Black Military Shuttle ?

[mlorrey]

If it could, why was the SR-71 reactivated for several years in the 1990's, long after it had been mothballed supposedly because satellites had 'obsoleted' it???? Obviously because satellites cannot replace on-demand intel aircraft with large amounts of maneuverability and crossrange, stealth, and unpredictability. It is a cakewalk for the enemy intel to know when and where US spy sats are passing over, there is a whole science to camouflaging fixed installations to look like other things to a satellite, and a SOP for putting portable equipment under cover when spy sats are known to be flying over. When I was in the USAF we used to hangar our planes at various times of day to mess with the Russian counts of our readiness and sortie rates.<br /><br />You're not talking to some fool tin hatter here.

 

[dobbins]

If we have all of these uber-cool black shuttles and spy planes, then why was the SR-71 reactivated at all?<br /><br />

 

[mikejz]

If there were a 'black' shuttle, which I would put at a 50/50 chance. My guess is that it's main role would be to refuel spy satellites.

 

[thermionic]

<blockquote><font class="small">In reply to:</font><hr /><p>If there were a 'black' shuttle, which I would put at a 50/50 chance. My guess is that it's main role would be to refuel spy satellites. <p><hr /></p></p></blockquote><br /><br />Wow! If anyone here is secretly involved in this, please see if you can get someone to fly up there and fix Hubble.<br /><br />

 

[mikejz]

Ummm..... I said refuel, not repair. In all odds it is teleoperated and not manned.

 

[mlorrey]

<blockquote><font class="small">In reply to:</font><hr /><p><br />If we have all of these uber-cool black shuttles and spy planes, then why was the SR-71 reactivated at all? <br /><p><hr /></p></p></blockquote><br /><br />A very good question, Dobbins. My guess is, given that the Blackbird is again deactivated, that there was a development delay in its replacement, or a temporary grounding due to accidents, etc. that created a capability gap that needed to be filled temporarily.

 

[josh_simonson]

Plenty of payloads are launched with classified cargoes, why would a refueling satelite require top secrecy for launch. <br /><br />Nobody is able to provide a reason (that isn't 20-30 years old) that the military would need to send humans into space. It's simply not needed. If high tech cameras needed human operators, Hubble would be manned. Seriously folks....<br /><br />Assuredly there's more on the table in the way of spy planes for closer photos than satelites provide. But these are airplanes, not spacecraft. Who knows what kind of stealth UAVs they've got - but they probably burn cool and fly slow to avoid detection, rather than cruising around in hypersonic fireballs at the edge of space.

 

[mlorrey]

On the contrary. Hubble and spysats today are not manned specifically because human activity puts too much vibration in optic systems for very high resolution, however they are very necessary for doing the high intelligence functions of discerning high value targets in situ on a highly maneuverable platform.<br /><br />Automated space inspection and asat systems have very poor mission reliability to date. The primary reason humans are necessary for such missions is that enemy satellites can and do employ EM jamming technologies, which negates remotely controlled vehicles in the inspection and interdiction role.

 

[wdobner]

<i>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. </i><br /><br />Not at all. It'd be like the non-classified portion of Lockheed to produce a Mach 3 interceptor in the 1960s with nearly the same performance specifications as the A-12 but without any knowledge of what their Skunk Works comrades in Building 82 were doing. Look at some of the 'white' projects that were undertaken at the same time as the A-12/YF-12/SR-71 program. The F-111 never did pan out as a multiservice, multirole fighter. The Avro Arrow and BAC TSR.2 died ignominious deaths despite producing flyable prototypes. The supersonic airliners of that period were similarly dismal, the 2707 was stillborn, the Concorde was never a success, the Tu-144 was even more of a failure. Our XB-70 was finally put out of its misery by the mid-1960s and its Soviet imitator the the Sukhoi T-4 never went anywhere. By what you've said all those failures should have dictated that the SR-71 itself would be a failure, yet clearly it was anything but. <br /><br /><i>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. </i><br /><br />Maybe the folks who run Groom Lake, or those who are in the position to pass judgement on the declassification of the material there, just happen to be the hardest of the hardcore cold warriors. They didn't want to declassify the research done on what may well be called the Aurora simply because they didn't want to lose the strategic surprise should the Ruskies get uppity in the mid 90s. Now we've got a whole new set of people to call evil and bomb, the 'terrists', and the Russians are behaving themselves so it's not like we

