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Boeing Suggests Possible Manned Version of the X-37B Space Plane
garymortimer writes with an article in sUAS News. From the article: "A Boeing chief has suggested that the company's mysterious unmanned space-plane, called X-37B, developed for the US Air Force, could be scaled up and modified to carry astronauts. The company's X-37B project chief Art Grantz revealed that at least two more versions of the 9-meter long space-plane are under investigation – one of which involves adding a crew to a much-enlarged version of the space drone, New Scientist reported. If built, the new version would give the US back its ability to shuttle people to the International Space Station."
Promise a manned vehicle to access a space station that is to be de-orbited in 2016-2020. So considering it's almost 2012, you now have 4 years to finish this project. Yeah right. Oh wait I see the game now. The project will be finished 6 months before the ISS is de-orbited, and so there will be calls for a new space station to give this next generation "shuttle" a reason for existing. This is better than the job creation lawyers engage in!
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
All you'd need is a targeting system with a big rotating mirror, and you'd have everything you need to vaporize a human target from space.
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Would this the first manned unmanned space plane?? Exciting times!
giggity
And it's wings will have an 'X' formation, with laser beams that shoot out of the tips. Now, we just need to come up with a name for this thing.
All of the time and energy and money spent on this spacecraft and the space station needs to be leveraged to keep man in space to stay. Instead of discarding current platforms before there are viable replacements, lets try to actually use what we have while we have it, instead of throwing it away so we can "afford" a better one.
This one. Assuming the gov goes through with funding the human-rating process and any engineering changes needed. I guess some seed money has already gone to ULA to kickstart the process.
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The X-37B is 9 meters long and fits in/on a normal rocket. I'm sure SpaceX, Boeing or ArianeSpace can lift 5 metric tonnes into space on their rockets, to name just a few. Even if a human capable X-37 is larger and doubles in weight, there's no shortage of rockets capable of punting it up there.
It would be a few years in the future in any event and some or all of the above will be regarded as 'safe' for astronauts by then.
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How likely is it that the Air Force already has this developed and is just bringing this out of the closet?
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The whole point of this ploy is to distract from the much more efficient and low cost SpaceX system.
The primary competency of the United Launch Alliance group is managing government procurement, secrecy regulations, and Congressional politics.
The primary competency of SpaceX is cost-efficient rocket engineering.
And a few moments of Google-fu yields this article about man-rating the proposed LV for the X-37C platform.
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"Boeing knows its stuff on crew rating - its spaceflight pedigree stretches back to the Apollo moonshot capsules." Do they? All the folks that worked on Apollo and the Shuttle are probably long gone. Nobody in the U.S. has designed a new man-rated space vehicle in 30 years. Does anybody even know what it takes to man-rate a vehicle these days. Back in the day there was a can-do attitude about space travel and a willingness to accept certain risks. I'm not sure that's true anymore. I'm not trying to be flip, and I do not mean this as a knock on Boeing. I'm just concerned. It's one thing to talk and to create budgets based on the perceived rules and requirements. But I wonder if anybody is going to be able to complete the process and get the required signatures in this political climate. I know SpaceX is on the path, but they're a long way from completion. I suppose SpaceX has a political advantage here. If things go bad, congress and NASA don't have to take the blame. They can point fingers at SpaceX and claim they were misled.
Basically, it is a can that is carried in the 'cargo bay'. With the shuttle, you had two different areas. This is actually a better design from a functional POV. One craft that can carry different types of cargo.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Ok, maybe they have to be internal bays, but surely there's a way we can mount guns/etc. on it!
THEN it's pure AirForce! :)
One of the problems with the Shuttle was that it was conceived of as a "truck", with drivers shuttling cargo. The problem is that you really don't need drivers for cargo; astronauts really ARE just spam-in-a-can, as far as the carrier is concerned.
Trying to carry both humans AND cargo made the design harder (and heavier) than it needed to be. A ship that carries one or the other makes both safer. This works very well for the Russians, who can just park whatever they want on top of a disposable rocket.
Yes, they could mount weapons in the internal bays, the question is what kind of weapons, I doubt conventional.
One of the big benefits of this platform is that they can launch the twinkie, have the twinkie let loose a short term satellite, and then recover the satellite to bring back home. Excellent for short term surveillance that cannot be predicted.
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This could become the SUSTAIN platform the USMC has asked for. Spacedrop a squad of Marines anywhere in the world within 40 minutes. The main question though is whether the crewed X37 will include commercial access or is this military only?
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Space plane go... never come back!
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The wings, as designed, were a poor choice.
The shuttle was designed to land at the Van, which is further north then Florida. In order to reach that far north they had to go with a delta wing. This meant that the wings were heaver, the flight path was steeper, and the reentry was faster.
And the shuttle never took off / landed there anyways. Sigh.
This seems like a good carrot to dangle to keep NASA from giving missions to smaller companies like SpaceX.
-- Jeff
That's fine. A human-rated rocket has to be developed regardless of the approach. This is more about whether it's better to use a cone-shaped capsule with ocean splashdown and recovery (Orion), or a winged ship made for landing on an airstrip like the shuttle and X-37B.
