Black Military Shuttle ?

[dobbins]

"I find no reason to not think that such already exist in the 'black' world."<br /><br />Which is very different from having a reason to think it does exist despite how hard it would be to hide this capability.<br /><br />

 

[drstupid]

A high altitude drop launch of a two-man system could work as easily as the x-15. It could be coordinated around satellite orbits and from remote locations to reduce visibility. It could be retrieved in a variety of configurations. <br /><br /><br /><br />

 

[mikejz]

Hard to hide relative to what? You have to remember these guys are pros at disinformation and cover stories. Are we talking about other nations (who would also keep there respective intel on US capabilities classified as to avoid giving away there respective capabilities) Or a bunch of tin foil hat satellite watchers? <br /><br />More importantly, the technology might have the express goal of being plainly 'visible' to the right parties. (ie deterrence). I never remember the USSR making a any public statements about the U-2 overflying them until AFTER they were able to actually shoot one down. <br /><br />I am not saying it does exist; however, I find the statements from stock analysts that Lockmart seems to have a good share of its profits coming from unknown sources to indicate to me that the tradition of having highly classified, big budget programs continues. The exact form or function clearly is pure speculation by those who do not know. This however must be balanced against the fact that the Pentagon clearly has articulated a interest in space, and programs both in public (EELV) , classified (Mostly NRO stuff), and 'black'(???) would follow that interest.

 

[dobbins]

My answer is the same as it is to the UFO buffs, provide proof it exists.<br /><br />

 

[vt_hokie]

<i>My answer is the same as it is to the UFO buffs, provide proof it exists.</i><br /><br />Fine, get me an all access pass to Groom Lake, the Dugway Proving Grounds, or wherever else they might be hiding classified aircraft, and I'll get you your proof! <img src="/images/icons/wink.gif" />

 

[mlorrey]

So you are demanding that people violate national security to prove you wrong? Sorry, black military projects are in no way in the realm of UFO stories (though milint folk try to make the public think so, which implies that Dobbins is milintops). They are not science fiction, they are science future, so the 'extraordinary claims' assumption doesn't apply here.<br /><br />So, /*username distortion removed*/, if I told you that Intel had prototype PC computers that were twice as fast as todays desktop models, would you demand proof? I thought not. Get real.

 

[mlorrey]

<blockquote><font class="small">In reply to:</font><hr /><p>And what would they do with this capability? It's totally unnecessary<p><hr /></p></p></blockquote><br /><br />Current necessity has nothing to do with military need. They project what future necessity will be and plan for the next war, not the last one (at least they are supposed to). ALL of the USAF war college literature deals in the USAF operating manned TAVs and describes exactly why they are needed for many reasons. These papers do not exist in a vacuum. I'd suggest you actually go and read what the military academics are writing about before making cynical remarks and unwarranted conclusions based on obsolete information. <br /><br />Of course, /*username distortion removed*/ may simply be a DoD plant sowing FUD.

 

[vt_hokie]

<i>Current necessity has nothing to do with military need. </i><br /><br />Indeed. Witness the F/A-22.

 

[dobbins]

"Of course, Dobby may simply be a DoD plant sowing FUD."<br /><br />ROFLMAO<br /><br />Now you are really getting into AFDB land!<br /><br />http://zapatopi.net/afdb/<br />

 

[drwayne]

You can generate some interesting, if heated exchanges in the fighter community on the capability of the leading edge Sukhoi designs versus the Raptor...<br /><br />Wayne <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p>"1) Give no quarter; 2) Take no prisoners; 3) Sink everything."  Admiral Jackie Fisher</p> </div>

 

[spacefire]

A small manned spacecraft capable of investigating and if needed disabling enemy satellites has been investigated during the cold war. I think the 'Blue Gemini'<br />was something to that effect.<br />It is quite possible that after NASA went with the Shuttle -which met Af requirements btw- the AF decided to develop their own, smaller, cheaper version, solely for space combat missions . <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p>http://asteroid-invasion.blogspot.com</p><p>http://www.solvengineer.com/asteroid-invasion.html </p><p> </p> </div>

 

[najab]

><i>It is quite possible that after NASA went with the Shuttle the AF decided to develop their own, cheaper version, for space combat purposes.</i><p>It's amazing how bass-ackward a statement can be...*sigh*<br /><br />NASA had originally proposed a much smaller vehicle, but was told that it couldn't have the money unless it modified the design to accomodate USAF requirements. It is the AF which demanded the 60-foot long payload bay, the requirement to lift 65,000lb - and hence solid boosters - and 1,000 miles of cross-range capability which necessitated wings, rather than the pure lifting-body craft NASA had wanted.</p>

 

[vt_hokie]

That's true. And what I really want to see from our space program is that smaller, lifting body craft that NASA originally wanted before the military screwed up STS. I'd love to see it done right this time, and with today's technology, NASA could have a hell of a space shuttle instead of the compromise they've been forced to live with for decades.

