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Robotic Space Plane Launches In Mystery Mission This Week
mpicpp writes: The United States Air Force's robotic X-37B space plane will carry a NASA experiment into orbit when it launches on its next mystery mission Wednesday. The liftoff will begin the reusable space plane's fourth mission, which is known as OTV-4 (short for Orbital Test Vehicle-4). Since it's classified it's not entirely clear what the space plane will be doing once it leaves Earth Wednesday. This has led to some speculation that the vehicle might be a weapon, but officials have repeatedly refuted that notion, saying X-37B flights simply test a variety of new technologies. The X-37B looks like a miniature version of NASA's now-retired space shuttle. The robotic, solar-powered space plane is about 29 feet long by 9.5 feet tall (8.8 by 2.9 meters), with a wingspan of 15 feet (4.6 meters) and a payload bay the size of a pickup-truck bed. Like the space shuttle, the X-37B launches vertically and lands horizontally, on a runway.
The Air Force has weaponized systemd and is launching satellites that can download it onto enemy computers at a moments' notice.
I hate to feed the trolls, but:
1) This is US Military, not NASA
2) The NASA budget is $18.4 billion or about 0.5% of budget
3) Dividing $18B amongst the population of 319M will give everyone $56. Not a good basic income.
4) NASA does some really great stuff that benefits every american citizen immensely. Like your 10 day weather forecasts? LIke your GPS navigation. Thank NASA.
5) There is nothing wrong with a good test platform. Where else are you going to get long endurance recoverable space data for classified purposes? Not the international space station to be sure.
He's just an asshole.
Don't be apathetic. Procrastinate!
wish i had mod points. +1 informative
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
Here's hoping it's an EM drive + battery. I know that's not likely with an organization as ironically conservative as NASA but wouldn't it just be cool?
If video games influenced behavior the Pac Man generation would be eating pills and running away from their problems.
The military aren't going to sit around and wait. They are looking for a delivery vehicle that can act as a drone.
http://news.discovery.com/spac...
where it states in 2012 it completed a 224 day mission, terming it 'drone'.
With China's attempt in weaponizing space, the US military are being foresighted.
Ramming speed?
Don't be apathetic. Procrastinate!
If I were the US military, I would look at space weapons. Sure they aren't legal, but Soviet Russia wasn't supposed to build biological or chemical weapons, and yet they did. They were supposed to limit nuclear weapons according to the treaty, and they never did. They weren't supposed to invade Georgia, and they did. They weren't supposed to invade Ukraine, and they did. They keep claiming "its not our guys" and yet there are at least 250 known trained Russian special forces in Ukraine. They have captured many with their Russian passports and identity cards. Putin keeps on ratcheting up the military, sending destroyers to peace conferences, using the Russian air force to "probe" other countries air space. If other countries did it to Russia, Putin would call it a provocation to war. Trust but verify is the word. But you can't trust Putin, and there is no verify, so you get another arms race, started by Putin.
Unless you're testing the aerodynamics and other flight capabilities of a reusable robotic lander.
But yeah, that's probably not it. That wouldn't be classified.
My guess? They're testing some kind of new spy tech.
Those who can't do, teach. Those who can't teach either, do tech support.
Well, unless you're testing sensors, where interference from a large object full of electronics, vibrations and heat generating devices might be a problem or you need a different orbit or you don't want your military stuff exposed to international crews.
By your logic, why have a Hubble telescope, or a Chandra X-Ray Observatory, when they could simply be attached to the ISS?
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
They're only doing this to find people that can spell
There, FTFY
- X/Y -
Have to play Devil's Advocate here, but it could also be for development of defense AGAINST weapons. Think about it: China (and the US, I believe) has already blown a satellite in LEO out of the sky. The 60 Minutes piece on the weaponization of space (and especially AGAINST space) is not just over-hyped (for a change), but a real threat. If someone can make a weapon that can take out satellites in MEO (GPS, GLONASS, Beidou, Galileo, etc) and GEO (both geo-sync and sun-sync), there will be a real problem. Of course, this isn't to take away from the denial of near-space around the Earth altogether due to the creation of massive amounts of debris, and the creation of a maneuvering system that uses much smaller amounts of fuel than before could be the prelude to "garbage trucks" in space to clean things up.
In fact, it just occurred to me that the X-37B may be the most visible sign of a new arms race that's mostly taking place behind the scenes because China in particular is so secretive (much more than the old Soviet Union).
-1 TROLL
It is merely a test rocket plane. It does not have the capability to initiate transwarp drive. It cannot be used to deliver a thermo-nuclear payload to Pandora. There is no secret space monkey program.
