...Military Space Plane (X-37b) to Launch February 26

X-37b
http://space.skyrocket.de/index_fram..._sdat/x-37.htm


February 26, 2009: A United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket to launch the
Pentagon's X-37B Orbital Test Vehicle space plane prototype from Cape Canaveral
Air Force Station in Cape Canaveral, Fla.
http://www.space.com/missionlaunches..._schedule.html


"The X-37B Orbital Test Vehicle is similar to the space shuttle, except it's
about a fourth the size and unmanned. The OTV can return from space on its own,
said Lt. Col. Kevin Walker, an Air Force Rapid Capabilities Office program
manager. "
"The X-37 program, originally a NASA initiative, was transferred to the Defense
Advanced Research Projects Agency in 2004. The Air Force's X-37B program builds
upon the early development and testing conducted by NASA, DARPA and the Air
Force Research Laboratory."
http://www.af.mil/news/story.asp?id=123032226


Gee, I wonder what else was transferred from NASA to the military under
Bush?


WASHINGTON The U.S. Air Force has decided not to adopt NASAs orphaned X-33
and X-34 experimental rockets or take on a greater role in the agencys X-37
space
vehicle program, according to industry and government sources.
X-37, meanwhile, remains a funded NASA program with limited Air Force
involvement.
An Air Force spokesperson declined to comment on the matter
http://www.space.com/news/military_space_010905.html



......ohmygosh....they lied to us about the X-37! Go figure.
So what really happened to the X-33?


NASA Concludes X-33 Engine Test Series with
90-Second Burn

"There were no anomalies," Foerman said. "It looks like it was a good test.
What happens next with the linear aerospike engines, along with the
rest of the X-33 flight hardware, is still not clear. The U.S. Air Force
has expressed an interest in taking over the orphaned program,
but has made no formal commitment to do so.

NASA spokesman James Cast said the U.S. space agency
continues to discuss the X-33 program's future with the Air Force
http://www.space.com/spacenews/x33test_080701.html


Huh!


So, all these decades of trying to build a SSO, and it all ends
up getting militarized. Oh well, guess that's the future for NASA
and manned space flight.

To help the Pentagon build a rapid reaction force, and march a squad
of poor obedient Marines to the top of an old leaky Atlas, and
surprise the hell out of some future Osama?



Jonathan



s

In the previous article, jonathan wrote:
Gee, I wonder what else was transferred from NASA to the
military under Bush?

If you want a list, just write down all the stuff that actually
works. That's the stuff NASA doesn't do.
--
_+_ From the catapult of |If anyone objects to any statement I make, I am
_|70|___=}- J.D. Baldwin |quite prepared not only to retract it, but also
\ / |to deny under oath that I ever made it.-T. Lehrer
***~~~~----------------------------------------------------------------------

You lot are more cynical than I am.

Brian

--
Brian Gaff....Note, this account does not accept Bcc: email.
graphics are great, but the blind can't hear them
Email:
__________________________________________________ __________________________________________________ __________


"J.D. Baldwin" wrote in message
...

In the previous article, jonathan wrote:
Gee, I wonder what else was transferred from NASA to the
military under Bush?

If you want a list, just write down all the stuff that actually
works. That's the stuff NASA doesn't do.
--
_+_ From the catapult of |If anyone objects to any statement I make, I am
_|70|___=}- J.D. Baldwin |quite prepared not only to retract it, but
also
\ / |to deny under oath that I ever made it.-T.
Lehrer
***~~~~----------------------------------------------------------------------

On Dec 16, 3:55�am, "Brian Gaff" wrote:
You lot are more cynical than I am.

Brian

supringsly nasa did build spirit and opportunity, which are fantastic.

in typical nasa fashion they abandoned the successful model which
could of been duplicated easily on a production line basis, and many
more sent to explore.

they are compartively so cheap is a shame we havent sent more

I still believe they didn't send more because they were so cheap. NASA
always seems to look for the most expensive means to do something, and
after they failed try something even more expensive and less likely to
succeed.
I'm a firm believer in space technology, but I also believe that the NASA
driven approach should be abandoned. The most important thing at the moment
is reducing the cost to orbit, and that's where the money should go (but I
don't believe NASA has spend any money on that in decades). Once NASA was a
good thing, nowadays it does little for lots of money.


wrote:
On Dec 16, 3:55?am, "Brian Gaff" wrote:
You lot are more cynical than I am.

Brian

supringsly nasa did build spirit and opportunity, which are fantastic.

in typical nasa fashion they abandoned the successful model which
could of been duplicated easily on a production line basis, and many
more sent to explore.

they are compartively so cheap is a shame we havent sent more

"jonathan" writes:

X-37b
http://space.skyrocket.de/index_fram..._sdat/x-37.htm

February 26, 2009: A United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket to launch the
Pentagon's X-37B Orbital Test Vehicle space plane prototype from Cape Canaveral
Air Force Station in Cape Canaveral, Fla.
http://www.space.com/missionlaunches..._schedule.html

That's interesting. The X-37B launch was scheduled for a February 2009
launch first, then swapped with the LRO launch to occur in November and now
it's back to February 2009. What's with LRO then?


