a Miata. "Girlie car." That's all I heard."

-- Barbie

Re:Offensive

[Moofie]

...all spoken by people who have never driven them hard.

Look at any weekend autocross. Look at any amateur race paddock. THEN tell me Miatas are girl cars.

Having said all that, my wife drives the SHIT out of my Miata, so I win either way you go.

Anybody who gets their gender identity hung up on what other people think about his car (and, yes, it's almost always men who worry about that), is a pansy.

Re:Offensive

[tomhudson]

my wife drives the SHIT out of my Miata, so I win either way you go.

You have a funny definition of "win". Someone beating the crap out of your car hardly constitutes a win in most people's books. :-)

Taxpayers get shit on.. End black budgets

[Anonymous Coward]

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

Yes, the United States of America are the terrorists, lead by secret societies that go back far before babylon.

Re:Taxpayers get shit on.. End black budgets

[MrQuacker]

True or false, your argument would be more moving if it wasn't full of conspiracy theory buzzwords.

Personally, I blame the Vampirates.

Re:Taxpayers get shit on.. End black budgets

[Anonymous Coward]

Personally, I blame the Vampirates.

the Lycinjas could kick a the Vampirates' asses any day.

Re:Taxpayers get shit on.. End black budgets

[Anonymous Coward]

Ha, everyone knows it was the Girl Scouts of America working for the Illuminati! The Vampirates are just a cover story!

Re:Taxpayers get shit on.. End black budgets

[mrsquid0]

> 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:Taxpayers get shit on.. End black budgets

[jklovanc]

I really love one sided rhetoric and that utube video takes the cake. Sure all those things happened but they were not just random acts. For example, yes the US bombed Hiroshima and Nagasaki but it was in response to a war started by Japan, remember Pearl Harbour? The next comment about not 'blinking en eye' is also false. The Japanese would not surrender and the US was faced with losing hundreds of thousands soldiers and even more Japanese civilians if they had to invade Japan to stop the war. They did 'blink an eye' but decided on the lesser of two evils. Japan didn't even surrender after the first bomb.

Sure the US is not perfect but slamming them out of context like that is propaganda.

BYW, I am a Canadian who actually knows a little history.

Re:Taxpayers get shit on.. End black budgets

[equex]

This is not funny. WTF Slashdot.

Re:Taxpayers get shit on.. End black budgets

[TheRaven64]

The Japanese would not surrender and the US was faced with losing hundreds of thousands soldiers and even more Japanese civilians if they had to invade Japan to stop the war

The Japanese had already offered to surrender to the Russians, but after what happened in Germany the US government didn't want this. The atomic bomb would also have been far less of a deterrent against Soviet aggression had it not been demonstrated against a real target. The reasons for dropping the bomb were not quite so clear cut as you make them seem.

Re:Taxpayers get shit on.. End black budgets

[Anonymous Coward]

Give me a break dude. Black budget programs are the highest and best use of most military funds, and frankly, it's the last thing I even remotely trust the government with running. They have a strong track record effective use of such programs. Ummmm hello??? Atomic bomb anyone? With your rational it would have been just fine for us to do nothing and let our enemies develop such weapons. Were that the case, I can assure you would have never been born because your parents would have been kill by the Russians long ago. Our military strength is the last thing which we can rely on to save our nation, since the powers that be have done all they can to castrate our economic strength we once had.

And finally, how dare you say we are the terrorist. Our nations history albeit not perfect, has a better track record than any other society on this planet, EVER. If you are writing your comments above on US soil then thank god you live in a nation where you can freely express yourself without fear of persecution. If you posted the comment from some other nation that likely benefits from our benevolence, then thank the US and those other black projects for the internet on which you express your comment.

Now if you don't mind, please think before you call me and my fellow countrymen terrorist.

Re:Taxpayers get shit on.. End black budgets

[Anonymous Coward]

You're forgetting to take your medication again, aren't you??

Re:Taxpayers get shit on.. End black budgets

[jklovanc]

You might want to read some history, http://www.ww2pacific.com/surrnote.html

Russia was not at war until after the first bomb was dropped. It would be difficult to surrender to a country one is not at war with.

Japan and Russia had no high level diplomatic contact. Japan actually tried to buy oil from Russia so they could continue the war.

It you can cite a credible reference as to a Japanese offer of surrender I would love to see it.

Re:Taxpayers get shit on.. End black budgets

[garyebickford]

You're just pissed 'cause you don't get to drive the cool sh*t - it's all reserved for the military flyboys! :D (I always wanted to fly an F15 - preferably without paying the $2000/hr cost.)

Re:Taxpayers get shit on.. End black budgets

[Anonymous Coward]

True or false, your argument would be more moving if it wasn't full of conspiracy theory buzzwords.

Personally, I blame the Vampirates.

Are those at all related to the Reverse Vampires working with the Rand Corporation and the Saucer People?

Bizarre they shelved them in the first place

[Anonymous Coward]

The space planes always seemed a better solution than the shuttles. I wonder how much the new commercial airplane launched systems have to do with them pulling the space planes out of mothballs?

Re:Bizarre they shelved them in the first place

[morgan_greywolf]

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:Bizarre they shelved them in the first place

[0123456]

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:Bizarre they shelved them in the first place

[tomhudson]

Space planes were looking good back in the early 1960s. The early designs, such as Dyna-Soar (Dynamic Soaring) weren't practical back then because of materials. We could easily do them today, instead of wasting money on the Aries.