Any reports indicating anything to the contrary are simply wrong.
That is all. Briefing over.
you know what they do on the ISS?
Well, they can't very well do weapons research on the ISS with the Russians up there.
"Oleg. Vat is 'pew pew pew' sound comink from American module?"
Have gnu, will travel.
... find people WHO can spell
4) NASA does some really great stuff that benefits every american citizen immensely. Like your 10 day weather forecasts? LIke your GPS navigation. Thank NASA.
NASA does do some really great stuff that benefits every american citizen immensely, but your examples are horrible.
Weather forecasts are handled by National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA - I love that acronym for a weather agency!), who operate their own birds (though a few were launched by NASA).
GPS is built, launched, and operated by the U.S. Air Force. NASA has literally nothing to do with GPS.
You don't have mod points, so please stop trying to moderate. This does nothing but clutter up the discussion. The lack of mod points mean what you think in this case is irrelevant to everyone but you.
I agree. This shit keeps on cluttering up valuable discussion space.
Don't be apathetic. Procrastinate!
I guess you could read this
http://www.gizmodo.co.uk/2015/...
Or you could be a fucking retard. Or were you pre-emptively replying to retards? Then you're a retard.
Or were you trying to make fun of mpicpp? Because I could do that for you as well. I think information is more effective, but apparently you think that being an asshole or ignorant fuck on the internet is more effective. So now you're the target.
You're not helping.
what are we gonna run out of internetz???
GPS is entirely USAF. Other than that, your point stands.
4) NASA does some really great stuff that benefits every american citizen immensely. Like your 10 day weather forecasts? LIke your GPS navigation. Thank NASA.
Ah, no:
Weather? That's NOAA, not NASA. Yes, 4 letters and starts with "N" and they both do stuff in space, but that's about the limit of similarity. Oh, and the US DOD has their own weather bureau as well--what better way to waste lots of money than duplicating the functions of a "civilian" agency?
GPS? That's the US Air Force, just like the X-37B, not NASA. The fact that the US Military Industrial Complex controls GPS is one of the driving reasons behind Galileo (and, to some extent, other GNSS's), despite Galileo being built by the European Military Industrial Complex but assumably under "civilian" control. Suuure...
Okay, I know it's probably the least important thing about the craft, but still...
Why are they using such an ancient, decrepit-ass rocket motor? The AR2-3 is incredibly old - it dates back to a Gemini-era trainer, basically a modded F-104 that NASA used for early tests and training for spaceflight. It was made back when rocket chemistry was still in the "even the experts don't know much" stage, so it burned jet fuel and high-test peroxide (90%+ H2O2 in H2O).
Jet fuel is not good for rockets - basically, the restrictions on what compounds can be present is fine for jet engines, but leads to horrible problems with rockets. There's a specific petroleum-product blend designed for rockets, called RP-1, which clamps down on things like sulfur compounds or alkenes that love to gum up the works. This rocket was originally used on a jet fighter and shared fuel with it, so that was understandable... but the USAF recertified the engine for modern JP-8 instead of the old JP-4. So they already went through the effort of making it work with a new but similar fuel. Unless the X-37 hides a jet engine on itself somewhere, I don't see why they couldn't have used RP-1 instead.
Further, rocket science moved away from peroxide for a reason - it's dangerous. It will explode for basically any reason - peroxide decomposes exothermically, so once it starts reverting to H2O + O2, it's nearly impossible to stop. And it reacts with tankage surprisingly often. Oh, and it does horrible things to your specific impulse, which really hurts you on a last-stage engine like this one.
Honestly, using the engine at all is a weird choice. Sure, maybe they had some laying around... from the sixties... but that's like putting an F-104 engine in a prototype aircraft, it just doesn't seem right when other off-the-shelf systems work better. An AJ-10 would have worked beautifully. An RL10 might not have fit the aero package (hydrogen is a bulky fuel), but would have given them some impressive dV if they wanted it. Aestus would be a perfect match as well, if they didn't mind outsourcing to the Euros. Even Kestrel would work (although it first flew around the same time as this, so understandable not to use it). Point is, they had options, and being the Air Force, they could easily have just had an engine custom-made for it if they so wanted.
So what are the implications? All I can think of is a) they don't care how badly the rocket performs, b) they probably aren't going to keep that engine in whatever "production" version they build, or c) they have some other reason to use peroxide or JP8. Maybe peroxide is also their monoprop for RCS? That isn't really worth it though, particularly when UDMH works better as RCS and in the main motor.
