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Amateurs Spy On US Spy Plane
arshadk writes with this excerpt from Wired's Danger Room: "The X-37B has generated intense interest, long before it ever left the ground. Boeing originally developed the 29-foot unmanned craft — a kind of miniature Space Shuttle — for NASA. Then, the military took over in 2004, and the space plane went black. Its payloads were classified, its missions hush-hush. ... You can even see the space plane for yourself: The X-37B is traveling in a slightly elliptical orbit more than 200 miles up, swooping from 43 degrees north latitude to 43 degrees south."
Is that just three sentences copypasted at random, with no attempt whatsoever made to explain what this article is about, or what?
An article a little while back published its secret launch date
The typical spy satellite has a polar orbit...
...The X-37B, on the other hand, is orbiting around the fat middle of the plane...
...The orbit lends credence to the idea that the space plane is an orbiting spy.
Just sayin'
http://www.heavens-above.com/
Enter your coordinates (requires a login, otherwise it's 0 degrees N / 0 degrees E) and look for the X-37B link under "Satellites".
29-foot
To 95% of world's population: that's 8.83m.
Circumcision is child abuse.
Of course there are other things which seem so much easier for the military (like sending what are basically space telescopes when the scientific community have to share just a few).
Something tells me those 'basically space telescopes' have more specialized purposes that make them not so useful to the scientists -- and the government deems national security a few notches in importance above providing scientists resources to make observations.
I suppose... private industry could pitch in and build more telescopes for the scientists, if there's money to be made in it...... E.g. renting out access hours to telescopes to professional (and amateur) astronomers.
the people that wanted to work for NASA as kids are now working for the military, and its various contractors.
ain't it grand.
Well of course it's easy, they don't send people up. Being man-rated makes the space shuttle vastly more complex.
Tsunami -- You can't bring a good wave down!
Here's a handy chart to aid in identification.
They say a little knowledge is a dangerous thing, but it's not one half so bad as a lot of ignorance. - Terry Pratchett
No, I find it absolutely wonderful that our military is broad and powerful enough to nearly 100% guarantee that our scientists and engineers have the time to spend on civilian pursuits like medical breakthroughs, discovering the far edges of our universe and creating sweet shit like velcro. It's pitiful that people like you think freedom costs nothing. A few hundred years ago, you'd be a shit shoveling peasant in some god forsaken hell hole. Look at you know though, you can follow the oust of Mubarak from Egypt from the comfort of your reddit bookmark.
The irony being that they used to try to cover up their spy balloons by pretending they were UFOs. Jokes on them because now nobody believes it when they really are basically weather balloons with cameras.
One thing you can be sure of - if you see a flying object, and it's unidentified, then it is a UFO.
Maybe the vehicle itself is merely a diversion for some payload released earlier? If some pico-satellites were released early in the mission would these be easily trackable with optical telescopes?
US doesn't seem to do any of these things. Your military is a parasite that feeds off worthwhile projects.
FYI, Velcro was invented by a Swiss.
The X-37B is partially classified. It is not anywhere near secret. There is a huge difference.
Classified projects are frequently used for promotion and propaganda. Secret projects are actually kept secret.
How will you be able to tell when "complete invisibility is achieved" ? When you can't see the invisible object...?
When Wonder Woman sues you for patent infringement. Duh!
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
Looks like the current orbit will take it right over Tripoli.
http://www.n2yo.com/?s=37375
Yeah, watching nudist beaches is indeed more specialized, but I dispute the claim that this makes them less useful to scientists. If anything, geeks need devices like that more.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
Velcro wouldn't have been possible without nylons. Nylons were engineered in the U.S.A. by Dupont for use in parachutes. NASA popularized Velcro.
Nonsense. Until complete invisibility is achieved(and it hasn't been despite promising reports), it can be seen, regardless of how good they are. They can have deception, etc. on their side but they can't do a lot about rays of light.
They can release an inflatable decoy and then change trajectory. Or perhaps, maybe the actually observation platform is stealthy and designed to detach from the X-37B, and then a few weeks later the X-37B alters orbit to pick up the observation platform and return to earth? Not as complicated as you would think.
Medical breakthroughs - mostly the Brits, French and allegedly Amsterdam but the investigator there has failed to return.