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:Bizarre they shelved them in the first place

[sznupi]

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:Bizarre they shelved them in the first place

[mosb1000]

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.

Re:Bizarre they shelved them in the first place

[tomhudson]

That was because they hadn't solved the problem of cooling the leading edges of the lifting surfaces - now solved.

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:Bizarre they shelved them in the first place

[tomhudson]

I wasn't thinking of the cost of the fuel, but the dead weight of the oxidant and the structure to contain it. The biggest problem then with dyna-soar was having to cool the wings at hypersonic speed so they didn't just melt. A rocket doesn't have that issue. No wings.

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 absolutely useless for the return trip, where you want to just dispose of the H2 after it's done its job cooling, instead of burning it for more thrust.

Now that we've solved the wing problem w/o needing to use liquid coolants, the wing structure is much simpler - as is the engine, since we don't have to have one that can use both liquid and vapor fuels.

Re:Bizarre they shelved them in the first place

[sznupi]

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 uses (like in this case, military)

Remember how the Shuttle was advertised? How it delivers? What actually turns out to be cheapest per launch? (and we barely tried mass production - basically only with very first widely used launcher)

Look at those airplanes (/. & unicode links) from "our" times, as envisioned ~130 years ago (and probably influenced by rapid advances in (sub?)marine technology) - we can build them! (take a Harrier, get rid of the wings and canopy). But strangely, we have settled on something quite different in concept, also when it comes to the mode of operation. Spaceplanes are a dream from scifi of the '40s and '50s (a lot of Shuttle designers probably raised on it...), fueled by rapid advances in airplane technology. But they are a bit analogous to flying boats - and not many those around nowadays (except, again, for very niche uses)

Re:Bizarre they shelved them in the first place

[tomhudson]

I agree the shuttle was amazingly stupid. First, because it's mission requirements and configuration were severely compromised by it's requirement to be able to do high-inclination missions (military satellites and military reconnaissance) which meant both payload size and dimensions got down-sized so that it could work with that flight profile.

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 complete. The 500 tons of the space station could have been done in just 4 launches.

Some of the crazier upgrades planned could have done it in ONE launch (the twinned booster with SRBs, for example, 989,000 pounds to LEO) ...

Then while you're at it, leave the upper stage in orbit as raw material ... like skylab ...

It doesn't make sense to bring so much bulk home on every mission. They even had plans for single-person lifting bodies for individual re-entry, so you wouldn't need to bring everyone home at once. Cheap, flexible ... a lot better than a "space bus" with no hope of any economies of scale.

Re:Bizarre they shelved them in the first place

[sznupi]

Being able to do high inclination missions is simply a function of thrust (for the given mass of payload) - if Shuttle was "compromised" by this, it means the concept was horrible elsewhere in the first place.

Saturn V approach probably wouldn't be very optimal in the long run - it was a bit of a one-trick pony. Large payloads are nice - but huge, rarely launched, disproportionally expensive (supporting infrastructure) launcher is not the way to go when we can do autonomous orbital rendezvous and can have simple, semi-mass produced, modular launchers (from the US ones - Falcon might be the best example in the future; but Angara will be probably the most striking one, from 1 to 7 identical core stages, from 2 to 40 tonnes to LEO). Even large ships are built in segments nowadays.

(I'm confused - do you don't want a spaceplane after all? There were plans individual reentry cones, too - lighter, at al)

Re:Bizarre they shelved them in the first place

[tomhudson]

"Space planes" are like sending a letter by envelope to your niece in BC, then paying return postage for the empty envelope. A really dumb idea.

The idea is to get as much mass INTO space as possible. The more you leave up there, the less dead weight goes into supporting your return structure's functionality.

Think of what mass-producing the monster version of the Saturn V would have meant, that 989,000 pounds into LEO translates into 350,000 pounds into lunar orbit.. Even one launch a month would have quickly led to a permanent lunar colony.

Think of it - 4 launches into LEO would have given us a space station almost 4x the size of the current one - and another 8 would have given a second one twice the size of the current one in orbit around the moon. All within the first year, at a total launch cost of around $6 billion.

And since the design of the station components could be simpler (no need to make each unit comparatively small, and then bolt them together, when they could be lifted in larger sections) the cost of the stations would be less as well.

When you have that much lifting capacity, you don't have to make things so finely engineered that, for example, people standing on a floor in 1 g can buckle them.

Re:Bizarre they shelved them in the first place

[sznupi]

Again, you want even more one-trick ponies / huge, singular monolithic structures.

I really thought we learned something about them vs. standardization and modularity... (which give also increased safety/predictability, flexibility and longevity - Russians want to detach Mir 2 parts of the ISS and use them in "Mir 3", which will be BTW basically a space shipyard to support deep exploration)

Re:Bizarre they shelved them in the first place

[tomhudson]

One a month for 20 years is not a "one-trick pony" - it's a mass-produced Mack Truck. Something that would have gotten a permanent orbiting space station around earth, another one around the moon, and a permanent colony on the moon.

Big jobs require big tools.

Re:Bizarre they shelved them in the first place

[sznupi]

Yes, more completely unsustainable spending is the way, more! (and so far ignoring from where the payloads are supposed to come from)

Remind me again - how that moon effort is going along? How Buran/Energia program contributed to the prosperity of the Soviet Union?

Re:Bizarre they shelved them in the first place

[tomhudson]

Without the space program, we wouldn't have personal computers. How much has that contributed to the economy? I couldn't give you an off-hand figure, but I know that, as a software programmer, it contributes to my personal "economy."