Everyone gets excited about monkeys and dogs and geckos going into space and a robot goes into space and nobody cares. That's racist....speciesist....life-form-ist!
because they have to be rock steady, not attached to an object with people in it who keep moving around
Civilization never progressed until resources were spent on more than the basics. Would you prefer waking at dawn, donning your animal fur, and taking your spear to go hunting for that day's food?
"listen and interfere", meaning, listen to the radio-communications of, and to interfere with the electronics of, foreign satellites and airplanes.
No wonder they all hate us. If someone infected my computer with that shit I'd launch a jihad
Allahu systemd!!
Uhh, GPS was the DOD http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_Positioning_System . Weather sats were a joint research projecte between NASA and the DOD
5) There is nothing wrong with a good test platform.
Really? Now imagine what the posts on this article would be like if this was a Russian or a Chinese 'test platform'. It would be panic all over the place and 'invasion of our air space' etcetera. But somehow it's okay for the US to have secret military 'test platforms'.
European Linux user, living in Antwerp
Examples that NASA has something to do with (maybe not directly): the microwave, 0-G ball pen, tennis shes, freeze dried ice cream.
Why is the thruster off-center on that thing ? How can it work ?!?
Non-Linux Penguins ?
And you're adding to the discussion exactly how? People are allowed to, you know, express their opinions and stuff.
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
I believe that my God has laid out a story for me in which I don't believe in Him, so I have chosen to obey His will by being atheist. With any luck, I'll even be rewarded with 70 virgins.
You really don't get his point? NASA is the reason we went to space. Full. Stop. All that other crap he listed? Just a side effect of, you know, NASA sending a bunch of shaved apes into space in a tin can.
You should have paid closer attention. Your "reward" will be 70 very ugly virgins riddled with various diseases who will constantly be fighting with each other, and who will always be jealous of each other. Plus they will have only one hobby - nagging at you. Have fun with your paradise, my friend.
Negative on the space pen ( 0-G ball pen ). That was private industry but the myth of NASA creating it continues to thrive.
I would have to think about it. I wouldn't write it off out of hand.
Tennis shes? Pretty sure women were playing tennis long before NASA came along....
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
Weather forecasts are handled by National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA - I love that acronym for a weather agency!), who operate their own birds (though a few were launched by NASA).
NASA provides the design, launch, and project management for the NOAA satellites up until they are in orbit at which point the operations is turned over to NOAA. The last system they tried to launch with a reduced role for NASA was NPOESS--which was a complete failure. (Not all of which was NOAA's fault, it was a horrible idea that tried to merge NOAA & DOD requirements, but the reality is that there was no more appetite for NOAA to try to take on tasks that were being handled well by NASA and the successor project, JPSS, returned to the historic model of NASA program management driven by NOAA requirements.)
Weather? That's NOAA, not NASA. Yes, 4 letters and starts with "N" and they both do stuff in space, but that's about the limit of similarity. Oh, and the US DOD has their own weather bureau as well--what better way to waste lots of money than duplicating the functions of a "civilian" agency?
NASA designs, builds, and launches the NOAA satellites. NOAA manages the satellites once they're in orbit and is responsible for the data collection and analysis. NASA does support the operations. DoD flubbed their most recent weather satellite program (DWSS) and they're also now using data from the NASA-built NOAA weather satellites.
GPS? That's the US Air Force, just like the X-37B, not NASA.
The GPS program is entirely DoD, but it does use some NASA support systems.
Why do you post anonymously? Is that the way of your kind?
You should have paid closer attention. Your "reward" will be 70 very ugly virgins riddled with various diseases who will constantly be fighting with each other, and who will always be jealous of each other. Plus they will have only one hobby - nagging at you. Have fun with your paradise, my friend.
Your sarcasm only makes sense if you think GP was serious. I hope that is not the case.
Three days from now?? Thats tomorrow!! ~Peter Griffin
Who would want 70 virgins anyway? I want 70 sluts.
NASA is the reason we went to space. Full. Stop.
NASA sent its shaved apes up in repurposed military rockets, after the USSR had already done the same. NASA was not the first mover here.
NASA had nothing to do with the microwave oven. Diathermy (therapeatic heating of human tissue by radio waves) was being used in 1930. Westinghouse demonstrated cooking food using short waves in the 1933 Worlds Fair. The cavity magnetron was perfected early in WW2. Percy Spencer noticed a candy bar in his pocket melting when he was working close to an operating radar in 1945. He experimented with heating food in a metal box fed from a magnetron the same year; Raytheon filing a patent for it. Raytheon built he first "Radarange" in 1947. A public vending machine was producing hot dogs in Grand Central Terminal in 1947.
