US To Launch Military Orbital Spaceplane 270
An anonymous reader writes "Not only is the US readying its first 100% military spaceplane for a November launch, but it's going to push NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter mission til 2009: 'The USAF and Boeing will launch the X-38B — the first military orbital space plane if you discount the secret military shuttle — on top of an Atlas V rocket in November. They want to test its flying features in space and during atmospheric reentry. And probably its anti-matter rays and nuclear bays and hyperspace engines too (but of course, they are never going to tell you that). However, there seems to be a conflict with the civilian space program which may push one of the Moon exploration missions to 2009.' Screw the moon. We have to defend ourselves against all those alien extremists from Mars!"
Red Planet Mars anybody? (Score:2)
Re:Red Planet Mars anybody? (Score:4, Insightful)
Because high taxes now... (Score:5, Insightful)
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it is bankrupt already (Score:2, Informative)
Governments in the US are more or less bankrupt already, and because there is such a wide range of political realities across the nation at smaller than federal levels it is easy to see it is not a D or R issue, merely a society in general issue, there is equal blame to go around. This economic bankruptcy coming, by insisting that wealth can be mandated out of thin air, will effect all of us, this generation, the next, and the next.
The total unfunded mandates for retirees pensions is more in
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The facts are there, you just need to look for them. However, the idea that revenues are up can easily be counters with "and if taxes were X we would have X more" or "you don't know that the tax cuts caused that increase" when it is obvious from every other tax cut in a weak economy that it brings motion that increases revenues. The vast majority of people wouldn't know the difference and we wouldn't be any worse off.
The bottom line is that the republicans are in a tight situation. There is so much fud goin
Re:Red Planet Mars anybody? (Score:5, Insightful)
Summary and article are full of crap (Score:5, Informative)
Isn't space meant to be like demilitarized zone or something?
Yes, the Outer Space Treaty [wikipedia.org] prohibits military bases, any kind of weapon tests and the permanent placement of WMD anywhere outside the Earth's atmosphere (nuclear ICBMs are OK as long as they stay in space only temporary on their way to their destination).
But the article (and even more so the summary) is mostly sensationalist crap: the real news here is that they are doing a test of the small and unmanned Boeing X-37B [wikipedia.org] technology demonstrator. But I guess yet another engineering step in a slow technology development program doesn't sound as much as newsworthy for people that are not in this kind of thing.
Oh, BTW, there has never been anything like a "secret military shuttle" (you simply can't hide anything like that in space). There where a few NASA Shuttle missions in the 80s dedicated to the deployment of military satellites, but the DoD has for a very long time launched its payloads on Atlas and Delta rockets. If something is broken, it's much chepear to simply launch a new one that to mount a risky STS maintenance mission (and the Shuttle can't reach most of the orbits used by military satellites). So this has absolutely nothing to do with the planned STS retirement in 2010.
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> you simply can't hide anything like that in space
Hey, the Vogons hid an entire fleet from us, until they destroyed the planet.
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Isn't space meant to be like demilitarized zone or something?
Yes, the Outer Space Treaty [wikipedia.org] prohibits military bases, any kind of weapon tests and the permanent placement of WMD anywhere outside the Earth's atmosphere (nuclear ICBMs are OK as long as they stay in space only temporary on their way to their destination).
There's also the failed Space Preservation Act [wikipedia.org].
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There's also the failed Space Preservation Act.
Which is about as relevant as the Articles of Confederation [wikipedia.org]
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It's not like it's never been violated [wikipedia.org] before.
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Sure, it probably would be harder today to keep launches secret. But there's a good history of this sort of activity.
The USSR had a lot of secret military vehicles and sats sent up under the guise of their civilian program, including a manned spy satellite that was equipped with "small" arms.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vostok_spacecraft [wikipedia.org]
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Would "Rods from God" [google.com] be considered a WMD?
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It's a WMD if you want to pretend the bad guys of the hour are trying to get it. It's legit if we or our "allies" have it.
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"But the article (and even more so the summary) is mostly sensationalist crap:"
I think it was mostly a joke...
