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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.
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.
Maybe because NASA is a political football that isn't allowed to do really cutting edge stuff without subcontracting the work to 48 out of 50 states to secure funding from Congress, while secret military programs can do science with less bother. Some of the Area 51 programs involved in developing OXCART ended up ahead of schedule and under budget because keeping stuff confidential sheltered it from the usual MIC/appropriations morasd. Likewise SpaceX is now on the cutting edge of rocket recoverability because it's more capable of taking risks and less hamstrung by accounting oversight. Maybe covert projects like the X37b are simply easier organizationally and thus easier avenues to doing unconventional science like testing ion engines than is the civilian space program. Remember, Hubble became possible because of Keyhole, which worked out the materials science and engineering aspects in secret.
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?