 

[wdobner]

<i>If there were a 'black' shuttle, which I would put at a 50/50 chance. My guess is that it's main role would be to refuel spy satellites. </i><br /><br />Funny you should say that. I remember hearing or reading somewhere that the first LaCrosse radar imaging satellites were designed to be flown in conjunction with USAF run 'black' shuttle missions for refueling. I really wish I could remember where I found this, but it was years ago. The source (it might have been the book 'Deep Black') stated that the LaCrosse was designed to lower it's perigee for certain higher resolution imaging runs and then boost itself back up into a more circular, lower drag orbit once that was done. This rather frequent thruster use would have had the LaCrosse satellites consuming a lot of fuel, so refuelling with shuttle flights would seem to make sense. At the time I didn't bother questioning it because I was still under the impression that everything in space just kind of hung there, my little discovery of orbital mechanics was still 2-3 years off. Now I wonder what they were thinking, because the LaCrosses are in high inclination orbits (right?) and without Vandenberg the Shuttle is strictly limited to orbits between 51.6 and 28 degrees (right?) out of KSC. <br /><br />Addendum: Since I looked it up <i>after</i> posting, I see that Lacrosse I was put in orbit in 1988 in a 57 degree orbit by a Shuttle out of KSC. The following three all rode Titan IVs into orbit out of Vandenberg. I'd imagine this demonstrates the lack of faith the USAF and NRO had in the shuttle program by the time LaCrosse II went up that they'd rather map all the world from a polar orbit of constant altitude than map a portion of the world from a 57 degree, variable altitude orbit with the possibilty of shuttle-based refueling. Then again, maybe that's when the black shuttle began operating out of Vandenberg and the Air Force no longer h

 

[formulaterp]

<font color="yellow">This rather frequent thruster use would have had the LaCrosse satellites consuming a lot of fuel, so refuelling with shuttle flights would seem to make sense.</font><br /><br />What makes more sense would be loading the spy satellites up with a ton of fuel. Did you ever wonder why they weigh 3-4 times as much as the biggest comsats ever built? And why do we keep launching more of them if we could refuel them?<br /><br />And how do you explain the current DARPA Orbital Express program? They are trying to develop the capability to service and refuel satelites in orbit. Why do so if you already have a "black shuttle" which has been routinely performing this task since 1988? I guess it's just another part of the vast disinformation campaign.<br /><br />Besides how much fuel could a SSTO possibly carry? One of the major drawbacks of spaceplanes have always been the meager payload capabilities.<br />

 

[mlorrey]

<blockquote><font class="small">In reply to:</font><hr /><p>Besides how much fuel could a SSTO possibly carry? One of the major drawbacks of spaceplanes have always been the meager payload capabilities. <p><hr /></p></p></blockquote><br /><br />That is what they tell you. SSTO's burning LH2/LOX have little to no payload capability, but that is because LH2 is a terrible fuel for an SSTO, particularly for any vehicle with any airbreathing mode, as the aerodynamic losses of carrying high volume fuel tanks negate any Isp advantage. NASA is high on LH2 because it needs the votes of leftie senators and reps who have tree hugger constituencies, not because LH2 is any good as an SSTO fuel.<br /><br />Furthermore, you can get the same Isp as LH2, or slightly better, with higher thrust, by slurrying boron in RP-1 or JP-4. <br /><br />A Blackhorse sized system burning JP-4/Boron and LOX could loft a minimum of 1,000 lbs payload into orbit.<br />

 

[nacnud]

Boron is $250 / 100g<br /><br />How much do you need?