 

[CalliArcale]

Yep. The STS is basically why there is no military shuttle. There was going to be one: it was to be called Dyna-Soar, and was a small spaceplane launched on a Titan rocket. (Rather similar to the Soviet Spiral and the French Hermes concepts.) The X-15 was, in many ways, a precursor to Dyna-Soar, and while the Orbital Workshop called Skylab was going so well, the Air Force was planning its own station: the MOL, or Manned Orbital Laboratory, also to be launched on Titan. Initially serviced by Gemini, it or its successor would be serviced by Dyna-Soar.<br /><br />But Congress and the White House both wanted to save money. Why have two space stations and two shuttle programs? In a reversal of the separation of civilian and military endeavors in the 50s and 60s, NASA and the USAF were directed to join their efforts and produce a vehicle which could meet both their needs. Thus, STS was born. This was so serious that the USAF was building a shuttle launch vacility at Vandenburg AFB: SLC-6. This would serve for classified Shuttle launches into high-inclination orbits. But costs were rising on the program, SLC-6 was experiencing delays, and then STS-51L happened. SLC-6 was cancelled. It sat unused until now; it's being converted for Atlas V. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p> </p><p><font color="#666699"><em>"People assume that time is a strict progression of cause to effect, but actually from a non-linear, non-subjective viewpoint it's more like a big ball of wibbly wobbly . . . timey wimey . . . stuff."</em>  -- The Tenth Doctor, "Blink"</font></p> </div>

 

[vt_hokie]

<i>If in 1962 someone had come up to you and said that the US had a secret plane capable of flying at mach 3.3 and at over 75,000 feet you probably would have said that was conspiracy theory nonsense! Yet the A-12 (forerunner of the SR-71) had already been doing this for several months. <br /><br />Its a known fact--not "tin foil hat nonsense"--that the military operates aircraft that it keeps secret from the general public. </i><br /><br />Exactly. I would be willing to bet that something like this is either operational now, or has at least made test flights. An orbital vehicle might be a bit unlikely, but it's a pretty safe bet that there is at least one type of hypersonic aircraft, if not several, still yet to be officially revealed.

 

[Swampcat]

<font color="yellow">"And what would they do with this capability?"</font><br /><br />I'm certainly no military expert, but I've read about the military potential of being able to deliver troops from any part of the planet to another in under an hour using suborbital transport. Don't know if this has any validity. It's just something I've read about. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <font size="3" color="#ff9900"><p><font size="1" color="#993300"><strong><em>------------------------------------------------------------------- </em></strong></font></p><p><font size="1" color="#993300"><strong><em>"I hold it that a little rebellion now and then is a good thing, and as necessary in the political world as storms in the physical. Unsuccessful rebellions, indeed, generally establish the encroachments on the rights of the people which have produced them. An observation of this truth should render honest republican governors so mild in their punishment of rebellions as not to discourage them too much. It is a medicine necessary for the sound health of government."</em></strong></font></p><p><font size="1" color="#993300"><strong>Thomas Jefferson</strong></font></p></font> </div>

 

[najab]

Calli, you forgot the most interesting part of that saga - the fact that SLC-6 was originally built for MOL! So it was host to <b>two</b> high-profile military spaceplane projects that never flew!

 

[CalliArcale]

That would be 'cuz I didn't know it. Sweet! I just learned something new! <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p> </p><p><font color="#666699"><em>"People assume that time is a strict progression of cause to effect, but actually from a non-linear, non-subjective viewpoint it's more like a big ball of wibbly wobbly . . . timey wimey . . . stuff."</em>  -- The Tenth Doctor, "Blink"</font></p> </div>

 

[formulaterp]

<font color="yellow">ALL of the USAF war college literature deals in the USAF operating manned TAVs and describes exactly why they are needed for many reasons.</font><br /><br />Can you provide a link to any of these relevant articles?

