No mention of a Playmonaut.
Which is good. Means LOHAN has the honor of boosting the intrepid Playmonaut to new heights.
America's super-secret X-37B plane returns to Earth after nearly TWO YEARS aloft
The US Air Force has confirmed that its X-37B spacecraft designated Orbital Test Vehicle 3 has glided back to Earth and landed at 0924 PT (1724 UTC) at Vandenberg Air Force Base. "The landing of OTV-3 marks a hallmark event for the program," said the unnamed X-37B program manager in a statement. "The mission is our longest to …
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Saturday 18th October 2014 12:16 GMT Doctor_Wibble
On the other hand we don't know how many satellites have a self-destruct given that they were all chucked up there to either be permanent or hopefully burn up completely in the atmosphere when they fall down.
What would be *really* cunning is for this now not very secret satellite destructor to have some robot arms, a drill and a bit of hosepipe to pinch the target's fuel before cutting off and/or stealing the solar panels - slight complexity of multiple engines for different fuel types but it wouldn't be fun if it was easy.
The next one to be sent up will be programmed to go from target to target, building itself up as it goes, to produce a super orbiting mega-station ready for use (what could possibly go wrong...). Why send up your own components when you can steal everyone else's that they have thoughtfully left there for you to collect?
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Saturday 18th October 2014 14:43 GMT Doctor_Wibble
> Naaah, you just need a good ole' spray-can of paint.
The cheap-and-nasty (in a good way) approach does have much to recommend it.
That said, a cargo of exploding paint tins could also be quite devastating if deployed, needing less accuracy, and making entire regions of orbital space unusable for a considerable time after taking out their primary targets. These are the WMDs of the future! Weapons of Magnolian Destruction!
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Monday 20th October 2014 08:40 GMT Matt 21
Ideally
...it should be something which is difficult to link to the presence of the new "space plane" with the destruction o disabling of the satellite. Space "debris" left for the satellite's solar panels to hit many hours later.
Another idea would be to change tactic. How about a large spaceship which could literally eat the satellites? You could launch it from, oh I don't know, a false bottomed volcano in Japan, for example. It would be untraceable except to the very best of British spies.
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Saturday 18th October 2014 08:31 GMT LarchOye
If it were to be used to take out 'enemy' satellites, "Blowing them up" wouldn't be necessary- as merely Disabling them (permanently) is all that's required for effectively taking them out. The two most reasonable methods for doing this would of course be either A) to use an EMP, or B) to use high-powered lasers aimed at critical components [like say, the solar panels- or the antenna's/dish components. Or hey, the imaging cameras/lenses or scientific instrumentation].
Since we're on the subject of "Satellite Defense" - it's of course a great time to mention the successful ~2009 Chinese test run in which they DID "Shoot down a satellite"...
What did you think that was, their "Satellite Defense System" being tested? HONESTLY?
What the Chinese demonstrated was in fact, their MISSILE DEFENSE capabilities. And missile defense [something which the U.S. *DOES NOT* have btw], is literally the biggest poker chip there is at the Nuclear Weapons "High Stakes Casino" table.
What it means is essentially this: The U.S. has absolutely NO CHANCE OF WINNING a nuclear exchange with the Chinese, or any of their regional neighbors (such as Russia, India, Pakistan). If China detects an ICBM launch [or basically any rocket launch that achieves orbit, and wasn't announced ahead of time], They are of course going to assume that it's a sophisticated Multiple-Independent-Reentry-Vehicle (MIRV) payload capable of delivering 5 or more independently guided Megaton-Class Thermonuclear Warheads- and that it is also equipped with several Radar-Countermeasures, such as CHAFF's and decoys, radar jammers, or may possibly even detonate a nuclear warhead while still in space that would cause a "nuclear radar blackout" and most likely an EMP which would cause irreparable damage to any electronic devices on the ground/in the air. Since OBVIOUSLY they must err on the side of caution- and ASSUME that *ANY* ICBM launch directed at the eastern hemisphere of the globe is in fact, directed at THEM (China)- we are also effectively unable to succeed in initiating a nuclear exchange with any of China's neighbors either. [At least via use of traditional ICBM's anyways... SLBM's (submarine-launched ballistic missiles) could potentially still work though.]
