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SpaceX Rocket Launches X-37B Space Plane On Secret Mission, Aces Landing (space.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Space.com: The fifth mystery mission of the U.S. Air Force's X-37B space plane is now underway. A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket carrying the robotic X-37B lifted off today (Sept. 7) at 10 a.m. EDT (1400 GMT) from historic Launch Complex 39A at NASA's Kennedy Space Center (KSC) in Florida. About 2.5 minutes into the flight, the Falcon 9's two stages separated. While the second stage continued hauling the X-37B to orbit, the first stage maneuvered its way back to Earth, eventually pulling off a vertical touchdown at Landing Zone 1, a SpaceX facility at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, which is next door to KSC. The Air Force is known to possess two X-37Bs, both of which were built by Boeing. The uncrewed vehicles look like NASA's now-retired space shuttle orbiters, but are much smaller; each X-37B is 29 feet (8.8 meters) long and 9.6 feet (2.9 m) tall, with a payload bay the size of a pickup truck bed. For comparison, the space shuttles were 122 feet (37 m) long, with 78-foot (24 m) wingspans. Like the space shuttle, the X-37B launches vertically and comes to back to Earth horizontally, in a runway landing. Together, the two X-37Bs have completed four space missions, each of which has set a new duration standard for the program. Exactly what the X-37B did during those four missions, or what it will do during the newly launched OTV-5, is a mystery; most X-37B payloads and activities are classified.
Just wondering, now that they have an 11 story (I think) tall empty, lightweight booster sitting on the pad, will they be able to get in indoors before Irma comes and literally blows it away?
Even if they do, are the structures strong enough to take a direct hit? (I guess so, they've been around since the space age).
Kudo's as always to Space X and their flabbergastingly awesome repeat landings of their booster stages! No matter how cheap the competition (China?) makes their expendable boosters, you can't beat reusing them. I understand that the Falcon Heavy has passed its engine tests (a cluster of three Falcon 9s). Good luck for their November launch! Please, please make getting to orbit 10x then 100x cheaper! (Unrealistic maybe but I can dream).
Too bad that the X-37Bs don't have enough delta-V to get themselves to orbit without using a second stage (with external fuel tanks?). Then we'd have an (almost) completely reusable launch system!
I, for one, welcome our new robotic spaceplane overlords.
Here's the video webcast, in case you missed it. (22min) Does not include 2nd stage coverage, since it's classified.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve your problem, you're not using enough of it. --AC
I can't wait to see them launching three at a time (Falcon Heavy)!!!!
i don't think anybody is really wondering what this 'secret' could be. expect some flattering closeups of dprk's supreme leader and his arsenal, along with companion shots of nearby chinese activity, to be sitting on analysts desks by the end of the weekend.
They are probably doing nifty quantum entanglement experiments. But that is a ruse - the true mission is to see how well a Hostess Twinkie's "freshness" is sustained when exposed to a hard vacuum and unadulterated solar and cosmic radiation.
I remember Elon Musk said that the AI could can cause the WW3. I've got an impression at that time that he was kind of a pacifist.
It's in a polar orbit, so at some point it will pass over *everywhere*...
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Exactly what the X-37B did during those four missions, or what it will do during the newly launched OTV-5, is a mystery; most X-37B payloads and activities are classified.
It is believed top officials of Russia and China already know what those activities are. We expect soon a Russian counterpart of Edward Snowdon to release the Russian government hacked documents and anonymous and WikiLeaks to publish it. .... Just kidding. Not going to happen. They (top officials of all three countries) know. We will never know.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
if that were true there would be colonies on there by now
The reason why a moon base has not happened is simple economics. Essentially the military spending on space technology outstripped the scientific spending in both the Soviet Union/Russia and the USA. The space shuttle program was a compromise with a huge portion going to military jug head flights and any other manned space programs Nasa had plans for were all gutted. The advancements that Van Braun and the real geniuses behind space flight were all castrated and sunk into the single lift technologically of the very limited space shuttle program. The moon was forgotten and technology to do anything other than earth orbit was restricted to robotic tech. Now even the low earth orbit craft capacity of the US is gone and we rely upon Putin to transport our people to the ISS.