-- Barbie

Re:Bizarre they shelved them in the first place

[sznupi]

Personal computers of various kind were (and are) being built by many places without any notable space program. Impetus for extreme (mass-produced!) miniaturization, most notably in the form of microprocessors, also not strictly provided by space programs.

Economy goes both ways - also about using resources available to space activities in the most optimal way, via patterns most likely to give good results.

Thank God

[cbraescu1]

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.

Re:Thank God

[denzacar]

Their name is Abobe - for there are many Bobs A-mong them.

I, for one, have childlike faith...

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

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...

Re:I, for one, have childlike faith...

[khallow]

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".

Re:I, for one, have childlike faith...

[AJWM]

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.

Re:I, for one, have childlike faith...

[tomhudson]

It has a lot to do with the rule of thumb of needing 4x the "boots on the ground" for an external force to win.

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 job (and make sure you have a clear-cut definition of "the job"), declare victory, and get the heck out." Trying to hold on or succumb to mission creep just gets you stuck in a never-ending morass. Same as Afghanistan was to the Russians, Viet Nam to the US, etc.

Re:I, for one, have childlike faith...

[MyLongNickName]

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.

Re:I, for one, have childlike faith...

[MyLongNickName]

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...

[0123456]

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?

Re:I, for one, have childlike faith...

[guyminuslife]

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.)

Re:I, for one, have childlike faith...

[novalis112]

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".

Tell that to the Conquistadors.

Re:I, for one, have childlike faith...

[sznupi]

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...

[jjohnson]

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:I, for one, have childlike faith...

[sznupi]

Air war weapon stockpile runs critically low

Re:I, for one, have childlike faith...

[jjohnson]

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 had little effect on later uprisings in Poland and Romania). After you've killed everyone, what then?

The whole point of going to war in Afghanistan and Iraq was to replace their governments with friendly ones. Whether or not that's a militarily achievable outcome (I highly doubt that it is), that was the point, so winning means 1) leaving someone behind with a reasonable facsimile of a civil society and 2) that civil society being generally well-disposed to us. Otherwise, it's a waste of blood and treasure.

Re:I, for one, have childlike faith...

[ekwhite]

Except the people who blew up the buildings were mostly Saudis. None of them were Afghanis. The Taliban provided shelter to Osama Bin Laden, who was a member of one of the most powerful Saudi families. We supposedly went in to get Bin Laden - who is still supposedly on the loose, despite being on dialysis. Most likely, he died of kidney failure long ago. So why are we still there?

Re:I, for one, have childlike faith...

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:I, for one, have childlike faith...

[ilo.v]

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...

The problem is, we want to fight the war without blowing THEIR stuff up. Obviously we could "glass" the place. The Mongol's conquered that place (and just about every other place) easily. Their approach: "kiss our toes or we will kill every single person in your entire tribe." The longstanding way to conquer Afghanistan is to just drive through. If someone shoots at you from the hills, drive to the nearest village and shoot everyone there, then burn the crops and kill/steal all the livestock. As a matter of fact, you don't really need to shoot the people. Taking away their food clothing and shelter works well enough. The "warriors" in those hills will starve to death, and the "warriors" in the next set of hills will decide not to shoot. They are utterly incapable of defending their farms/villages in a stand up fight. What we are trying to do is track down gang members without blowing up the civilian population's stuff. We have to do it because any central government we set up will be too corrupt to do it themselves. If we pull out, the punks will go back to setting up schools to teach brainwashed American kids how to build car bombs to explode in Times Square or Portland tree lighting ceremonies.

Re:I, for one, have childlike faith...

[khallow]

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!

Re:I, for one, have childlike faith...

[novalis112]

Tibet vs. China. India vs. The United Kingdom. Kuwait vs. Iraq (1990). Iraq vs. The United States of America (1990).

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*.

Re:I, for one, have childlike faith...

[Anonymous Coward]

"It has a lot to do with the rule of thumb of needing 4x the "boots on the ground" for an external force to win. "

From where does this mystical rule of thumb arise? Relative lack of numbers didn't seem to prevent the Germans in World War II across most of Europe, or the British in the Falklands, or the Israeli's 7 day war against it's neighbours from steam rolling the opposing force.

If you needed 4x the numbers of the population, then basically no invasion force would have succeded ever. Clearly this rule of thumb of yours is completely and utterly wrong.

The problem in Afghanistan (and previously Iraq) is that America is too pro-freedom to brutally oppress the people like the Germans did, and too clumsy to gain the support of the people through good will and competence. You need to do one or the other, and if America is remain a symbol of liberty it must be the latter that they become good at. The issue right now is that they're dilly-dallying around doing neither which means there is no resolution.

Re:I, for one, have childlike faith...

[vadim_t]

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.

Re:I, for one, have childlike faith...

[khallow]

Half the things you mention don't even qualify. The UK has long had insurgency problems in India. And Iraq got hammered hard for invading Kuwait.

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.

Re:I, for one, have childlike faith...

[19061969]

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.

Re:I, for one, have childlike faith...

[khallow]

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 coming from advanced EU sources), c) protests in the US against the genocide, and d) aside from a few countries, no one will trade with the US.

Re:I, for one, have childlike faith...

[Anonymous Coward]

Nah they just figured with the number of virgins in the world ATM that all those muslims would be much happier with their god, where they might have a chance of meeting a woman who still was one :)

Probably Chinese, given all the 'abandoned' female children there. Given some of the stuff happening in parts of Africa there's probably a lot less virgins ending up in the afterlife from there....

