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."

Comments

Was that supposed to be a summary?

[Goaway]

Is that just three sentences copypasted at random, with no attempt whatsoever made to explain what this article is about, or what?

Re:Was that supposed to be a summary?

[Dan East]

Here's a summary:
Each time the X-37B is launched a bunch of amateurs make a game out of finding it in orbit. It took a month to find it using telescopes on the first mission, but only 4 days on the current mission. It is currently in a very low (lower than the space station) non-polar orbit, which is unusual for spy satellites, because it will never cross large areas of the planet. So they presume it is used for spying on specific areas on this mission, likely the Middle East as it has good coverage of that area. Basically all that's known is its orbit, not what it is capable of nor what it is actually doing.

Re:Was that supposed to be a summary?

[camperdave]

If they wanted good coverage of the Middle East, they'd put the bird in a Molniya style orbit. This sounds like a circular orbit

Orbital clues

[similar_name]

From the article

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'

Where to look

[Ironchew]

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".

Re:Metricate, damnit!

[SteveM]

Actually, that's true for 100% of the world's population.

Re:Where's The Money From?

[markov_chain]

Well of course it's easy, they don't send people up. Being man-rated makes the space shuttle vastly more complex.

Re:Let me assure you

[Abstrackt]

Here's a handy chart to aid in identification.

Re:Metricate, damnit!

[PopeRatzo]

To 95% of world's population: that's 8.83m.

Yeah, but that 95% doesn't have an X-37B, so it really doesn't matter, does it?

Our super-secret spy space-drone, our units of measurement. That's how we roll up in this bitch.

Re:Hard to believe

[jd]

When Wonder Woman sues you for patent infringement. Duh!

Checking out Libya?

[vitriolum]

Looks like the current orbit will take it right over Tripoli.
http://www.n2yo.com/?s=37375

Re:Where's The Money From?

[jd]

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.

Re:Hard to believe

[ZankerH]

If the US Military wants to not be seen, they can do it. This is probably some object they put up their for the enemy to track. They are very good at what they do!

This is space we're talking about. And There Ain't No Stealth In Space.