[Grifter]

Damn clever those Chinese. Covering their asses I assume

US condemns China 'space weapon'

[AWPrime]

That is a good hit.

[PrairieMule]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Grifter', 'D')amn clever those Chinese. Covering their asses I assume

US condemns China 'space weapon'

[Falconoffury]

Space appears to be already claimed, so we will be fighting for it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qqm2OVAuIeA

[deMolay]

Pretty cool space achievement for the USA. http://www.satnews.com/cgi-bin/story.cg ... 2047836272

[mos6507]

You mean this wasn't just another attempt to bash Obama?

[deMolay]

They said on wikileaks that Obama is going to use the x-37 to make his escape when he gets stomped in 2012.

[mos6507]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('deMolay', 'T')hey said on wikileaks that Obama is going to use the x-37 to make his escape when he gets stomped in 2012.

[the48thronin]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('mos6507', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('deMolay', 'T')hey said on wikileaks that Obama is going to use the x-37 to make his escape when he gets stomped in 2012.

[Xenophobe]

It isn't secret if we know about it.

Carry on.

[deMolay]

Just for the record it was Moses6507 that raised the Obama Spectre. I merely joined in, he hijacked another thread oh well. But as I said in the original post excellant and an exciting achievement I think. In my opinion the first real first space airplane. Wright Brothers sort of thing.

[Sixstrings]

Just thought this was cool, hadn't heard of it before:

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', '[')img]http://thenypost.files.wordpress.com/2014/09/515936816.jpg?w=978&h=652&crop=1[/img]



What is the Pentagon’s secret space drone doing?

For almost two years, an unmanned space plane bearing a remarkable resemblance to NASA’s space shuttle has circled the Earth, performing a top-secret mission. It’s called the X-37B Orbital Test Vehicle — but that’s pretty much all we know for certain.

Theories about its mission have ranged from an orbiting space bomber to an anti-satellite weapon.
The truth, however, is likely much more obvious: According to intelligence experts and satellite watchers who have closely monitored its orbit, the X-37B is being used to carry secret satellites and classified sensors into space — a little-known role once played by NASA’s new retired space shuttle.

Now, with the X-37B, the Pentagon no longer has to rely on NASA, or humans. The X-37B resembles the shuttle, or at least a shrunken down version of the shuttle. Like the space shuttle, the X-37B is boosted into orbit by an external rocket, but lands like an aircraft on a conventional runway. But the X-37B is just shy of 10 feet tall and slightly less than 30 feet long.

Its cargo bay, often compared to the size of a pickup truck bed, is just big enough to carry a small satellite. Once in orbit, the X-37B deploys a foldable solar array, which is believed to power the sensors in its cargo bay.

“It’s just an updated version of the space shuttle type of activities in space,” insisted one senior Air Force official in 2010, the year of the first launch, when rampant speculation about the secret project prompted some to question whether it was possibly a space bomber.
http://nypost.com/2014/09/28/what-is-the-pentagons-secret-space-drone-doing/

[AgentR11]

Everyone talks about either "re-useability" or what cargo it lifts.
Wings on a spacecraft have only one purpose.
To bring something down from orbit in one piece and land it at an arbitrary site.

It seems to spend very long periods in orbit for 'just' a delivery vehicle. Whatever coolness they're playing with must be components that are integrated into the cargo bay as opposed to just a satellite it places in orbit. And they wouldn't spend 600 days in orbit just to capture and bring down a satellite. Maybe they're testing the photon torpedoes they smuggled off the Enterprise when it came back to fight the Borg! LOL!!!!! Silly Federation white-hats....

[Sixstrings]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('AgentR11', 'E')veryone talks about either "re-useability" or what cargo it lifts.
Wings on a spacecraft have only one purpose.
To bring something down from orbit in one piece and land it at an arbitrary site.

[Sixstrings]

Well this is interesting. I didn't even know there was a "US Air Force Space Command."

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', '[')img]http://l.yimg.com/bt/api/res/1.2/ppKVjBo1gmUnzGPYSZmngA--/YXBwaWQ9eW5ld3M7Zmk9ZmlsbDtoPTM4MjtweW9mZj0wO3E9Njk7dz01NzU-/http://media.zenfs.com/en_US/News/SPACE.com/US_Air_Force%27s_Secretive_X-37B-ae05e8d8116346524efa2c028f62d894[/img]

What's the mystery mission's secret?

Before retiring from the Air Force this month, Gen. William Shelton, commander of the Air Force Space Command, remained bullish on the X-37B's hush-hush mission. [10 Most Destructive Space Weapon Concepts]

"I'll give you my standard line on X-37," Shelton told Space.com at the National Space Foundation's 30th Space Symposium in May. "X-37 is doing great. I can't tell you what it's doing, but it's doing great."

Meanwhile, Boeing Space & Intelligence Systems, the Air Force's supplier for the X-37B space planes, told Space.com that there was nothing it could share regarding the ongoing mission.
http://news.yahoo.com/us-air-forces-secretive-x-37b-space-plane-111530306.html

[vox_mundi]

One of the missions was observing the Chinese space station. It was parked in the same orbit, trailing by a few degrees.

Regarding your question of why anyone would want to bring back something - 90% of the satellites up there are military and 50-60% don't belong to us. Many of those foreign satellites have classified 'stuff' onboard. Might be interesting to 'borrow' one from time to time. And it would be a 'real shame' if someone else's spy satellite suddenly stopped working while it was on the backside of the planet.

If you want to get an idea of what weapons might be up there check out some DARPA budget line items

http://www.darpa.mil/NewsEvents/Budget.aspx

Sentient Computers, Particle Beam Weapons, Anti-matter Weapons, Gravity & Inertia Shielding Fields, Quantum Computers, Programmable Biological Systems, etc.

You don't think they're spending 70-100 $Billion a year on new bug spray.

[AgentR11]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Sixstrings', 'I') don't know, did the shuttle ever "bring anything back?"

[Sixstrings]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('AgentR11', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Sixstrings', 'I') don't know, did the shuttle ever "bring anything back?"

[Sixstrings]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('vox_mundi', 'O')ne of the missions was observing the Chinese space station. It was parked in the same orbit, trailing by a few degrees.

[KaiserJeep]

The commonest thing brought back to Earth is old fashioned film. Space based cameras are one of the last holdouts for film. Such cameras are capable of much finer resolution photos than electronic cameras which are limited by the number of photodetector devices in the sensor array.

Using film, you can take high resolution photos of wide areas, and then have those images analyzed by computers and people. In this way you can search an entire country from orbit. The electronic cameras can achieve equal resolution but with much smaller fields of view, limited by the bandwidth required to transmit the images.