Re:I, for one, have childlike faith...

[Jesus_666]

Of course just about the only time that actually worked was Germany and the USA still have troops stationed here.

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 the jackass who destroyed half the country and then left the rubble behind when it was no longer interesting.

Re:I, for one, have childlike faith...

[Anonymous Coward]

Google for our Nerve Gas stockpiles.

Between chemical and biological agents we could have wiped out the populations of both Iraq and Afghanistan and then had somewhere to relocate the Palestinians so the Israelis could have their own little country. Sans of course the oil fields of both countries. And probably the poppy farms of Afghanistan. CIA's gotta make a living after all :)

Re:I, for one, have childlike faith...

[tomhudson]

Israel did the invade and get out quickly thing. Ditto the British in the Falklands. You need a lot more to HOLD than to just do a quick in-and-out, which is what I said.

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, and the information was declassified in 1974

In 1934, War Plan Red was amended to authorize the immediate first use of poison gas against Canadians and to use strategic bombing to destroy Halifax if it could not be captured.

In February 1935, the War Department arranged a Congressional appropriation of $57 million dollars to build three border air bases for the purposes of pre-emptive surprise attacks on Canadian air fields. The base in the Great Lakes region was to be camouflaged as a civilian airport and was to "be capable of dominating the industrial heart of Canada, the Ontario Peninsula" from p. 61 of the February 11-13, 1935, hearings of the Committee on Military Affairs, House of Representatives, on Air Defense Bases (H.R. 6621 and H.R. 4130). This testimony was to have been secret but was published by mistake. See the New York Times, May 1, 1935, p. 1.

In August 1935, the US held its largest peacetime military manoeuvres in history, with 36,000 troops converging at the Canadian border south of Ottawa, and another 15,000 held in reserve in Pennsylvania. The war game scenario was a US motorized invasion of Canada, with the defending forces initially repulsing the invading Blue forces, but eventually to lose "outnumbered and outgunned" when Blue reinforcements arrive. This according to the Army's pamphlet "Souvenir of of the First Army Maneuvers: The Greatest Peace Time Event in US History" (p.2).

The following document is a declassified public domain document and may be freely reproduced. This should be of particular interest to people in the Halifx and Quebec City regions, then considered to be the most strategic cities in Canada.

It couldn't have succeeded then, and even less so now. We have a new secret weapon - Poutine.

Re:I, for one, have childlike faith...

[jjohnson]

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.

Re:I, for one, have childlike faith...

[winwar]

"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."

The first point should have made it easier. As for your second point, have you even bothered to look at the body count? Or the infrastructure? This was only surgical in the sense that we didn't carpet bomb entire cities.

I have no real doubt that we could impose a government if we committed the same amount of troops. But 3 million or so troops per country were never going to happen (about 1 per 20 civilians).

Which makes me wonder why we even bother to stay. We aren't going to commit the needed resources. We never were. At this point we are staying because we fear leaving might do more harm. Does pretending we care do anyone any good?

Re:I, for one, have childlike faith...

[Anonymous Coward]

oh, we could win the war(s) in iraq+afghanistan tomorrow, if it we didn't care what the world thought of us, or if we violated the geneva convention. The US armed forces are extremely good at killing everything that moves, possibly moreso than any other army that has ever existed.

they really suck at putting down an insurgency, however. Actually, I challenge you to provide any examples in history of any any army ever putting down an insurgancy/rebellion without resorting to extreme tactics (as in indiscriminate destruction, dictorial rule, etc)

Re:I, for one, have childlike faith...

[guruevi]

That's because you can't win a war based on ideologies. Everyone there doesn't like the westerner countries. The only way to win such a war would be to go in, kill every one and then repatriate volunteers/criminals to fill up the empty space much like how the America's and Australia was created.

Re:I, for one, have childlike faith...

[sznupi]

The victor rebuilding the country in a friendly fashion was largely a side-effect of the Cold War - initially large part of the German population was supposed to starve to death. On the Eastern side - not many people know that the first popular uprising (think Hungary & Poland 56, Czechoslovakia 68) in Soviet Block was in East Germany, 1953.

Re:I, for one, have childlike faith...

[sznupi]

...We have a new secret weapon - Poutine.

Oh gods. Why didn't you keep it a secret? (at least until the Party Congress on Monday...)

Re:I, for one, have childlike faith...

[sznupi]

So you don't realize Conquistadors found local allies / it was a case of tipping the scales in what was already troubled and divided area?

Re:I, for one, have childlike faith...

[sznupi]

IRA?

Re:I, for one, have childlike faith...

[jjohnson]

The first point should have made it easier.

The first point meant that the invaders faced no real popular resistance to regime change. It also meant that there was no real support for whatever replaced it, and the minute the Coalition governments looked vulnerable to insurgency (pretty much immediately), the population sat back and waited, covering its collective head, for whoever was left standing.

I agree that if Coalition forces had put 1 soldier on the ground for every 20 civilians and actually secured the place, then five years later the people of Iraq and Afghanistan might have looked around and said "yeah, okay, we've got a good government now--lots of roads and schools and hospitals, and no one's blowing anything up, and my vote even seems to make a bit of a difference." Might have, which is to say if no insurgency had taken root, which is highly doubtful even with more troops.

As for your second point, have you even bothered to look at the body count? Or the infrastructure? This was only surgical in the sense that we didn't carpet bomb entire cities.

