Secretive X-37B Military Space Plane Could Land On Tuesday

schwit1 writes After twenty-two months in orbit, on its second space mission, the Air Force plans to bring the X-37B back to Earth this coming Tuesday. From the article: "The exact time and date will depend on weather and technical factors, the Air Force said in a statement released on Friday. The X-37B space plane, also known as the Orbital Test Vehicle, blasted off for its second mission aboard an unmanned Atlas 5 rocket from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida on Dec. 11, 2012. The 29-foot-long (9-meter) robotic spaceship, which resembles a miniature space shuttle, is an experimental vehicle that first flew in April 2010. It returned after eight months. A second vehicle blasted off in March 2011 and stayed in orbit for 15 months."

Comments

I have it on good authority

[Anonymous Coward]

That this thing has some advanced propulsion system on it that also gives it some clever control over inertia and gravity. This is the thing that cut a chunk out of that asteroid that passed near Earth, towed it into orbit, and hurled it into Russian airspace. As a demonstration. Of course, we calculated the precise mass and trajectory of said asteroid chunk so as not to kill anyone...

Re:Your tax dollars being shitted away

[lgw]

We spend ~$800B on Medicare/caid we spend ~$600B on defense and "war-specific spending" (aka, defense), and about $300B on welfare of various kinds. Defense spending is less than 20% of our $3.5T budget. (Social Security is the largest outlay).

Of course, you're right that we're not adequately funding Medi*, as the unfunded liability there is about $800,000 per taxpayer. Not sure what we can do about that. The total US unfunded liabilities (dominated by medicare) exceeds that value of all US assets. Confiscate all wealth in the US and it still won't cover it. Clearly, promises won't be met.

www.usdebtclock.org