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So what? Paper doesn't stop bullets or missiles or rockets. Treaties are only in effect until they aren't any more.
Re:Red Planet Mars anybody? (Score:5, Informative)
The US is insane when it comes to overkill. Half of all taxes go to the military, and our forces dwarf Russia, China, and the "axis of evil" combined.
Wow, you pulled that out of your ass.
2008
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Fy2008spendingbycategory.png [wikipedia.org]
21% goes to our dwindling Social Security porgram.
16.6% goes to the DoD
13.3% goes to Medicare
11.2% goes to unemployment
9% pays the interest on national debt
7.2% goes to Medicaid
5% went to the war on terror
2.4% Health and Human Services
etc.
So to summarize: only 21.6% went to the protection of the U.S. whereas well over 60% went to social programs
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The "official" US budget numbers are misleading, as they are based on "cash" accounting and do not include a couple of key things, like:
- Special Appropriations (ie. the War)
- Liabilities from Unsecured IOUs (ie. the surpluses from Social Security which are "invested" in a special series of non-marketable treasury bonds)
- The NPV of future expenditures, such as Medicare Part D and Social Security
If you re-ran the 2007 budget using the "accrual" method of accounting that corporations
Re:Red Planet Mars anybody? (Score:4, Funny)
If you re-ran the 2007 budget using the "accrual" method of accounting that corporations must use, the "official" deficit of $163 billion balloons to over $2.4 trillion dollars -- FOR 2007 ALONE!
Indeed, if the US Federal government was a private corporation, it would be considered "insolvent," but on the other hand they have guns and can take as much in taxes from us as they want, which a private corporation can't do (even the oil companies :)
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to summarize: only 21.6% went to the protection of the U.S. whereas well over 60% went to social programs
That's only the Federal side, this site [usgovernmentspending.com] tracks spending by Federal, State, and Local govenments.
Actual FY2007 defense spending was $655 billion, on government spending (at all levels) of $4.9 trillion, or 13.4% of spending by all US governments.
Of course, I'd still prefer defense spending to be less, but clearly the biggest outlays of US governments are Pensions (mainly Social Security), Health Care, and
Re:Red Planet Mars anybody? (Score:4, Informative)
Half of all taxes go to the military
Minor nit... its 20-36%, depending on how you run the numbers. The only way you can get to 50% is if you remove social security taxes and assign nearly all debt payments as "military debt". If you just take military spending and divide it by total government outlays you get 36%, including the extra war spending in Afghanistan and Iraq.
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This guy must not have been alive before WW2, when we spent over 90% of our tax monies on military spending.
Re:Red Planet Mars anybody? (Score:4, Funny)
So, are you implying that the Ministry of Agriculture really is in charge of Gundam?
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Communism was only a Red Herring...
However, some people think Super Mario Bros is a communist plot: http://www.albinoblacksheep.com/flash/mariocommunist [albinoblacksheep.com]
Military space-plane? (Score:2)
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So does this mean we finally will have the ability to 'nuke it from orbit'? 'It' being the terrorist-sheltering target of the week.
Not if the target has a substantial monetary value.
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Forget about nuking them. Project Crossbow [imdb.com] is real!
Technical orbit, maybe... (Score:4, Informative)
Although the fact that they're ballistic (following the path determined only by initial velocity and gravity)) technically means that they are in orbit, most people don't consider a highly eccentric trajectory that intersects the planet's surface to be an orbit. Also, merely leaving the atmosphere does not count as being in orbit.
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Weird (Score:5, Funny)
That is probably the oddest article summary I've ever seen here.
Reads like a promo for the new X Files movie.
Re:Weird (Score:5, Interesting)
Yeah, but at least it follows the SSAS ("Slashdot Standards for Accuracy in Summaries") pretty well! Let's see:
- The summary calls the vehicle "X38B".
- The article calls it "X37B".
- But the article also has a picture of a craft clearly labelled "X40A". Of course that could just be a red herring.
Maybe the editors figured they'd just average the numbers from the article to be on the safe side?
Re:Weird (Score:5, Informative)
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1. X-37B is correct.
2. X-40A was a 'previous configuration'
I don't suppose the next version will be X-34C?