Well, yes, exactly: In WWII, German and Japanese cities were carpet bombed and reduced to piles of rubble, and millions of civilians were killed, usually in batches of tens of thousands on a single night of bombing. For all that the human cost of Iraq and Afghanistan are horrific, it's much better to be a civilian in those countries than in an Axis country during WWII.

Regime change worked in Japan and Germany because the people perceived themselves to be beaten. They'd fought with everything and lost, and had nothing left. In Iraq and Afghanistan, they had plenty left to fight with, as the Taliban and Moqtada al-Sadr kept demonstrating.

Re:I, for one, have childlike faith...

[camperdave]

"It has a lot to do with the rule of thumb of needing 4x the "boots on the ground" for an external force to win. "

From where does this mystical rule of thumb arise?

From Risk. :-)

Consider equally armed and capable combatants

• One on one: you have a 50/50 chance of winning.
• Two on one: The lone soldier just has to manoeuvre so that the two enemies are lined up. This blocks the far soldier and you're back to one on one, followed by another one on one. The odds of winning are 75%.
• Three to one: The lone soldier cannot manoeuvre to block the enemies, so will almost always lose.

Four to one: I've not actually heard of 4 to one, but it may be that an extra soldier may help to counter any terrain advantages which are ignored in the first three scenarios.

Re:I, for one, have childlike faith...

[camperdave]

Oh, the US probably has plans for invading every country on the planet. WOPR wasn't playing chess all the time.

Re:I, for one, have childlike faith...

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

If only it were so simple.

Unfortunately, both Iraq and Afghanistan were already involved in some pretty serious internal conflicts before the US ever arrived.

All the US military action did was remove the oppressive regime which was holding down the different warring groups.

Re:I, for one, have childlike faith...

[Anonymous Coward]

So - would that be your suggestion?

Re:I, for one, have childlike faith...

[Jesus_666]

If you think about it, that does put the "the Middle East is where the current big threats are" rhethoric in perspective. Germany was built back up because of its immense geopolitic value. The Iraq and Afghanistan would allow the USA to get a foot in the door with the Middle East; at the very least if those countries were drilled to be staunchly pro-West. For example, the Iraq is an OPEC member; the value of being on very friendly terms with them should be obvious.

The only reason I can think of (in the context of an offensive war) to invade two countries and then not stick around rebuilding them into something useful is because those countries aren't going to be useful anyway.

Re:I, for one, have childlike faith...

[tomhudson]

...We have a new secret weapon - Poutine.

Oh gods. Why didn't you keep it a secret? (at least until the Party Congress on Monday...)

Because we've upgraded to a newer version - Italian Poutine.

Not only is it an offer you can't refuse - after one bite, you don't WANT to refuse it.

Re:I, for one, have childlike faith...

[mrogers]

Gah, accidentally modded you Redundant instead of Insightful... replying so my moderation gets discarded. Bloody trackpads. ;)

Re:I, for one, have childlike faith...

[lxs]

The problem in Afghanistan (and previously Iraq) is that America is too pro-freedom to brutally oppress the people like the Germans did...

I don't buy that. The Red Army was there for 20 years unencumbered by humanitarian sentiments the US supposedly has. They even used poison gas on several villages. Without much success.

Re:I, for one, have childlike faith...

[germansausage]

"Saturation nuclear bombardment followed by mop-up squads with nerve gas and flame throwers. No population means no popular unrest" - "Why, that's utterly appalling! Although, I must admit, there is a certain admirable directness to your methods"

Re:I, for one, have childlike faith...

[Anonymous Coward]

Especially when you start counting the fact that the people who blew up our buildings mostly weren't from Afghanistan, but from Saudi Arabia, who we hang out with like old pals (who are good enough friends to ignore the fact that we seriously disagree with very basic qualities about each other...now it sounds like a group of high-school popular girls...).

Re:I, for one, have childlike faith...

[jjohnson]

Absolutely correct, and another reason that U.S. intervention in Iraq and Afghanistan were doomed from the start.

Re:I, for one, have childlike faith...

[Anonymous Coward]

Believe it or not, a lot of the people over there want us there. Many (maybe most) are better off with us there than before, and would be worse off if we left. It is nowhere near to being ready for democracy and would revert to being rules by tribal warlords that make us look gentle.

Re:I, for one, have childlike faith...

[davidbofinger]

Explain the Soviet Union's sojourn in the deserts of Afghanistan, then. They didn't seem to have a problem with civilian casualties.

And they won. Well, more or less. It depends what "win" means to you, and Clausewitz's ghost must be bitterly disappointed how rarely that's mentioned.

But the Soviet Union managed to establish a friendly government in Afghanistan which could survive without Soviet troops needing to do its fighting. Which is pretty much what the USSR wanted. So I think it's fair to say the USSR did eventually win that war.

Two issues tarnished that victory. First, it cost way more than they'd expected it would, hastening the USSR's collapse. Second, the state they set up depended on the Soviet Union for trade etc. so when the USSR went belly-up it took Afghanistan with it.

But the "No one can win in Afghanistan" paradigm is bogus. It's been done.

Re:I, for one, have childlike faith...

[jjohnson]

You have half a point, which is that the Soviets were able to withdraw their forces and leave behind a friendly government that was actually in charge.

However, the friendly government needed boatloads of money and support from the Soviet Union (which left behind its tanks, artillery, aircraft and APCs for use by the Afghan government), and immediately faced civil war against the same Mujahadeen that caused the Soviets so much trouble. The Muj continued to fight until the fall in 1992 of the communist government.