Only a fool would think the moon landings were faked. Essentially the people of USA have lost their balls and scientific curiosity about space flight and instead sold their collective soles to the military exploitation of space.
This message was not sent from an iPhone because Peter Sellers really was a deviated prevert without a dime for the call
In b4 flat earth
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
Elon Musk is someone a lot of people love to hate. Say what you will, but I think this tech is fucking awesome and he's the one who made it possible. He's a dreamer with the unique ability to make some of his dreams come true. I'm also very happy because I knew private spaceflight was possible when I was younger, only I was never in a position to be able to prove it. I was laughed at more than once. This is a sort of vindication for me.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
Five minutes of googling says the top X37B conspiracy is that it's powered by an EM drive (electromagnetic propulsion) that's reverse engineered from alien space ships. Neat-O!
I believe he was referring to sending humans there.
In that case the difficulty is certainly related to distance.
No sig today...
Not if launched from Florida. Achieving polar orbit from KSC would require overflight of land, which isn't permitted. Polar orbit is why Vandenberg exists.
...si hoc legere nimium eruditionis habes...
Their mission may be officially secret, but I'm pretty convinced that they are actually a replacement for the SR-71.
It's not big enough to carry the cameras/optical systems needed for a mission like that, nor the power systems to power it. Also, the NRO is responsible for the intelligence birds, so your theory is pretty unlikely. A more likely scenario is that the system is used to test various technologies in orbit for future Airforce missions (say updated Bhangmeters, atomic clock designs for GPS, guidance systems, etc... ) and then return them to earth so they can be torn down and examined.
...si hoc legere nimium eruditionis habes...
The real reason why things stopped after Apollo 17 is that it was pretty much a big political dick waving exercise, to prove that the US was better than the Soviet Union. It was enormously expensive, had less support at home than most people remember, and once the race was won, people really did question why should it continue? That said, once humans set foot on the moon, it meant (really good) science got done, but don't kid yourself. Armstrong and Aldrin set foot on the moon due to world politics, not scientific curiosity.
...si hoc legere nimium eruditionis habes...
I could be wrong, but isn't the large majority of the SR-71 fuel and engines? I don't think the recon pod takes up all that much room because there isn't all that much room to begin with.
I wouldn't be surprised if they were testing various things including some cameras and optics. Granted anything that can see a place to spy on it can also be seen from that place.
TBH I think it may be part of a long term plan for a space-based drone fleet of some sort. Either for space based warfare or other high-altitude warfare. If you could park a dozen ships in storage orbits for multiple years you could have one available over anywhere in the world faster than an ICBM could hit the USA from NK.
You can get rich if you own a politician, but you have to be rich to buy one in the first place.
I could be wrong, but isn't the large majority of the SR-71 fuel and engines? I don't think the recon pod takes up all that much room because there isn't all that much room to begin with.
Yes, but it was flying a lot closer to the ground than the X-37B is orbiting. Yes, the SR-71 is one of the highest flying air-breathing aircraft ever built, but its service ceiling is only 85,000 feet. The karman line is defined as 100km, so roughly 330,000 feet, roughly 4 times that distance, and being that low isn't a very stable orbit at all (certainly not suitable for something staying up for 6+ months).
Why is this important? Well, the further away you are, the higher the angular resolution you need to see the same level of detail. The optics of your observation platform is limited by a) atmospheric distortion and b) the diffraction limit of your camera. Basically, to see the same level of detail from orbit, you would need a (much) larger optical system than you need when at 85,000'.
...si hoc legere nimium eruditionis habes...
The reason why a moon base hasn't happened is simple economics. It would be extremely expensive, and wouldn't provide any comparable return value. It would be of some use, but there's not much research we can do on the moon that we can't in low Earth orbit. There's no currently valuable resources on the Moon that would pay for the cost of their extraction and shipping to Earth. It would be useful to know how the human body fares at 1/6G (we know it works at 1G and deteriorates badly at 0G, and nothing really in between), but not that useful.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
Not economic until space travel is cheap enough for us to dig and trap a 1/6 G swimming pool there and sell tickets for that. https://what-if.xkcd.com/124/