Soooo I thought what you said was interesting, and I took a look around. The MiG31 is a 1975 design. The 29 was first flown in 1977. The Su series is, near as I can tell, designs based on the Sukhoi Company a major arms (warplane) builder. So saying the "SU series" is kinda dumb, since that includes designs from the 30s.....
Since you didn't bother to qualify any of your statements with anything, short of you providing proof, I'm going to have to label you troll. Nice try tho.
You didn't really think they needed a reason, did you?
Would be good to have the USA back in the list of countries capable of launching its own astronauts for sure, the more countries the merrier. Also would be great to see some of the private concerns in the USA successfully launching man-capable spacecraft.
Why not just build more of them. If all you want to do is get people into space, you only need pilot plus one. Smaller rockets are easier, though more wasteful. However, a fleet is far more inspiring and will have far greater economies of scale than a handfull of expensive shuttles.
Aim for a launch schedule of one per month. Get to it!
There is a lot more to combat capability than is reported on "fly-offs", and dogfighting (which is the capability demonstrated in the videos you mention - the ones I saw, anyway) is not the preferred combat regime for any fighter pilot. I greatly prefer sticking a missile up his tailpipe from the longest range possible before he knows I'm even there. For instance, of around 40 confirmed kills by U.S. aircraft in Operation Desert Storm in 1991, 29 were with the obsolete Sparrow radar-guided missile, whose minimum range is about a mile. (And some of these were MiG-29s, shot down by F-15s of even older vintage.)
The pilot is what makes an airplane a weapons system. If for some reason (money being the usual - a typical mid-career USAF combat pilot has already cost his taxpayers several million dollars in training) you don't provide your pilots with sufficent and ongoing training and flight hours, he's simply operating a target. This has been borne out in every conflict since air war began - since you mentioned it, Germany in 1944-1945 is an excellent example - flying sometimes technically more advanced airframes, they lost big time. Fuel shortage and previous casualties combined to force them to field many pilots who were woefully undertrained. And while in the modern era third-world air forces have often been willing to procure modern weapons systems, historically they have been savaged by countries with better-trained men.
I would not put too much credence in the sales literature of any aircraft manufacturer. Iraq, Libya, Syria, Egypt, Jordan, Argentina... all bought fighter aircraft off the marketing "glossies". The remains of their pretty airplanes dot various landscapes and sea floors.
Never hear of this thing called Google? Excuse the fuck me if I don't have time to show you how to work it. If you can't understand how though what you want is "Red Flag Russian VS F35" and you'll find it. It was done by the AU and UK who are looking into whether to continue support of the F35, and it ain't pretty.
And frankly I don't give a flying crap when their was built, all that means is we have been sucking hind tit for a hell of a lot longer. It was pointed out the latest Su fighter (I believe Su35, not sure of the Su numbering system) is less than 10 years old and has a flyaway of less than 40 million and stomps the living shit out of anything we have.
And I looove how you have the shriveled tiny balls to call someone troll without actually providing proof a single thing they said was wrong. And how about the most important point that space is NOTHING but a vanity project and has been since it was USSR VS USA? Manned space flight into LEO is nothing but a giant fucking money sink, and with THREE wars we simply don't have the money to waste, kay?
I just love how this place has become nothing but a space and FOSSie circlejerk while ignoring there is a good portion of the planet that would like it very much if we were wiped off the face of it. hell no wonder the numbers of this place is tanking and Taco left, the level of suck is getting unreal.
They said the EXACT same thing in Korea... MiG15s and 17s were faster, better climb rate blah blah blah... yet the F-86 won 10-1! We DOMINATED in every way in supposedly inferior craft. If there is on thing the US still gets right, it's projection of air power.
Speaking as someone in the aviation industry...
You're wrong. Not 100%. You're correct that the F-35 is not the future air superiority solution (NOT that it was ever intended to be, that's the F-22). You're wrong that pushing out more older, cheaper aircraft is the solution.
We don't have to worry about our F-35s being outnumbered 50-to-1 by MiGs.
The MiGs have to worry about being outnumbered 100-to-1 by cheap throwaway drones armed with missiles.
That's the future of air combat. Of all combat, really, at this rate. Why lose millions of dollars of investment on pilot training by getting them killed when you can have people play video games safely thousands of miles away from the explosions.
Maxim: People cannot follow directions.
Increases in truth directly with the length of time spent explaining them
You're really thinking about this wrong. A drone doesn't have to go head-to-head with an F15. It just doesn't. It also doesn't matter if it's a turkey shoot when the turkeys outnumber you 50-to-1 and have FREAKING MISSILES.
We don't need a drone carrier. Deploy them via ICBM or something and treat them as disposable resources. Yes, I'm serious.
The F-35 is not an air superiority fighter. Get that out of your head. Air defense is a secondary mission for it, just like the Falcon and Hornet.
Why have fixed SAM emplacements when you can have mobile missiles on UASes?
You criticize the existing military for not "thinking outside the box" and yet you're the one guilty of wanting to prepare to fight the last war, here. Flying trucks are not a viable design. They made sense when engagements were point blank range dogfights with .50-caliber machine guns, but now we fight with missiles. You can't build an aircraft to survive that.
Maxim: People cannot follow directions.
Increases in truth directly with the length of time spent explaining them