Calling that a "win" is relying on technicalities while ignoring that the spirit of the adventure was not obtained. A friendly government isn't a strategically useful outcome when that government requires massive aid to survive, and falls the minute the aid stops.

Re:I, for one, have childlike faith...

[hawkfish]

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.)

"Sometimes sarcasm helps us think more clearly." - Dogbert

Re:I, for one, have childlike faith...

[21mhz]

It also helped that the insurgents mostly belonged to a minority (Chinese) that the rest of the local population did not largely identify with.

Re:I, for one, have childlike faith...

[brentrad]

Sounds like Gul Dukat. And you know how that turned out.

(re-watching season 6 of ST:DS9 currently)

Re:I, for one, have childlike faith...

[MyLongNickName]

Um... yeah. Sorry, but Star Trek is not a history book.

Re:I, for one, have childlike faith...

[brentrad]

I didn't say it was. But in case you haven't noticed, works of fiction frequently mirror, or comment on, real events in history.

Re:I, for one, have childlike faith...

[sznupi]

Hm, that could give me some opportunity for revenge / a form of MAD, if you will: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Captain_Alberto_Bertorelli (assuming you're familiar with the series; there's always some chance in, IIRC, Canada - some hope how the thought of Bertorelli might spoil your future degustations; or maybe simpler / nah, probably old trick & everybody immunized ;/ )

Re:I, for one, have childlike faith...

[sznupi]

More precisely, Germany was mostly allowed to recover. Drilling countries to be staunchly pro-West tends to have "unintended consequences" - best example, in context, would be CIA supported 1953 coup d'etat in Iran and its long-term results... (well, there's nothing bad per se with an Iranian policy of opposing foreign influences in the region and actively pursuing relations with unaligned states...) We can only hope such efforts to always result in a situation comparable to mostly friendly relations with S. American countries (after all the coups, supporting drug lords (hm, Afghanistan?), or Operation Condor - they would be well justified to have different position). I don't think any poll at any point has shown that Iraqis don't want us the hell out.

But hey, we were useful few times to Saudis/etc. in settling their regional grudges...

Can anyone tell me?

[ksandom]

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?

Re:Can anyone tell me?

[HornWumpus]

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?

[Teun]

Space (vacuum) + earth's gravity cause a free-fall.

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?

[Anaerin]

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

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:Can anyone tell me?

[the_other_chewey]

The question is a valid one, despite all the ridicule that is being heaped
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 equipment,
and without needing any fancy thermal protection shield.

And that's one of the problems: if your spacecraft has no thermal shield, this is
the only reentry mode possible. Emergency aborts from orbit? No can do.

So for manned missions, you better bring a heat shield just in case. And if you
already bring it, why not just use it? It's faster, easier, and more predictable:

The low-drag reentry trajectory and duration is dependent on the quite
variable conditions in the very high parts of the atmosphere. It would be
impossible to determine an exact flight path - and the point at which the
spacecraft is slow enough to "just drop" - in advance, up to not even
knowing on which continent the landing will have to happen.

Slow reentry is still a very alluing thing (this flaming reentry thing is just
so archaic, right?), that's why there are always a handful of people working
on it. At the moment, those are mostly Japanese as far as I know. There's even
a proposal for a JAXA project for an experiment with paper planes
as proof-of-concept.

Slow reentry might eventually become the thing to do, but we'll need a
lot more confidence in our spacecraft (no need for quick aborts) and
much more detailed real-time knowledge about atmospheric conditions
at the edge of space to make it practically viable.

Re:Can anyone tell me?

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Damn that atmosphere! If only we could get rid of it...

Re:Can anyone tell me?

[ksandom]

Excellent, that explains what I wanted to know very well. Thankyou :)

Re:Can anyone tell me?

[ksandom]

Nice, this helped. Thanks for you answer :)

Re:Can anyone tell me?

[ksandom]

This was very helpful. Thanks :D

Maneuverability in a hostile environment

[perpenso]

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.

Re:Maneuverability in a hostile environment

[MichaelSmith]

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.

Re:Maneuverability in a hostile environment

[perpenso]

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, it is a recon vehicle itself - a recon pod being carried in its 7x4 foot cargo bay. This is similar to fighter aircraft being reconfigured to carry cameras.

Re:Maneuverability in a hostile environment

[Anonymous Coward]

It was cheaper to use disposables to put pre-planned satellites in orbit. The previous poster was pointing out that the reusable booster let's you deal with constantly changing targets without having to (a) build a large stockpile of expensive throw away satellites, or (b) make each satellite huge so that it can carry enough fuel to be maneuverable for a long time.

Re:Maneuverability in a hostile environment

[Anonymous Coward]

The Space Shuttle also has to carry people. People are really hard to keep alive and take up a whole bunch of weight and space with all their stuff like "food" and "air" and "room to move".

Now that we have a large, "reliable" space station in orbit, having a place to spread out and do experiments is not a problem. The reusable rockets your talking about were/are launching pods that could fit 3+ times over in the space shuttle's bay. Not to mention things like the Canada arm. I'm not saying it wouldn't be possible, but to get equivalent missions, you're talking about launching 2 or 3 separate rockets (probably from separate places), having them all up meet up in space, then having them all come down separately so you can reuse the really expensive bits.

Important to note: the rockets the USAF is using for the x-37b are not man-rated. This cuts the cost of each rocket *significantly*. Yes, the vehicles are supposed to be re-used, but they if it falls apart mid-flight...no biggie. Which means they can design and launch rockets to boost it with that in mind...

