Blackstar?

What do the fine minds of ssh make of this?

http://aviationnow.com/avnow/news/ch...s/030606p1.xml
[Blackstar: a super-secret two stage to orbit military spacecraft]

It occurs to me that any orbital flight, or significant sub-orbital one,
is likely to set off alarm bells in Moscow and / or Beijing. So what's
in it for *them* to keep quiet about it?

On Mon, 06 Mar 2006 01:38:04 GMT, Mary Pegg
wrote:

What do the fine minds of ssh make of this?

http://aviationnow.com/avnow/news/ch...s/030606p1.xml
[Blackstar: a super-secret two stage to orbit military spacecraft]

It occurs to me that any orbital flight, or significant sub-orbital one,
is likely to set off alarm bells in Moscow and / or Beijing. So what's
in it for *them* to keep quiet about it?

Wow... I wonder if the Pentagon/CIA will actually admit this thing
exists before the year 2050...

While the CIA is pretending it doesn't exist, Burt Rutan is spending a
fortune trying to build something like it but with far less capability
and only hopes for an orbital version some time in the future.

Brian

On Sun, 5 Mar 2006 19:38:04 -0600, Mary Pegg wrote
(in article ):

What do the fine minds of ssh make of this?

http://aviationnow.com/avnow/news/ch...s/030606p1.xml
[Blackstar: a super-secret two stage to orbit military spacecraft]

It occurs to me that any orbital flight, or significant sub-orbital one,
is likely to set off alarm bells in Moscow and / or Beijing. So what's
in it for *them* to keep quiet about it?

Well isn't that a kick in the pants? I've read so many ill-sourced
rumors of such a vehicle for so long I kept checking the date of the
AvLeak article to make sure it didn't read "April 1". ;-)

--
Herb

"Everything is controlled by a small evil group to which,
unfortunately, no one we know belongs."
~Anonymous

Mary Pegg wrote in
:

What do the fine minds of ssh make of this?

http://aviationnow.com/avnow/news/ch...id=news/030606
p1.xml [Blackstar: a super-secret two stage to orbit military
spacecraft]

It occurs to me that any orbital flight, or significant sub-orbital
one, is likely to set off alarm bells in Moscow and / or Beijing. So
what's in it for *them* to keep quiet about it?

Heck, I dunno; I just want to believe it's real. It would explain
some odd sightings.

--Damon

Mary Pegg wrote:
http://aviationnow.com/avnow/news/ch...s/030606p1.xml
[Blackstar: a super-secret two stage to orbit military spacecraft]

Hmm, some questions:

1. A witness caims to have seen it flying over Salt Lake city during
lunchtime. Why fly such a classified aircraft around in broad
daylight, over a city? Just sounds like they're asking for trouble.
OK some launches would have be be in daytime, but isn't that what
that big empty square called Wyoming is for?

2. I've often read MiG-21 owners in the US saying that the ATC radar
coverage is very good, and that anyone busting Mach 1 will be
spotted. So how does a 200ft-long radar reflector delta get up
to multi-Mach and 90,000 ft without someone asking questions
like ``aren't all the SR-71s mothballed?''.

3. Has anyone actually seen the alleged C-5s with cheek extensions?
And why would a C-5 need a supplemental undercarriage to carry
an orbiter load? Are we talking about 120 ton orbiters?

slightly confused...

--
Andrew Bunting

if this is true then it is obvious that the military has a technological
advantage they do not wish to give away.
it seems a side benefit of this is to discourage and divert for as long as
possible any and all civilian and commercial access to space, unless via
shuttle/delta (hah)

i do have a problem with daytime sightings of these critters - a colossal
booboo
if you are smart enough to build such a critter then you should be smart
enough to hide it

unless it is the old 'familiarity breeds contempt' schtick

somehow i don't think so

as for snaky first look overflight i would just fly a balloon over
or stick a camera up a ducks ass, or use the fabled microsats

why orbit?

a hypervelocity rod from god?
surely there is a better way than piggybacking from a valkyrie/sr71 whatever

using such a beast for hypervelocity research is more feasible i think
aerospike - nice idea, especially the hybrid variants, and only one way to
really test them

be a hell of a ride for the pilot/s, but why have pilots...

hard not to brag about, especially when sauced up - must be teetotaller no?
and not need any operations (or go to a special facility for ops 'just in
case')
somehow i don't think so - so many people for them all not to blab one iota


maybe the real secret is that there is no secret
and all this black ops stuff is just crap
and all the black money has just been spent on....
caviar and truffles, and penelopes education, and picassos, and lambos

one thing for sure, it:
sure didn't help with 911
sure hasn't caught osama and his merry bunch yet
sure didn't help all those poor folks in the shuttle...
sure has not helped all the poor grunts in Iraq and Afghanistan

do you really like the concept of an expensive and self serving military
industrial complex staring lovingly up its own ass,
whilst rome burns

well?



"Mary Pegg" wrote in message
...
What do the fine minds of ssh make of this?

http://aviationnow.com/avnow/news/ch...s/030606p1.xml
[Blackstar: a super-secret two stage to orbit military spacecraft]

It occurs to me that any orbital flight, or significant sub-orbital one,
is likely to set off alarm bells in Moscow and / or Beijing. So what's
in it for *them* to keep quiet about it?

Msnbc.com (Oberg) -- Did Pentagon create orbital space plane?

Magazine reports evidence for classified project, sparking some skepticism

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11691989/

By James Oberg, NBC News space analyst // Special to MSNBC

Updated: 2:38 a.m. ET March 6, 2006

A prestigious aerospace magazine on Sunday laid out what it called
"considerable evidence" that the U.S. military funded the development and
testing of a small orbital space plane in the 1990s.

In an article posted to its Web site, Aviation Week & Space Technology
reported that the two-person "Blackstar" space vehicle may have made more
than one orbital mission. But it said the project may have since been
"quietly mothballed," possibly for budgetary or operational reasons.

The report was met with skepticism from other aerospace industry
observers, and even Aviation Week conceded that the evidence was
inconclusive.

so when is scaled composites going to be sued for patent violations?

"Mary Pegg" wrote in message
...
What do the fine minds of ssh make of this?

http://aviationnow.com/avnow/news/ch...s/030606p1.xml
[Blackstar: a super-secret two stage to orbit military spacecraft]

It occurs to me that any orbital flight, or significant sub-orbital one,
is likely to set off alarm bells in Moscow and / or Beijing. So what's
in it for *them* to keep quiet about it?

On Tue, 7 Mar 2006 01:42:08 +1100, "BlagooBlanaa"
wrote:

so when is scaled composites going to be sued for patent violations?

....Who cares? What I want to know is when Lowther's going to release
the resin kit :-P

OM
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In article ,
Mary Pegg wrote:
[Blackstar: a super-secret two stage to orbit military spacecraft]
It occurs to me that any orbital flight, or significant sub-orbital one,
is likely to set off alarm bells in Moscow and / or Beijing. So what's
in it for *them* to keep quiet about it?

There is an agreement between Washington and Moscow (at least) to inform
each other of planned space launches, precisely to avoid people getting
jittery when early-warning satellites see a new infrared source climbing
out of the atmosphere. But you don't have to tell them *what* you're
going to launch, just where and when. So what would Moscow know that's
worth spilling? (Especially if this thing flew only a few times.)
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