Astronomy - mostly the Brits and Russians
Velcro - the Swiss
Freedom does indeed cost nothing. Enslavement is the expensive option. Almost every peaceful revolution has resulted in a peaceful (comparatively-speaking) government, every violent revolution (without exception, the US included) has resulted in a violent system of governance and a violent populace.
As for Mubarak, he was mostly installed and maintained by the US. That wasn't cheap, y'know. Col. Ollie North, you remember him, the Pentagon's drug-and-gun runner to finance violence and instability? Consider how much US money is believed spent on "black ops" work, and now consider how much extra must actually be spent for Admiral Poyndexter and his ilk (before and after) to take those kinds of risks for extra funds.
A few hundred years ago, science and technology weren't too bad. Well, in Europe, at least. Once we'd kicked the religious fanatics out (d'you know how many wars and massacres those guys started?) and forced them to the New World (made a great lunatic asylum as well as a penal colony), advances came much more rapidly. Didn't know America still had peasants 200 years ago - shows how backwards a place it was compared to the civilized world.
(Y'know that America still had slaves then? C'mon, the Swiss abolished the practice in the 12th century and even the English started dismantling it around 1770-1776. About the time there was a slave-owner revolt somewhere. Now where was that again?)
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
yes, yes, that's interesting but what we really want to know is when it will become self aware and start killing humans?
"I think this line is mostly filler"
A matte black satellite against the black background of space is going to be hard to spot.
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
lollertroller. Read some history. People weren't flocking here from Europe because of the utopian paradise being run over there.. Guess who came over in steerage? Oh, that's right, the peasants.
Anyways, I think the GP's point is that having a strong protective government force allows less essential pursuits aside from "find food, don't get stabbed" like science to flourish. Check out how well things were faring in the middle ages vs. more stable eras.
What is freedom? Freedom from getting stabbed by my neighbor? Freedom to not starve? Freedom to not be raided by barbarians from the North? How are these achieved without threat of retribution or a central justice system?
US doesn't seem to do any of these things. Your military is a parasite that feeds off worthwhile projects.
The US Military is a jobs project that employs 2.5 million people - 1.55 million active, 850,000 reserve, 100,000 Department of defense. The education system in the US is severely dysfunctional, and the military is now the only place where young people can get all-expense paid vocational training.
So it's not all bombs and bullets.
FYI, Velcro was invented by a Swiss.
Interesting, thanks. :) Velcro
Learn the rules so you know how to break them properly.
www.teslabox.com
How about making it a Mars lander, you've had so much success with that the last time you went all giddy about this.
I was promised a flying car. Where is my flying car?
http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=24049
Fear earns nothing but violence and destruction. Fear and violence are the acts of despots determined to keep what is not theirs.
The Borgia crime family - one of the greatest mafiosa gangs in history - presided over the Enlightenment and largely caused most of it. True, there was a lot of fear, but centralized justice and peace on Earth there wasn't.
Scotland and the outlying islands achieved a murder rate average of 0.00000045 per thousand people per year over its first four millenia of occupation. It also had very very little scientific or technical development (well, ok, they invented the stone circle, the method of raising monoliths, and for some reason apartment complexes, but not a whole lot else).
And these guys don't seem too afraid of central justice. Oh, and the ATF being busted for smuggling guns into Mexico for 6-10 years? Yeah, right, those're the guys I'd trust to defend my freedom. Not.
Cambridge University, one of the leading institutions in the world for scientific research, is one of the most left-wing and has some of the greatest protections against retribution and indeed any kind of central justice system. It was even founded by criminals. Many top US universities for science could say the same, except for perhaps the being founded by criminals bit.
The US military recently admitted death-squads in Afghanistan went out killing civilians for fun. C'mon, the "one rotten apple" gets old after the first few hundred.
Freedom from getting stabbed by my neighbor? How about freedom from shoot-outs over where the dog chose to go? Besides, the US has a higher murder rate than almost any other country in the world.
It also has the highest infant mortality rate in the Western world, a preventable death rate double that of the next-highest Western nation, one of the poorest ratings in education and basic literacy, a low rating in overall happiness, the highest rate of incarceration outside of China, an execution rate comparable to North Korea, and a military budget in excess of the rest of the top ten combined. So I'm not seeing a whole lot of this freedom that all this money is supposedly buying.