Lets step back and see what this secret mission is all about. A Tax Payer funded project that goes around in circles. LOL.
Why is the room so quiet?
You forgot about Tang.
"Somebody has to do something. It's just incredibly pathetic it has to be us."
--- Jerry Garcia
So now we're blaming the Republicans for being pro-science as well as being anti-science?
Are you sure that would be the reaction? I don't believe that to be the case, after all Russia and China have both had military test platforms in space. Russia even weaponized at least one of their space stations.
APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
"Would you prefer waking at dawn, donning your animal fur, and taking your spear to go hunting for that day's food?"
I predict this lifestyle hitting California soon. Several of the big Hollywood stars and at least one Slate columnist will take the lead.
Plenty of Russian and Chinese space vehicles come over my house on a nightly basis. Go look them up on Heavens Above.
I have yet to wear a tin foil cap even with this knowledge in mind.... tonight when I'm out doing some night sky photography and I see a handful of satellites coming over I won't even stop to cover my eyes so their high resolution cameras can't identify me.
It would be a wonderful opportunity to send one up, to see if it actually generates thrust without fuel (in a relatively gravity free environment where it would be most useful).
http://www.gizmag.com/cannae-r...
Although that's a lot of trouble to test the Cannae Drive: just suspend it from a rope, throw the current to it, and see if it deflects from the vertical. (A simple antigravity drive test suggested half a century ago by some well-known science fiction writer.)
NASA invented pussy? Man, is there anything awesome those guys didn't think up?!
We don't have a state-run media we have a media-run state.
Investment in NASA has given our economy a boost of 7-14 times what we put into it so far, and the list of technologies and inventions that have resulted is prodigious, including things like kidney dialysis and fireproof clothing for firefighters. Here's a list of some more: http://www.21stcentech.com/mon...
NASA doesn't really build anything. NOAA's satellite are designed, built and launched by contractors like Orbital Sciences or Lockheed Martin. You are right that NASA collaborates on oversight and support, but if you imagine a world without NASA, that would still get done.
I think you dramatically underestimate how hard it is to manage such projects. Other people have done the same, and the result was NPOESS. NASA isn't great at it, but there's only contrary evidence that NOAA is better at it.
Velcro......'nuff said...
Sure. Project management is hard and NASA has some domain expertise in satellites. But that's a long way from saying we should thank NASA for a 10-day forecast.
NASA does aeronautical performance and safety research that benefits everyone who flies. Their space research provides the underpinnings for these private space companies everyone worships around here.
Specific products are unimportant. In most cases it's companies that do the actual invention, using NASA specs and research. What they do literally drives the economy in a big way, and they do it with pitiful funding.
It doesn't help matters that the average US citizen is so ignorant as to think that NASA's budget is several times what it actually is, which is why you hear dopes complaining about it all the time.
You do also realize that the sensors on the NOAA satellites are the output of NASA R&D, right? Yeah, NOAA (in collaboration with researchers at NASA & other institutions) developed and runs the models. But the input for the models comes from sensors on satellites which would not exist without the NASA space research mission. Is it possible that such systems could have been developed in an alternate reality without NASA? Sure, but also maybe not. Could future developments be made without NASA? Maybe, but why would you screw up something that works because it might also work a different way? You could develop the capabilities internal to NOAA, but there's no clear reason why that would be better and cheaper than leveraging capabilities at NASA which are amortized across a greater number of programs.
"Sensor" is a very broad term. Which sensors are used NOAA satellites that have no other antecedent but those developed NASA? Something that was specifically and uniquely developed IN HOUSE at NASA that no other organization would have the expertise to develop.
Rarely does NASA invent the basic technology behind the sensor these days. Usually the hard part is making it work reliably in space and then *doing something useful with the data*. Right now there's a NASA research effort for detecting lightning with space-based sensors. Making that work *in daylight* was hard, but it's working pretty well now. A few years down the road that technology should be added to a NOAA platform, because the lightning frequency information is very valuable in predicting tornado activity and other severe storms. That's the way the pipeline works; the NOAA platforms are operational, and you don't get time on one of them to experiment with new stuff, but NASA sends up research missions with experimental sensor payloads all the time. Could NOAA turn into that R&D entity? Again, why?
Lightsail prototype and several other non-military payloads are hitching a ride on this launch. https://www.kickstarter.com/pr...
The Russians used a pencil