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Just saw the X-files movie. No spoilers here but it was just like watching one of the old TV episodes. But longer.
Was that a good thing of like watching StarTrek the (Slow) Motion Picture?
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Yeah I liked the old episodes, just go in expecting that and not alien ships emerging from Antarctica.
I can see how some would not like it though.
Defense! (Score:3, Insightful)
Not to mention the possibility of a Goa'uld Ha'tak coming to invade Earth!
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X-what? (Score:2, Informative)
OK, its probably just part of the military's super-secret mind rays, but just what is this thing called again?
The summary calls it the X-38B, the RTFA link calls it the X-37B, but the photo at the top clearly shows that it is called the X-40A, while the "artist's impression" at the bottom calls it the plain old X-37!
Wait, I've got it, its some kind of bizarre shell game.
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Re:X-what? (Score:5, Funny)
It's clearly X-Com. They're preparing for the inevitable invasion from Mars.
Remember, when the aliens come, don't walk around in circles on the street. They love it when you do that, and since the X-Com teams can't shoot straight, you may be caught by friendly fire.
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Nah, Gerry Anderson's UFO - Skydiver and the Interceptors looked way cooler than this odd looking ship.
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They love it when you do that, and since the X-Com teams can't shoot straight, you may be caught by friendly fire.
Correction - you _will_ be caught by friendly fire so the Chryssalids don't get you first.
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Obviously written by someone with women on the mind.. I mean.. XXX and then they're talking about 38B, 37B and 40A.
What's more obvious!
Admittedly though, I think 40A would be the average man and not a woman.. But hey, nowadays everything's possible.
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If it was aimed at women, I'd think that they would have named it 'Tarzan' or something along those lines. :')
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Doubt it will be O since that is used for Observation.
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IIRC, S stands for 'sub hunting' (like the Lockheed S3 Viking).
BTW: from orbit you can observe a lot, you know. ;-)
Militarization of space ? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Militarization of space ? (Score:5, Insightful)
You'd be referring to the Outer Space treaty [wikipedia.org], right? Well, it doesn't actually block the militarization of space, just the placement of weapons of mass destruction. So long as they don't fill this thing with nukes they should be fine. While I'm an outright pacifist, it is good to see actual progress in space travel, perhaps the discoveries made by engineering this spaceplane will advance more peaceful spacecraft in the future.
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Re:Militarization of space ? (Score:5, Interesting)
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Re:Militarization of space ? (Score:5, Informative)
In exchange for getting the USSR's nukes from the former republics, the Russian Federation agreed to take on all debts and treaty obligations of the USSR, meaning that the treaty applies to Russia (Also See: the uproar over Russia withdrawing from the Conventional Forces in Europe Treaty)
Re:Militarization of space ? (Score:4, Informative)
True. But back in the 90's when the Soviet Union became the Commonwealth of Independent States, the CIS explicitly took over the role and responsibilities of the USSR with regards to various treaties and agreements that the USSR was a party to. Which means the CIS, and by extension Russia as a member state, is still bound by the Outer Space Treaty.
So how many... (Score:4, Interesting)
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Well, it does explain where the Blackhorse project disappeared to when it went black...
Re:So how many... (Score:4, Funny)
Kinda like how Enterprise flew from the back of a 747
They flew an AIRCRAFT CARRIER on the back of a 747? How did I miss that?
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Yeah, and they had a 747 on the aircraft carrier!
(Karma? Who needs it?)
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Sure it wasn't the NCC-1701 Enterprise?
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My family recently took a trip to Washington DC, and on our itinerary we visited both Air & Space museums, the one on the Mall and the one out at Dulles. Both Enterprises are there.
The NCC-1701 - the original 11 foot model, is on display on the lower level in the gift shop. The surprising thing about it is that the right side is fully painted, and the left side is mostly blank, with only a little detail as if they ran out of time or budget.