Well, outside of Wachovia bank that is. They seem to have bought a whole lot of freedom, albeit at the cost of a Mexican civil war and a few hundred thousand lives.
The Victorians once believed as you did. Earned them a crime wave. Then they discarded retribution and threats for moderation and civility, resulting in a rebirth of British democracy.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
This is space we're talking about. And There Ain't No Stealth In Space.
Nylons were engineered in the U.S.A.
Then why are they named after NY and London?
PlusFive Slashdot reader for Android. Can post comments.
I'm quite sure that if the education program had the military's budget it wouldn't be as bad as it is now.
PlusFive Slashdot reader for Android. Can post comments.
One thing you can be sure of - if you see a flying object, and it's unidentified, then it is a UFO.
Surely by definition once you determined an object to be a UFO it becomes identified as such. I hereby move that the term is changed to LaUFO, or loo-fo to commence immediately so sayeth the ruler of Bethos.
Wanna buy a shirt?
https://www.redbubble.com/people/stealthfinger/shop?asc=u
Was I the only one who initially missed the S, and thought the headline was, "Amateur Spy On US Spy Plane" ?
Clearly that spy can't be considered a green-horn anymore; Getting a seat on an unmanned space flight is no small feat!
It's amazing what you can do when you've got an object in space that you can set up with minimal overhead. I mean, hey, its not like those big expensive spy satellites have a limited fuel or anything. Sure, Libya had always been kind of a nuisance, but I assume there weren't that many spy satellites within range before. One of the features of this thing was that it had oversized engines for what it was, meaning it could make drastic orbit changes at short notice. Anyone know how long its been in this orbit over Libya?
It's been speculated (more assumption...) that the X-37B could be a test platform for new surveillance equipment. Could be they have some new cameras with some awesome resolution to test out. Might be some kind of new sensors, or maybe some kind of a mirror or laser communication relay, to bounce a signal for someone covert down in Tripoli. For all we know, it could be some crazy new concept we won't hear about for another 20 years.
Anyone know if its orbit brings it within close proximity of any other satellites? Some people have said it could be used to interfere with the satellites from other countries. Maybe, its secretly plotting to activate SkyNet in conjunction with another satellite that recently went up and we have no idea what its doing..
Or, for all we know, its just a camera, the same one they've been using on the other spy satellites for years. Just one that has lots of fuel, and thus, lots of orbit changes before coming down to be refueled and given newer tech cameras.
The world may never know. Or may already know, and just not know it.
One of these days i'm going to find this 'peer' guy and reset HIS connection!
The Moon is quite black - it has similar albedo to coal. Visual system recalibrates itself for object vs. background (which in the case of space, will be much "blacker")
Besides, don't you think they try to camouflage spysats already? Still fairly easy to spot. And with X-37B it's not like they even try that much; an expandable sat / mission package barely larger than the payload bay of X-37B - but with identical on-orbit capabilities - would be much harder to spot.
One that hath name thou can not otter
Define 'black'. If you're using the definition from every day conversation, then you mean 'something that doesn't emit or reflect light in the narrow band of the EM spectrum visible to human eyes' and that's pretty easy to achieve. If you use a more scientific definition, it's much harder. If it's actually doing anything, then it will be generating heat. Every time it changes orbit, it will be firing a rocket, which has a huge IR signature and is trivial to track with very cheap equipment.
This is the problem with most stealth technology - it only protects against a narrow range of sensor technologies.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
They were replaced with buggy Perl scripts some time around 1998.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
As usual, quite some non-sense appears in some of the comments here about the orbit of the X-37B and it's "manoeuverability"
First: in terms of reconnaissance opportunities, a 43 degree orbit gives you no edge over a polar orbit. On the contrary, while a polar orbit brings any latitude within reach for reconnaissance, a 43 degree orbit does not as latitudes above 43 degree are less well covered (and far North or south latitudes aren't covered at all).