Oh, and I suppose I should mention that immediately upon mitigating an incoming nuclear attack- it's customary to retaliate. This 'volley' of missiles will of course not be much of a 'volley', since all of ours will get shot down, while all of theirs will successfully strike.
SO: Hopefully these X-37B's will be able to function in a Missile Defense role!
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Saturday 18th October 2014 12:33 GMT Destroy All Monsters
"The Soviets had working SDI back in 1980's" ... oh wait.
What the Chinese demonstrated was in fact, their MISSILE DEFENSE capabilities. And missile defense [something which the U.S. *DOES NOT* have btw]
The US sure as heck tries to get it operational. The fact that the biggest gunslinger on the planet doesn't exactly manage reliable intercepts should give you a hint as to the capabilities of the cheap-and-easy Chinese efforts (Hint: 250 BEEELLLION USD for a barely working TEAM USA MANLY SYSTEM, a nice price and basically a taxpayer-funded donation to Lockheed-Martin et al., correspond to around 2 years of operations for the whole PRC military at 2014 levels.)
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Saturday 18th October 2014 12:46 GMT Unicornpiss
I would respectfully disagree
While this might be able to be used against ICBMs, the thing is, the US has a LOT of them. China might be able to take out a few, assuming that everything works perfectly (and at those speeds, this is a very big IF), but the US has so damn many that it's just a matter of attrition. Re. an EMP, an airburst could cause a lot of damage to civilian devices, but military hardware has been hardened against EMPs since at least the 1960s. No doubt there would be some disruption and failures, but you can bet there's a dozen twisted contingency plans for such things. Wall St. might not survive, but you can bet that (morbidly) all the ICBMs will likely work pretty much flawlessly until there's nothing left on the planet worth blowing up, and no one much left to blow anything up anyway.
"A strange game.. The only way to win is not to play?"
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Saturday 18th October 2014 12:52 GMT GitMeMyShootinIrons
Missile defences are somewhat over hyped. Build smaller nukes, smuggle them over the border (and big countries with long border regions have a problem here) and your missile defense is an expensive trinket.
China used quite a big missile to take a pop at a satellite. The US achieved the same with a ship launched souped-up SAM, so don't believe the Chinese propaganda completely.
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Saturday 18th October 2014 14:13 GMT Kharkov
x-37's mess things up...
Right, first things first. Kudos to the USAF for a successful mission & getting their bird back. Space flight is hard & isn't something anyone should take for granted.
Second, why? What is the purpose of the X-37? Research into spaceplanes, SSTO, materials development, new-and-improved avionics or sensors? If the U.S. military is doing this then ALL results get classified out the wazoo, never to see the light of day & American companies are strongly discouraged from making or researching civilian space-access or usage technology for fear of finding out, or being told, once they're a few hundred million dollars in, that they're impinging on classified technology.
My opinion if the above is true? STOP the X-37, it's blocking cheap safe civilian access to space, or one route to it anyway.
Third, is the X-37 testing weapons? Weaponizing space is a really bad idea. Once the U.S. starts doing it, Russia & China won't be that far behind. More & more guns, more & more automated because the speeds, distances & human reaction times lead that way. Battle of Camlan, anyone?
My opinion if the above is true? STOP the X-37. It's really taking us down a bad road.
Fourth, is the X-37 spying on or observing... stuff? If it is then surely it'd be simpler & cheaper to just launch the optics/sensor package, or a few dozen of them (no way will a couple of dozen of those things break the bank for the NRO. Remember, those guys built a near-Hubble just because they MIGHT have needed it) into orbit, possibly with an enlarged fuel tank if they really need a lot of delta-V, and send up a dozen more each year.
My opinion if the above is true? STOP the X-37, it's a horrible waste of money.
Fifth, is the X-37 intended to (or be the precursor/prototype to something that can) dock with, or disable, or download from, other people's satellites? It seems a bit unlikely to me, but if it is then no politician will EVER authorize the mission. It's not the 50's anymore, the world, the whole world, is watching. You can't steal/pinch/purloin/nick a satellite & bring it home & not have the world yelling about it before it's even touched the runway.
My opinion if the above is true? STOP the X-37. It's a horrible waste of money & will only encourage other countries to build self-destruct devices into their satellites. We really don't need to add to the space debris problem.
So really? STOP THE X-37!