Out at Dulles is the "real" Enterprise, the first 747 piggybac
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They probably did, They tend to only have it facing one direction in the show and relatively few closeups. So you didn't need it to be fully painted. It normally has a side view with it angled to one spot or an other. The rest of the time the full shots it was either very small or moving very fast and in days before VCR or TiVo no one would really notice it. Today a person would pause every frame and examine every detail. Not back in the 1960's they were just happy it was in color and they could see the di
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I was surprised to see that the back side was partly detailed. It's as if they started out to do a complete job, then changed their minds.
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It is more then just an Aircraft Carrier it is Nucklear wessel.
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They flew an AIRCRAFT CARRIER on the back of a 747?
You're thinking about a different Enterprise. The one we're talking about was an Aircraft CARRIEE.
another article (Score:2, Informative)
http://www.aviationnow.com/aw/generic/story.jsp?id=news/SPACE07298.xml&headline=USAF%20Sets%20Orbital%20Spaceplane%20Test%20Flight&channel=space [aviationnow.com]
Oh dear god, Obama might be right! (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm pretty much a hardcore Republican that thinks Obama is a sort of Pharonic anti-christ, but, Obama's criticisms of NASA suddenly stand in stark relief when we suddenly see that the USAF is actually building a credible spaceplane and NASA, in its Constellation program, is admitting that it can't do it. Sure, one might argue that NASA is strapped for funds, but I like how the USAF had no problem turning to White Knight to test its stuff out rather than NIH'ing the whole program. Maybe we -do- need to kill NASA's manned space flight program.
Re:Oh dear god, Obama might be right! (Score:5, Insightful)
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I mean, I'm just shocked that NASA threw in the towel on space planes, and the USAF is flying one. I'm just completely shocked.
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Maybe we -do- need to kill NASA's manned space flight program.
Hallelujah, well, mostly. Of course we probably want to keep people in orbit and what not, but at least $100 billion to go back to the moon is plain silly and pointless. That was just the clueless Bush administration's space pissing contest and that thing needs to get killed badly, although a launcher that can get at least as much into orbit as the Saturn V is a great thing.
I wouldn't be surprised if the motivation behind that plan was to send
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NASA and the Air Force have different missions here. NASA want to go to the Moon and Mars, and a space plane can't do that. USAF is trying to build something to fly into space around the Earth.
I am content with both missions being done.
As for Obama, his idea of halting work on manned spaceflight in order to increase Science and Technology education is completely backwards. Just using /. as a reference, most of the people interested in Science and Technology are keenly interested in space flight and explo
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The kids growing up in this country are hammered with the message that to be rich and successful you need to either be a movie/rock star, sports star, lawyer, or doctor. The engineering field is suffering an uphill battle to continue to attract young people to the field.
According to the Princeton Review, these are the most popular US college majors [most-popular.net] as of 2006 and their average salary [studentsreview.com] out 10 years:
Business Administration and Management $112,127
Psychology $75,610
Elementary Education $53,100 (there is no spli
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You jest, no? Much as I dislike pretty much all US politicians for being corporatist whores with nothing but the survival of the elite and global imperial hegemony on their mind, please tell me that you have serious policy differences with the Donks but you don't believe OBH is a marxist/the devil/a muslim/trotskyite?
Re:Oh dear god, Obama might be right! (Score:4, Informative)
Not sure how your rant got scored interesting... and I'm the first one to bash NASA..... but I think this article is talking about the X-37B. The X-37A was DEVELOPED by NASA, though Boeing's Phantom Works actually built it under contact to them. The program was transfered to DARPA in 2004 and the X-37B is a second generation developed by the military. Since the original design is from NASA your venom is somewhat misplaced, at least in this instance.
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I'm pretty much a hardcore Republican that thinks Obama is a sort of Pharonic anti-christ,
With that kind of statement, why in the world would you expect anything else you say to be taken seriously?
Way to win asymmetric warfare (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Way to win asymmetric warfare (Score:5, Insightful)
checklist (Score:5, Funny)
Laser cannons: No
Photon torpedos: No
Shields: No
Warpcore/hyperspace drive: No
Matter/antimatter reactor: No
Transporters: No
Long Range Scanner: No
Sort Range sensors: Yes
Space capabilities: Kind of.