Note that for targets below 43 degree latitude, it really doesn't matter whether the satellite is in a 43 degree, 63 degree or 90 degree (polar) inclination orbit: all these orbits will bring such a target in reach, and the 43 degree orbit has no extra benefit compared to a 63 or 90 degree orbit.
So it is nonsense to think that the 43 degree inclination orbit has been chosen to have a "better" look on a target near 43 degree latitude. A 90 degree inclination orbit would cover such as target just as good.
Instead, the 43 degree inclination has probably been chosen to maximize coverage of the X-37B orbit by US tracking and control facilities. So, a very prozaic explanation connected to the experimental nature of the craft, and the fact that it frequently re-boosts (it has to: it is in a low orbit and hence subject to quick decay).
Another frequent non-sensical remark about the X-37B is that it supposedly would be "more manoeuverable" than the typical reconnaissance satellite: and somehow able to "quickly get over a target" if necessary. Again, this is a wrong view on how orbital dynamics and the dynamics of target coverage work. The X37-B might have wings and behave like an airplane in the atmosphere near landing: but in space, it is just a satellite subject to the same orbital laws as any other satellite. Like any satellite, it will cover any target within reach of the orbital inclination at least twice a day. And you just don't "steer" a spaceship to a target within an hour: it is not similar to flying an airplane (unlike suggestions in Battlestar Galactica or Star Wars). You change the orbital period and/or inclination and this determines when and how the satellite (X37-B in this case: but it is the same for any other satellite) will encounter a target, about twice a day.
Please note that, contrary to assumptions to the contrary often made, regular reconnaissance satellites like the Keyholes and Lacrosses frequently manoeuvre as well. They have to, to maintain their orbital constellation. Nothwithstanding this frequent manoeuvring (they do so multiple times a year) they stay operational for many, many years (Lacrosse 2 was finally de-orbited last week after being operational for 20 years, with very frequent manoeuvering during those 20 years). So the X37-B doesn't really have an edge in sense of "manoeuverability" over any other satellite, contrary to what many people seem to think. The frequent manoeuvres the craft makes are manoeuvres to maintain orbital altitude, and this has to do with the low orbit (= high drag, high decay) the craft is in. It are not manoeuvres to change the orbit to quickly target new targets. That idea, is simply wrong and originates with people who have no clue about orbital dynamics in space.
The only real edge the X-37B has over other satellites is that it enables you to sent up and then retrieve payloads. For the rest, it cannot do more than any conventional satellite can do.
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem delendam esse
It would not be detectable using visible light, infra-red or radio telescopes, and it would not occlude any other celestial objects like planets, moons or stars.
Vintage computer adverts: http://www.vintageadbrowser.com/computers-and-software-ads
The education system in the US is severely dysfunctional, and the military is now the only place where young people can get all-expense paid vocational training.
We have an all-volunteer force now. Do you really think that what you pointed out is NOT by design?
How come Slashdot never gets Slashdotted?
It would be also ethereal to millions of (~10km/s average impact speed) pellets filling a number of random "dumb rockets"; material chosen solely on the basis of stealth (if very small sizes weren't enough...) and relatively high density; some types of rock should do fine, many even come ground to gravel / etc. The ultimate shotgun.
The orbit is a perfect asymmetrical warfare battleground, steps towards its militarization are...insane. Any space capable entity can easily largely deny a productive use of Earth orbit to us all (and most importantly to big players being its "adversaries", whose numerous military orbital installations tip the perceived balance of power; such attack is a really good deal as far as small space powers are concerned - their few orbital installations can be easily selectively disabled now by the larger powers); any rocket & satellite could have such payload. And it might take just one to trigger real Kessler Syndrome, we're not that far off already.
One that hath name thou can not otter
The Crossbow Project. There's No Defense Like a Good Offense
End of line..
...or you might launch just the expendable observation platform(s - many of them, when using the expendable rocket which lifts X-37B as a payload; best of all: a rocket with Russian-made main engine)
... most frequently used launch vehicle in the world", and close to least expensive one), that we won't relive the dream started in scifi of the ~40s (times of rapid airplane advances no doubt influencing it [1]) on which STS designers and decision-makers were certainly raised. And pushed in scifi ever since; hey, it does look really familiar and reassuring...