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Monday 20th October 2014 00:05 GMT Paul Hovnanian
Re: x-37's mess things up...
There is nothing that you have hypothesized that can't be done with conventional re-entry technology (i.e. re-purpose commercial/scientific launch technology).
The only think the X-37 provides, which current or proposed re-entry vehicles provide today is cross-range capability. And to date (unless we've missed something) the likely mission profile that would make use of this has not yet been seen. That is, a launch and single (or perhaps two) orbit trajectory with a return to ts origin. And this isn't a terribly important capability unless one must launch from the west coast (Vandenberg) and return to the same location. We could just as easily launch from Cape Canaveral and land in Texas using ground landing technology (like Soyuz).
Where the X-37 capability might come in handy is if there is a need to locate several launch and recovery sites around the globe. Where there isn't a suitable recovery site a thousand miles to the west (in friendly hands) useable for a conventional capsule recovery. The mission would be something like: launch, do something within one orbit, and return. And with sites around the globe, the point in orbit being accessed could be reached within 90 minutes.
Spying on or messing with other people's stuff in orbit, or launching space weapons don't seem to need these sorts of mission profiles. The one missions that does make sense is some sort of space rescue. Anything going wrong with a conventional manned capsule or space station and the astronauts hop into suits and bail out. An X-37 somewhere on earth can get there and return them within the lif support capabilities of a suit.
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Monday 20th October 2014 02:21 GMT Kharkov
Re: X-37's mess things up...
I agree entirely. As I said in my earlier post, there's nothing (bar one thing which I'll get to in a moment) that the X-37 can do that can't be done more efficiently & cheaply by other means. A rescue mission isn't impossible but it presupposes the idea of a fully-fueled Atlas V sitting on the launch pad with an X-37 ready to go. Possible but not practical.
The wings and cargo bay, plus plentiful delta-v, suggest one mission profile to me. I'm not an aerospace engineer and the profile is a bit James Bondish but it would work.
Imagine a launch from the American west coast that matched orbit with a target satellite. The X-37 pulls it into its cargo bay and then deorbits at the end of its first orbit. A snatch, grabbit & run (sounds like a law firm) mission which would be done and finished so fast that the satellites owners/operators wouldn't have time to react. 90 minutes after launch, the American west coast will have moved about fifteen degrees to the east so the X-37's wings, and the cross-range capability offered by them, would come into play, allowing it to enter the atmosphere, slow down some, turn towards the coast and glide at high speed and from a high altitude back its point of origin.
As I said, it's a terribly James Bondish mission profile and, from a political point of view, just not tenable. The world would be watching so there'd be no secrecy or deniability at all.
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Wednesday 22nd October 2014 15:09 GMT cray74
Re: x-37's mess things up...
"The X-37 can also change it's orbital plane up to 40 degrees, something normal satellites cannot do."
Do you have a reference to the X-37 having that capability? Doing so would require as much fuel, give or take a bit, as it took to launch the X-37. The 3 flights have only exhibited about 100m/s delta-V (mostly USA-212), not the required several thousand m/s.
Now, all 3 X-37 flights have launched directly into orbits of about 40 degrees inclination. Is that what you saw?
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Monday 20th October 2014 15:45 GMT Tim Brummer
I was near Surf Beach on VAFB, watched it come in and land. It's small and hard to spot, basically only got a glimpse.
It could take out enemy satellites without blowing them up, by painting their solar panels. And since it can quickly make large orbital plane changes it could do so on the side of the world opposite an opponents tracking network and they would not know what happened. They would think it was just an electronics failure.
Or it could change orbital plane to sneak up and bomb a target, like Iran's nuke site, without warning.
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Thursday 23rd October 2014 13:53 GMT cray74
"That kinda presupposes the existence of a paint you could use at that temperatire and pressure..."
Paints with temperature ranges exceeding those of low Earth orbit are off-the-shelf, if not something you'd find at a local big box store.
http://www.aztechnology.com/materials-coatings.html
Getting paint to dry or cure in a vacuum environment might be a little more challenging, but a two-part base (epoxy, urethane, whatever) would certainly do the job if you couldn't find a single-part, solvent drying paint. I doubt the result would pass rigorous testing, but you only need it to stick lightly until the satellite is dead for lack of power and/or overheating - hours or a few days.
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Biting the hand that feeds IT
