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

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...)