I was hoping Shuttle taught us something (say, with the Hubble - it would be less expensive to have new ones; they are already relatively "mass" produced, as spysats... launched by expendable rockets; or what Zenit sats taught us - the most popular payload of "the most reliable
About the only sensible thing maybe going for it seems to be testing / ability to maybe do noticeably larger, per delta-V & fuel required [2], lifting inclination changes. Maybe.
1. Like those airplanes from "our" times (can be even done - take a Harrier, remove wings and canopy), no doubt influenced by rapid advances in marine tech; vs. what so called reality dictates. Spaceplanes can be seen as analogous to flying boats (not many of those around now); Catalina at best (& hopefully), Spruce Goose at worst. Imagine how much further we could be without STS (a craft obsolete long before its first mission; first automatic orbital rendezvous & docking taking place in the 60s) or Buran (pushed by ignorant Soviet generals as a "counterpart" to nonexistent strategic advantage of STS; engineers wanted to do something very different)
2. Assuming worth the mass budget for an airframe...
One that hath name thou can not otter
Yay for Free Speech Cage^H^H^H^HZones! And it's so much easier with export of suffering, also effects of free pursuits of our populations (well, yeah, they need to let some steam after all those worthy pursuits...)
Tell me, how is it that in one important metric of "freedom" (oh how long people fall for this catchphrase...) or "civilian pursuits" - social mobility - the US is at the bottom of developed countries? (together with few others, UK for example; at the top are often derided "nanny states", without much of a military-industrial complex)
One that hath name thou can not otter
"Less government" is the catchphrase of true Americans, didn't you get the memo? (BTW, mentioning the myth of backwards middle ages, created by the next era, doesn't help many arguments)
One that hath name thou can not otter
That's what I thought too, but here is wiki's explanation:
"In 1940, John W. Eckelberry of DuPont stated that the letters "nyl" were arbitrary and the "on" was copied from the suffixes of other fibers such as cotton and rayon. A later publication by DuPont explained that the name was originally intended to be "No-Run" ("run" meaning "unravel"), but was modified to avoid making such an unjustified claim and to make the word sound better.[6] An apocryphal tale is that Nylon is a conflation of "New York" and "London". Equally spurious is the backronym for "Now You've Lost, Old Nippon" referring to the supposed loss of demand for Japanese silk."
This is the sig that says NI (again)
Some data to show that the X37-B OTV-2 coverage of Tripoli is really not that much better than that of the "conventional" Keyhole optical and Lacrosse radar reconnaissance satellites:
Number of passes of US Reconnaissance satellites bringing Tripoli within sensor range for April 3rd, 2011:
KH-12 Keyhole high-res optical satellites:
(97 degree inclination Polar orbit)
USA 186: 5 passes
USA 161: 3 passes
USA 129: 5 passes
Lacrosse high-res SAR satellites:
(50 & 57 degree inclination orbits)
Lacrosse 3: 8 passes
Lacrosse 4: 6 passes
Lacrosse 5: 7 passes
As you see, not quite a shortage of coverage.
The X37-B OTV-2 passes over Tripoli as well:
(43 degree inclination orbit)
X-37B OTV-2: 7 passes
Lacrosses with their orbital inclination of 50/57 degrees make as much passes per day as the X-37B with it's 43 degree orbital inclination. There really is no reason to think that the choosen inclination has anything to do with optimizing Libya coverage. The more so since the previous X-37B mission, which was before the Libya revolution started, also had an orbital inclination near 40 degrees.
As I mentioned in another comment, the choosen inclination most likely has to do with optimizing coverage by the US tracking facilities.
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem delendam esse
Picture of X-40A in an article on an X-37B launch?! :)
http://citynewspost.com/x-37b-launch-delay-due-to-bad-weather/855019/
I doubt if that was the intention...
Its starting to look more and more like project Rho haven't really got a clue what they are talking about though:
http://scienceblogs.com/builtonfacts/2010/03/while_doing_some_poking_around.php
They are very good at what they do!
I think I detect some sarcasm here.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
Duh, just turn off the headlights!
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
And, amusingly enough, the fake UFO stories got them way more scrutiny than they would have ever gotten if they had simply told the public "Sorry, we can't discuss classified aircraft or missions."
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.