 

[mlorrey]

A 5% slurry concentration will boost Isp to 457.<br /><br />Fuel cost is a miniscule part of space launch costs. Boron's current price is primarily due to lack of other uses and markets for it in its pure form, and for this reason production rates are very low.<br /><br />The price you quote is also for a purity that is unnecessary in a rocket fuel.

 

[josh_simonson]

>As far secrecy on a hypersonic aircraft would be concerned you'd certainly want it to remain secret since that way you'd buy yourself a few years before the opposing side begins developing interceptor systems. <br /><br />We openly have hypersonic weapon systems, they're called ICBMs. They're just disposable, un-manned, and not air-breathing. That makes them faster and cheaper (read superior) than any manned spaceplane could be as far as strike capability.<br /><br /> />Automated space inspection and asat systems have very poor mission reliability to date. The primary reason humans are necessary for such missions is that enemy satellites can and do employ EM jamming technologies, which negates remotely controlled vehicles in the inspection and interdiction role. <br /><br />So instead we fly a person up to the satelite and shoot it point blank? That's silly. Most satelites are in high orbits, well beyond what a SSTO could reach anyway. It's not worth the expense to create such a thing for such a limited set of marginally useful purposes. They won't spend 100 billion to be able to secretly service a satelite when they can launch a new one for only 1 bln either.<br /><br />If you think about it a bit, it's impossible to make a manned stealth spaceship. Once in space it must use chemical rockets for propulsion, the hot exhaust plumes from these would be very easy to find with infra-red cameras.

 

[mlorrey]

This is patently false. The Misty 1 and Misty 2 spysats, which are bigger than the Hubble, are stealthed and equipped with much maneuvering capacity.<br /><br />One way they stealth is to mimic the radar signature of space junk. The Misty's are in 700-800 km orbits, as far as the FAS believes, which is considered as high as a spy sat wants to be while still getting regular coverage. They cover every point on the globe once every three days at that altitude, and are known to change orbits regularly, but are still redetected within several days by pacifist whistleblowers.<br /><br />It is thus very difficult to achieve intelligence surprise with satellites that have orbits for more than a week. For this very reason, intel missions like those that discovered Russian missiles on Cuba, etc. can only be performed by a vehicle capable of operating above 150,000 ft and less than 700 km, with cross range and recoverability, and, this is the kicker: deployability from most major military bases worldwide on a 48 hour basis.<br /><br />No spy satellite, no ballistic missile, and no conventional aircraft can meet those mission requirements.

 

[nacnud]

A small sat launched on pegasus could, so why hasn't that been further developed?

 

[nyarlathotep]

>>"Boron is $250 / 100g<br />How much do you need?"<br /><br />In my country it goes for about 1400-2000 AUD per tonne.

 

[wdobner]

<i>We openly have hypersonic weapon systems, they're called ICBMs. They're just disposable, un-manned, and not air-breathing. That makes them faster and cheaper (read superior) than any manned spaceplane could be as far as strike capability. </i><br /><br />Yes, and an ICBM isn't quite accurate enough to take out a bunker without resorting to a nuclear warhead. It's also somewhat inadaquate when it comes to striking a moving target, so using one as an anti-ship weapon is out. We could spend the money to improve the CEP and moving target tracking ability of a conventional MIRV to the point where we'd have the ability to strike any point on earth within 30 minutes, but we might as well spend the money to develop a hypersonic cruise missile since that'd be much more flexible. An ICBM is always going to take 20-30 minutes to arrive pretty much anywhere we're fighting, while a hypersonic cruise missile can be deployed off an aircraft or ship to strike in a much smaller amount of time. An RV is always going to be open to interception, once we start developing components to improve the accuracy of an RV travelling at upwards of 10000 mph to a CEP of around 30 feet we'll likely find it easier to develop interception systems as well, and if we figure it out then within a few years somebody else will figure it out. A hypersonic cruise missile has the advantage of potentially flying too low for an ABM system to adaquately intercept, yet flying too high or too fast for a conventional SAM system to shoot it down, it can also maneuver and change course to evade or avoid SAM sites. <br /><br />There also is of course a massive political aspect here. If we start lobbing conventionally tipped Minutemen the world is going to hold its collective breath every time one takes off until its 1000-2000lbs of RDX goes off on the target. As I said, it won't be long before somebody else figures out how we did it and then <i>we'll</i> be among the folks holding our breath as China, Pakistan