 

[drwayne]

That is fascinating!<br /><br />Wayne <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p>"1) Give no quarter; 2) Take no prisoners; 3) Sink everything."  Admiral Jackie Fisher</p> </div>

 

[wdobner]

I was going to dump this on the X-51 thread, but didn't want to sound like a conspiracy loonie at the time, and now that thread seems to have gone dormant. I suppose now my little theory will fit right in, and I lost track of the X-51 thread, so if somebody already posted this idea, I apologize for the repetition.<br /><br />I believe it was recently posted that the X-51 is basically stepping into the gap left by the cancellation of the X-43 project. I also think that somebody said that project was more closely aligned with the Air Force than NASA. At the time this depressed me because I was taking it to mean that this was the deathknell of 'open', non secret research into scramjets and their applications into a potential spaceplane. Call it a coping mechanism, fit me for a tin foil hat, and call me crazy but I developed a small theory wherein the X-51 project actually serves the opposite purpose, that of bringing classified material to light for other project which have no need for classification. <br /><br />It's not all that unthinkable to say that it is possible the Air Force, DARPA, CIA, Skunk Works, or whoever else you want to include has had an effort to develop a viable spaceplane ever since the space shuttle turned out to be a disappointment. Perhaps the Air Force decided they'd like the cross range capability, reusability, and payload return capabilities built into the shuttle, but without the cumbersome proceedure of launching a spaceplane vertically on a rocket stack. With the combined requirements of cross-range capability, payload return and very low launch infrastructure it'd seem that a HOTOL Single Stage To Orbit or Two Stage to Orbit vehicle would be an ideal solution. There certainly would be other routes to those requirements, such as a two stage air dropped reusable capsule, which although sacrificing cross range capability would open up the possibility of higher altitude flights. <br /><br />Even if the Air Force, DARPA et al never achieved

 

[josh_simonson]

It's ludicris to think that the same aerospace contractors that screwed up a slew of publicly visible spaceplanes, at the cost of tens of billions, would somehow be capable of pulling it off successfully in a top secret environment at the same time.<br /><br />If they'd had a top secret spaceplane, OSP or Venturestar would have been straightforward to slap together, and those programs would have been used to transfer the top secret info to the public domain, not the current X-51.<br /><br />Most likely in the 80's robotic technology got good enough that the air force was able to meet it's space needs without people in orbit. They hardly used the space shuttle even though they were openly part of that project. They also openly discuss working on hypersonic cruise missiles and un-manned orbital/suborbital CAV strike craft. There's no reason to bother with secrecy with this kind of thing, it's not like the case with stealth aircraft where you don't want the enemy to know you have it so they dismiss small radar signals and don't work on detecting stealth stuff.

 

[spacefire]

<font color="yellow">It's amazing how bass-ackward a statement can be...*sigh* </font><br /><br />it's bass-ackward NOT to think that the Air Force, dissapointed by the costs of the Shuttle, did not think about reverting to its earlier concept of a small manned spaceplane launched atop an expendable booster. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p>http://asteroid-invasion.blogspot.com</p><p>http://www.solvengineer.com/asteroid-invasion.html </p><p> </p> </div>

 

[nacnud]

Why? Why revive a cancelled program? Especially one that was cancelled because the capacity wasn't needed / could be performed better by satellites!

 

[mlorrey]

<blockquote><font class="small">In reply to:</font><hr /><p><br />It's ludicris to think that the same aerospace contractors that screwed up a slew of publicly visible spaceplanes, at the cost of tens of billions, would somehow be capable of pulling it off successfully in a top secret environment at the same time. <br /><br />If they'd had a top secret spaceplane, OSP or Venturestar would have been straightforward to slap together, and those programs would have been used to transfer the top secret info to the public domain, not the current X-51. <br /><p><hr /></p></p></blockquote><br /><br />It is one strategy of military disinformation psyops to have a public program that either crashes and burns, dies a budgetary death, or 'proves' the scientific or engineering "impossibility" of a given technology to the general public or an enemy, as misdirection while operating a successful program in the black.<br /><br />The US used the U-2 Gary Powers shoot-down to prove the "impossibility" of spying on the Russians, all the while the Corona program started feeding back film footage of vast swaths of the USSR.<br /><br />The public MOL program was cancelled, while the cameras my father developed for it were classified very deep black and disappeared out of his lab one day right after they were finished. Even he didn't have a high enough clearance to know what happened to them. They were designed only to be operated by human operators in orbit....<br /><br />The F-117 and B-2 programs developed amid a disinformation campaign promoted by the USAF that made absurd claims that the base they were at was a UFO base and aircraft flying out of there were UFO's, just so anybody who saw one and reported it would be immediately discredited.