Jochem

--
"A designer knows he has arrived at perfection not when there is no
longer anything to add, but when there is no longer anything to take away."
- Antoine de Saint-Exupery

"Stefan Diekmann" wrote in message
...
I still believe they didn't send more because they were so cheap. NASA
always seems to look for the most expensive means to do something, and
after they failed try something even more expensive and less likely to
succeed.

They're cheap because they're limited in what they can do.

They've accomplished their goals.

Besides taking more pretty pictures, what valuable science would additional
copies bring?

It's like arguing we fly copies of Explorer I because it was so cheap.


I'm a firm believer in space technology, but I also believe that the NASA
driven approach should be abandoned. The most important thing at the
moment is reducing the cost to orbit, and that's where the money should go
(but I don't believe NASA has spend any money on that in decades). Once
NASA was a good thing, nowadays it does little for lots of money.


wrote:
On Dec 16, 3:55?am, "Brian Gaff" wrote:
You lot are more cynical than I am.

Brian

supringsly nasa did build spirit and opportunity, which are fantastic.

in typical nasa fashion they abandoned the successful model which
could of been duplicated easily on a production line basis, and many
more sent to explore.

they are compartively so cheap is a shame we havent sent more




--
Greg Moore
Ask me about lily, an RPI based CMC.

Greg D. Moore (Strider) wrote:

Besides taking more pretty pictures, what valuable science would additional
copies bring?


If you have limited budget and can build/send only one proble, you use
your telescopes and whatever to try to guess the best place to land, and
from that point on, it becomes harder to justify sending copies of the
probe to places where you feel the odds are lower of finding something
interesting.

But, if the project has an initial goal of "mapping" the surface of mars
by sending the same probe/instruments to 10 different diverse locations
on mars, then you end up with a dataset that is quite valuable because
it really shows differences in soil/environment (or shows that there is
absolutely no difference).

What NASA needs now, is funding from oil companies to drill for oil on
Mars :-) :-) :-) :-)

On Dec 16, 1:10*pm, "Greg D. Moore \(Strider\)"
wrote:
"Stefan Diekmann" wrote in message

...

I still believe they didn't send more because they were so cheap. NASA
always seems to look for the most expensive means to do something, and
after they failed try something even more expensive and less likely to
succeed.

They're cheap because they're limited in what they can do.

They've accomplished their goals.

Besides taking more pretty pictures, what valuable science would additional
copies bring?

It's like arguing we fly copies of Explorer I because it was so cheap.



I'm a firm believer in space technology, but I also believe that the NASA
driven approach should be abandoned. The most important thing at the
moment is reducing the cost to orbit, and that's where the money should go
(but I don't believe NASA has spend any money on that in decades). Once
NASA was a good thing, nowadays it does little for lots of money.

wrote:
On Dec 16, 3:55?am, "Brian Gaff" wrote:
You lot are more cynical than I am.

Brian

supringsly nasa did build spirit and opportunity, which are fantastic.

in typical *nasa fashion they abandoned the successful model which
could of been duplicated easily on a production line basis, and many
more sent to explore.

they are compartively so cheap is a shame we havent sent more

--
Greg Moore
Ask me about lily, an RPI based CMC.

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/LR...er_search.html

"Stefan Diekmann" wrote:

I still believe they didn't send more because they were so cheap. NASA
always seems to look for the most expensive means to do something, and
after they failed try something even more expensive and less likely to
succeed.

Yet somehow, NASA suceeds more than it fails. This suggests your
model is flawed. Editorially speaking, I'd say deeply flawed.

The most important thing at the moment is reducing the cost to orbit, and
that's where the money should go (but I don't believe NASA has spend any
money on that in decades).

Spending money just to spend money very rarely reduces costs. This
goes doubly for things like the cost of space acess where the problem
isn't that we aren't spending enough money.

supringsly nasa did build spirit and opportunity, which are fantastic.

in typical nasa fashion they abandoned the successful model which
could of been duplicated easily on a production line basis, and many
more sent to explore.

they are compartively so cheap is a shame we havent sent more

Actually, duplicating them on a production line means spending
$MEGABUCKS^2 creating an assembly line - which means they aren't cheap
any more. Once you've created the assembly line, you can reduce costs
by producing by the gross lot - but in the case of the MER rovers, you
won't reduce costs as much as you think because most of the costs come
from QA and testing not materials and assembly labor.

And then once you've spent all that money without reducing costs all
that much, you're faced with the problem that MER rovers are useless
little toys for broad exploration. Their EDL systems can only reach a
small portion of the Martian surface, and the their science package is
limited and designed to answer only certain specific questions.

D.
--
Touch-twice life. Eat. Drink. Laugh.

http://derekl1963.livejournal.com/

-Resolved: To be more temperate in my postings.
Oct 5th, 2004 JDL