I'm making no sense at this point, but my point is this: space shuttle: big, single shot pods: small. Space shuttle: had to keep people alive, more expensive, USAF & X-37B: don't, less expensive.

Re:Maneuverability in a hostile environment

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Actually... the ability to land on the ground is utterly useless in a space war...
Right now that X-37 carries heat shields, wings, electronics and a landing gear. All those reduce payload, fuel or ammo weight. You don't need wings and a streamlined body to maneuver in space. Any satellite with an engine can do that.

There must be some other added value in the X-37 why they want it back on earth.

Re:Maneuverability in a hostile environment

[TheRaven64]

The problem with the space shuttle wasn't that it was cheaper to use disposable vehicles, so much as that the shuttle was a disposable vehicle and you then built a new one out of the recycled components each launch. Rebuilding the shuttle after each launch cost more than building a simpler vehicle from scratch, with the added disadvantage that it's easier to incorporate new technology when you are doing a complete rebuild.

The other huge problem with the shuttle was that it was designed for missions that just didn't make sense. For example, it's still the only space vehicle that can collect a satellite from orbit and return it. This capability has never been used, because the cost of the launch is the majority of the cost of almost any satellite, so it's always been cheaper to just launch a new one, or (in the worst case) repair it in situ, than do two launches to collect one and then return it to orbit later.

Re:Maneuverability in a hostile environment

[perpenso]

Actually... the ability to land on the ground is utterly useless in a space war...

Not at all. The vehicle can be refueled, reconfigured or repaired. Well, at least until we get the needed infrastructure in orbit.

Re:Maneuverability in a hostile environment

[hitmark]

My understanding is that the space shuttle design was a compromise between NASA and US military requirements, so as to avoid having two similar programs out of two different government branches (bean counters hate redundancy).

Re:Maneuverability in a hostile environment

[fifedrum]

or captured, certainly an elegant hack with enemy agents inside the controlling agency could redirect the ship to land in enemy territory, it might not be easy, but it would be spectacular and not out of the question

Re:Maneuverability in a hostile environment

[perpenso]

Given such capabilities taking over a satellite would be a concern too.

An odd thought. I wonder if on-board ROM-based code would reject commands to land outside of North America. Its hard to image some safeguards not being hard wired in.

Re:Maneuverability in a hostile environment

[fifedrum]

unless you wanted your X plane itself to become a nice tidy kinetic energy weapon. high apogee, ground level perigee...

either way, working on the X-37B project would be the awesomest job in the world to me

No "dismay of ground observers"

[Dr La]

The idea that the manoeuvring of the X-37B is somehow to the "dismay of ground observers" has popped up more often in the press recently.This is however some weird statement that is not founded on anything substantial. A lot of satellites, including classified satellites (e.g. the KH-12 Keyholes and the Lacrosse SAR satellites) frequently manoeuvre as well. The X-37B is not much different in that aspect. And for amateur satellite trackers, part of the fun of observing exactly is detecting such manoeuvres, and re-establishing the orbits. So no, not "to the dismay of ground observers": on the contrary!

One of the commenters below also claims that the X-37B:

you have a spy sat that can't be tracked easily

In truth, the X-37B is easy to track, as it is quite bright (naked eye object!).

What does the military see in the X-34

[voss]

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.

Re:What does the military see in the X-34

[Anonymous Coward]

It's a new idea of a global rapid response ( or sth like this ) - the idea is to drop a 16Ton weight ( actually a small stone would do ) on the tents of the bad guys somewhere in the desert without the need of tracking them with drones (which require servicing and airspace over enemy terrain.

It's not much of a threat to big countries, but would somewhat infringe on the supposed consensus of not using space for war....

Re:What does the military see in the X-34

[robot256]

It's not a new idea, but not one that's been put into practice yet as far as I know.

Re:What does the military see in the X-34

[Anonymous Coward]

It also proves cancelling the Dyna-soar for Mercury/Gemini was a huge mistake.

Re:What does the military see in the X-34

[Kagura]

It's a new idea of a global rapid response ( or sth like this ) - the idea is to drop a 16Ton weight ( actually a small stone would do ) on the tents of the bad guys somewhere in the desert without the need of tracking them with drones (which require servicing and airspace over enemy terrain.

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. So it's like dropping a 16-ton TNT bomb except twice the power. Not really worth it...

Re:What does the military see in the X-34

[FatLittleMonkey]

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.)

Re:What does the military see in the X-34

[Anonymous Coward]

While you are right the the total energy may not be impressive, you completely miss the fact that this is a projectile and not an explosive. I suspect that something like this in the form of a guided DU kinetic weapon package would be accurate, silent and deadly. On the other hand, I doubt the economics are there to make something like this viable.

Re:What does the military see in the X-34

[Kagura]

Oh, neat. I hadn't considered that at all. That's actually pretty amazing, but you'll have to have some seriously accurate targeting capabilities.

"Can't easily be tracked" ??Re:Launched April 22?

[Dr La]

What do you mean by "can't easily be tracked"? In fact the X-37B is an easy object to track: it is quite bright, attaining easy naked eye brightness.

The real super secret space plane ...

[PolygamousRanchKid]

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.

Re:The real super secret space plane ...

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

At least for "Cloak of Invisibility" paint the Home Depot "associates" would have a legit excuse for not being able to find it for you...

Re:The real super secret space plane ...

[Thud457]

I asked for it at Benjamin Moore, and they couldn't find it. They said maybe it would come in on the next shipment with the striped paint and the paint-on holes.

Visibility?

