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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."
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.
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.