 

[mlorrey]

What do you mean by 'further developed'? The Pegasus is as big as an underwing-airlaunched booster can get for the types of transport planes we have today. You'd need to develop dorsal launching from the C-5, and even then you'd be capped at about 55,000 lb GLOW. That is just barely big enough to launch an F-16 sized Blackhorse, and, given mass fractions, given that airlaunch saves you 5%, and an F-16 sized vehicle would likely weigh about 8,000 lb dry, you'd likely have a payload size of 500lb. for SSTO, a very low SSTO.<br /><br />This is why the Blackhorse/Pioneer Rocketplane folks and the Kellyspace folks went with the air-refuel and tow launch concepts, respectively: you can put a whole lot more vehicle and fuel in the air that way. A tow-launched vehicle the size of, say, an F-106 Delta Dart, could theoretically get into orbit with enough delta v to reach most any spysat.<br /><br />Keep in mind that 500 lb payloads cannot launch effective spy satellites today. You can't put up a large enough optical package to get the kind of resolution you need for state of the art imagry. They are good for GPS sats, and refueling missions, though.<br /><br />Another thing to make you wonder about black military shuttles: why is NASA so sure that space-based refuelling is 'impossible' or 'impractical', given they've never tried it, officially?

 

[CalliArcale]

<blockquote><font class="small">In reply to:</font><hr /><p>Another thing to make you wonder about black military shuttles: why is NASA so sure that space-based refuelling is 'impossible' or 'impractical', given they've never tried it, officially?<p><hr /></p></p></blockquote><br /><br />Space-based refueling is performed routinely for the International Space Station. It isn't impossible. But for most spacecraft, it really is impractical. You need a good reason why the spacecraft can't just be disposable. <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>

 

[josh_simonson]

>That's easy, it's snatching and bringing it back to earth like the shuttle was supposed to do that's the hard part. <br /><br />Uh huh. And after the russians observe the shuttle close in and capture the satelite (through the satelites security cameras) the self destruct system blows up the satelite as well as the 100bln spaceplane.<br /><br /> />Space-based refueling is performed routinely for the International Space Station. It isn't impossible. But for most spacecraft, it really is impractical. <br /><br />Most satelites are obsolete by the time they run out of fuel. Better to just upgrade the entire thing.

 

[nacnud]

Agree with the refueling thing but what about this?<br /><br />http://www.orbitalrecovery.com/

 

[josh_simonson]

The satelite life extender does not cost 100x as much to develop and deploy as the satelite it helps, and proves that you don't need a secret $100bln orbital spaceplane to do that job if you need it done. If 'top secret' technology really is 17 years ahead, then such life extender craft were available in the 80's, right about when the air force gave up on the shuttle...<br /><br />If a spaceplane were cheap, I'd wholeheartedly speculate they have one. But considering their expense, I can't see compelling applications for one when it has to compete with known/unkown stealth spyplanes, satelites, rockets, ICBMs and other systems.

 

[mlorrey]

Josh, you've got at least one too many unsupported assumptions in there, namely that a spaceplane is gonna cost $100 billion to build. Even the Shuttle only cost a few billion. For $100 billion, I'd expect they'd have at least a good 20 such shuttles in a squadron in the middle of nowhere.<br /><br />NASA throws money away on SSTO programs, then cancels them, to "prove" that SSTO is impossible, and you've bought their party line hook line and sinker. <br /><br />That Rutan could essentially replicate the X-15 program for 1% of the cost that NASA spent is indicative that NASA (Notoriously Astronomical Spending Administration) cannot avoid spending way more than private industry has to to achieve the same goals.<br /><br />Just as the CIA is often a front and foil for agencies like the NSA, NRO, DIA, and other unnamed organizations, in order to take the blame when they screw up, and to "prove" the incompetence of US intelligence, you should see a similar model in the NASA/USAF/NRO relationship.