[Cruciform]

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.

Re:Visibility?

[gavineadie]

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.

Re:Visibility?

[Cruciform]

I hadn't even realized HA had added it. Nice.

Re:flamebait?

[Haeleth]

i wonder which government agent modded this down?

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?

Physics fail

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, I thought the GP was being facetious, but now he's got an INFORMATIVE mod?!

Black radiates more heat because it absorbs more light -- which causes more heat to be generated -- not because black "radiates heat better".

To put it another way... lets say 3 light particles hit a surface.
In the case of a white surface 2 of them are reflected and 1 is absorbed.
In the case of a black surface 1 particle is reflected and 2 are absorbed.

Any of the "absorbed" particles are converted to heat, so if you measured the heat output of a black surface, it would be higher because more of the light energy it receives is absorbed and converted to heat instead of reflected.
(above numbers used for simplicity, not based on actual absorption rate of white/black surfaces)

Just wear a dark shirt on a sunny day, you'll feel the effect in action.

Re:Physics fail

[MichaelSmith]

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

"Powerful Engine"

[Brucelet]

Is it known that the x-37 has been changing its orbit by firing an engine? Back in the x-20 program there were thoughts about changing orbits by dipping slightly into the atmosphere and using wings, and I've always assumed that's what this new plane has been doing. If done right, you can change orbit with much less energy cost, as you only need to fire engines to lower the orbit initially and to circularize it afterward.

Re:"Powerful Engine"

[gavineadie]

The engine burns would be used to change the orbital altitude. That would change the period of its orbit and that would adjust its track over the earth. It's not unusual for military satellites to adopt special purpose orbits (for example, crossing the same place on the earth at the same time every three days), and OTV 1-1 has been shifting between such synchronized orbits.

It's very expensive in terms of fuel (that is, virtually impossible) to make any extensive out-of-plane maneuver, but a lot can be done by varying altitude. The amateurs who have been tracking OTV 1-1 have 'lost' it a few times when it has adjusted its orbit, usually because the observing weather has not been favorable for a few days and any slight orbital change has had time to accumulate.

Why pretend you don't know what it is

[Anonymous Coward]

The X-37B is a weapons platform. It is designed to be able to drop bombs anywhere on the planet on an hours notice. Why everyone who writes about it is content to call it "mysterious" is beyond me.

Ha! You're like totally wrong. And stuff..

[denzacar]

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.

Re:Ha! You're like totally wrong. And stuff..

[Anonymous Coward]

+5 informative

Personally, I agree with the GPP...

[denzacar]

I also believe that the Abobe are to blame.

War in Space

[Oceanplexian]

A lot of technological advancements came from war. It's pretty obvious that the government don't care about peaceful space exploration since
they killed manned spaceflight with no viable replacement. NASA was just a figurehead for a military operation.

Hopefully, our need to find creative ways to kill each-other will result in more advanced spacecraft.

Secrative Cabal Punishment

[Anonymous Coward]

Probably a lot of phone calls and filing paper work.

Government By and For the Spies

[Doc Ruby]

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...

Re:Government By and For the Spies

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, because taking their funds away would help them do a better job. Seriously, you can't have it both ways. We whine about the job they do, and yet we whine about the cost and want them to do more with less.

Re:Government By and For the Spies

[Doc Ruby]

Yeah, because taking their funds away would help them do a better job. Seriously, you can't have it both ways. We whine about the job they do, and yet we whine about the cost and want them to do more with less.

I didn't say to take their funds away. In fact, I didn't say anything about what to do. You did, a straw man for you to complain about.

What they should do is fund science and industry programmes fully, and cut the ridiculous waste in intel budgets. Specifically we should fund a solar base on the Moon with satellite relays to ocean platforms, with shuttles to service it, while cutting the military + intel budgets to $300B tops. But other science and industry priorities are also OK. NASA should have a $50B annual budget, or more if that's what it takes to get either the Lunar base or something else of comparable value by 2020.

Now that I've actually said what they should do, you can feel free to agree or disagree.

Re:flamebait?

[Anonymous Coward]

Mod parent +6 Awesome.

Secretive on??

[Jane Q. Public]

One can be secretive on a hill. Or on a chair. Or under a bridge or even a bus. But I have never heard of someone being "... secretive on all aspects of the flight." Someone very fast and agile must have been very secretive. Also someone who could hold their breath for a very long time.

Payload

[Amanitin]

The wikipedia site says the cargo bay is 2.1 x 1.2 m, and carries 227 kg. That is pretty limited I should say.

Re:Payload

[FatLittleMonkey]

That's nearly enough to carry me!

nearly.

Re:"Can't easily be tracked" ??Re:Launched April 2

[Anonymous Coward]

easily tracked yes, easily "predicted" not so much.

I'm considering

[ThatsNotPudding]

a new weapons-based space race that will leave the entirety of Earths' near orbit a useless no-go volume chocked full of hi-vee shrapnel created by the toys of US and Chinese boys who didn't give a fig about the consequences of their cyber-testosterone games.

let's avoid hyperbole, please

[Thud457]

Without the space program, we wouldn't have personal computers

The construction of ICBMs was adequate impetus for the microminiaturization of electronics.

New Satellite Online?

[bill_mcgonigle]

So, perhaps this launch's mission has been overtaken by the new satellite?

Reminds me of "Footfall"

[garyebickford]

In Footfall (by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle), the space elephants use kinetic energy weapons (tossing rocks from space) to prevent the humans from transporting anything along the roads or building anything that the elephants don't like.