Buyers advice:
This space fighter doesn't have any of the selling features of other space fighters on the market. The lack of ion engines make this a very dated craft. It is more appropriate for a museum than the space age. Buyers are adviced to look into more complete craft like the X-wing or the TIE-advance. This craft makes the old and very well known to be unsafe TIE-fighter look good.
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This landing-pod doesn't have any of the selling features of other landing-pod's on the market.
This craft makes the old and very well known to be unsafe Quake landing-pod look good.
IOW (Score:2)
No lasers, less space than a shuttle, lame.
Orbital portion of male anatomy (Score:2)
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The Terrorists(tm) are going to love it. Think of all the money that doesn't go towards effective means of fighting them.
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Except that it isn't (Score:3, Insightful)
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Something that has to be launched from an Atlas missile, has no docking facilities, no cargo space...this will replace the Shuttle how,exactly?
Because it's a experimental aircraft (hence the 'X' designation). Rather then trying to do everything at once, without testing all of the concepts out, they're refining one piece of the technology at a time.
It's a rather sensible approach - unlike NASA's Space Shuttle which tried to go from the drawing board to production with no real test vehicles for its new technology (very large engines that could be throttled, reusable/segmented solid boosters, etc). NASA tried paper-engineering the shuttle and it di
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Fine Corinthian Leather!
Khaaaaaaaaaan!!!
Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)
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"again technically the Air Force can not even launch the thing as a military object,"
Sure they can.
The only treaty limitation is that you can not put WMDs into orbit or detonate nukes in spaces. I don't know if you forbidden to detonate chemical or biological weapons in space but it would kid of silly.
Russia/the USSR tested and deployed anti-satellite weapons in the 70s and 80s. The US tested on in the 80s. China has tested one so no there is nothing stopping the USAF from launching a military system as lon
Special thanks go out to... (Score:4, Funny)
Art Bell, our guest editor for the day. Art Bell ladies and gentlemen! Let's give him a big round of applause!
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Hangar 18 at Groom Lake is fairly big, no? There's at least 2 pictures of a very large white plane that has no reasonable explanation (I believe this may be one [wired.com].
Say what? (Score:2)
Re:First Post (Score:5, Insightful)
Re-railing this first thread:
1. The first picture on gizmodo clearly shows a X-40A, not an X-37B.
2. Secret military shuttles?
3. Secret orbital bases?
Kind of hard to have secret anything these days, especially aircraft that fly into space, and more so for things that are in orbit. Any nut job with a telescope can see stuff in orbit. Shuttles lifting off are fairly dramatic, and show up on satellite scans like a turd in a punch bowl. As for secret shuttles, why bother when the DoD just schedules a military launch of one of the shuttles and keeps the payload a secret. And where are 'they' hiding the orbital platforms? Behind the moon?
Seriously, what kind of paranoid lunatics write stories over at gizmodo? They should stick to reviewing the iPhone and keeping tabs on Steve Jobs' not so well hidden agenda to take over the Interweb and make it so only Apple equipment is used.
Sheesh!
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Uhhh... the jabs about the secret shuttle (and its anti-matter rays and hyperspace engines) along with the orbital space station (complete with nuclear bays and chemical lasers) were pretty obviously tongue-in-cheek. You know, when somebody says something so completely ridiculous that it's taken as a given that the reader won't take them seriously?
Anti-matter rays are REAL!! (Score:3, Funny)
Anti-matter rays are real, and they are being used on people today!! It really is an apathy ray that is used on people to make them lose foc...
What was I saying? Never mind, it doesn't matter.
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For the record, the secret military shuttle, if it's not just put in there to be hip, is probably a reference to the purported project blackstar [wikipedia.org] which got some press coverage about two years ago. Aviation Week claimed that further developments of the old B-70 Valkryie were carrying small winged rocketships that could make LEO, much the way that Rutan's SpaceShipOne works. I submitted it as a slashdot story in 2006 but it was rejected, and within two months a lot of other informed sources tore the story ap
Save the cheerleader, save the world... (Score:2)
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Why worry that the Outer Space Treaty to which you allude only refers to the stationing of WMD in orbit, when you've got some US bashing to do?