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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."
There is no plans to de orbit the ISS yet there is an agreement to keep using it until 2020 but that can be extended.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
We shouldn't buy hotdog buns. There are 12 in a package but only 10 hotdogs per package.
We should call it...the plus-wing fighter!
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
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.
Donte Alistair Anderson Roberts - hi son!
Karma: Chameleon
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.
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.
>How likely is it that the Air Force already has this developed and is just bringing this out of the closet?
It is a common plot beginning with the 1969 movie "Marooned" and on through the Bruce Willis movie where him and his guys saved earth from a renegade asteroid. Both (and other movies) used same plot where NASA is in a pickle but the moment was saved because the USAF had a secret spaceship.
In some ways this is not new, Air Force been working on manned space planes before most of you /. were born. i.e. X-20 Dyna-Soar, and excellent book with lotsa technical stuff (and reprints of advertisements by Boeing, Grumman, etc) is "Dyna-Soar: Hypersonic Strategic Weapons System" by Robert Godwin. It even comes with a DVD with various footage including public affairs of a general introducing the X20 astronauts and describing how the program will give USAF capabilities in space. http://www.amazon.com/Dyna-Soar-Hypersonic-Strategic-Weapons-System/dp/1896522955/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1318364033&sr=8-1
X-20 was cancelled in 1963, I wonder if the big barrier was reusable TPS? TPS of the Shuttle was a considerable success (other materials would have been heavy reducing payload capacity), see "Orbiter Structure + Thermal Protection System" by Tom Moser http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k2jN_26m8LM
mfwright@batnet.com
I rather doubt claymores are being attached to satellites.
They will be if the USAF is sending astronauts up to grab them. Almaz had a 23mm cannon and I believe the USSR at least looked at arming their spy satellites when the USAF was talking about using the shuttle to capture them.
The Zoomy Zappy Space Flyer!
They're Russians. If it hadn't been for us whining westerners the Russians would still be getting their money's worth out of the Mir station, simply patching it up as they go.
No - because they had to go and use 10 cent pencils instead of 10 grand space pens the electronics were all filled up with graphite dust and sparking up fires every hour or so. Kind of like when the Jupiter 2 would plunge through an asteroid field. Sooner or later you run out of CO2 in the extinguishers.
If Slashdot were chemistry it would look like this:Cadaverine
NASA bought the pens for under $3 each starting in 1968. The Russians were using exactly the same ink pens in orbit a year later at the same price.
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=fact-or-fiction-nasa-spen
You can never go home again... but I guess you can shop there.
Tampering with other peoples' satellites isn't a very useful mission - it's an act of war and something you wouldn't be able to hide very easily.
And so it would be a nice capability during a war that's already underway.
No need for co2. Put on suit, open door.
The wings and the fuse and all the rest were indeed a problem with the shuttle, because they amounted to dead weight and reduced the lifting capacity by quite a bit.
Wrong the body of the shuttle generates lift so it needs less fuel to reach orbit. After the shuttle launches it performs a roll maneuver. More of the engine power is used to achieve orbital velocity and not elevation. The body of the craft creates lift. This increases the amount of mass that the shuttle can send into orbit.
http://stason.org/TULARC/science-engineering/space/53-Why-does-the-shuttle-roll-just-after-liftoff.html
Second on reentry, the wings produce a hole in plasma that can be used to communicate with satellites.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communications_blackout
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.
Both shuttle losses were fundamentally caused by the wings falling off.
Funny thing to say given that neither failed for that reason. The first failed because there was burn through on a solid rocket motor. The second failed because of ice or foam strikes on the leading edge of a wing with no effort made to ascertain whether damage to the wing had occurred. Sure a wing fell off in the second case (but not in the first case!), but it's not the cause of failure.