US Military shuttle?

david75

I was watching an episode of West Wing and it featured a thing about the possibility of the US having a top secret military space shuttle, which obviously would be super threatning to China/Russia etc....anyone have any theories or ideas, or even proof about this?

i ask cos I reckon it's a possibility for that missle that was launched off the US coast a while back. No way was that a contrail from a plane i dont think.

Any thoughts?

who the fug

One where do launch the thing from and keep it secret
Two How do you build it in secret
Three that was a contrail last week

tmcw

That contrail was off the west coast, going west over the sea.

Any organisation with any knowledge of rocket science would know that you expend far less energy launching a rocket into orbit to go to the east, to take advantage of the rotation of the Earth.

I think this was covered in a recent episode of Richard Hammonds Lab Rats.

Maybe you should do a little more research, or occupy your mind to more important matters rather than persuing this conspiricy silliness. :rolleyes:

A military shuttle would offer no more advantage to the US than a single ICBM.
A shuttle would be way more expensive just to keep in a hanger and ready to fly, let alone actually launch.
Any military satellites they want get launched by cheaper launchers anyway.
I personally can't think of a reason to have one even if they got around the whole secret shuttle thing...

Di0genes

tmcw wrote: »

That contrail was off the west coast, going west over the sea.

Any organisation with any knowledge of rocket science would know that you expend far less energy launching a rocket into orbit to go to the east, to take advantage of the rotation of the Earth.

I'm comforted to know the reason the US won the cold war because it would have been harder for Soviet missiles to fly west,

who the fug

Di0genes wrote: »

I'm comforted to know the reason the US won the cold war because it would have been harder for Soviet missiles to fly west,

Thought most of the would have been flying over the North Pole, hence Canada is part of Norad

studiorat

david75 wrote: »

I was watching an episode of West Wing and it featured a thing about the possibility of the US having a top secret military space shuttle, which obviously would be super threatning to China/Russia etc....

Russia? what year is this again?

thecommander

The X27B is currently in orbit. It launched in April and disappeared from view for 2 weeks (ie changed orbit), it was then picked up by amateur astronomers. No one knows its mission. Due to land soon.



The current space shuttle was used on 6 or 7 top secret missions to deploy and retrieve spy satellites.

espinolman

studiorat wrote: »

Russia? what year is this again?

This year is 1980 .

humanji

thecommander wrote: »

The X27B is currently in orbit. It launched in April and disappeared from view for 2 weeks (ie changed orbit), it was then picked up by amateur astronomers. No one knows its mission. Due to land soon.



The current space shuttle was used on 6 or 7 top secret missions to deploy and retrieve spy satellites.

Did you mean the x-37B?

I was reading on Gizmodo a small article on this where they mentioned that the X-15 gave way to the first common use space shuttles, so this could be something to do with the attempts to organise a manned flight to Mars, which ahs been in the news recently.

thecommander

And it lands
http://www.spaceflightnow.com/news/n1012/03x37gallery/

profitius

thecommander wrote: »

The X27B is currently in orbit. It launched in April and disappeared from view for 2 weeks (ie changed orbit), it was then picked up by amateur astronomers. No one knows its mission. Due to land soon.



The current space shuttle was used on 6 or 7 top secret missions to deploy and retrieve spy satellites.

Mars and back in a nanosecond with this baby!

uprising2

who the fug wrote: »

One where do launch the thing from and keep it secret
Two How do you build it in secret
Three that was a contrail last week

One: Off the Californian coast, heading west, and say its a contrail, plenty will blindly believe its a contrail, whoever doesn't can be called a conspiracy nut.

Two: With oaths, threats, deaths, promises and lies. Same way they kept the stealth bomber, "little boy", and every other secret they've ever had.
DARPA

Three: See one;).

I'm just playing devils advocate here, but does this really look like a contrail?,

http://www.flickr.com/photos/ocean_rick/5165540970/in/photostream/

tmcw wrote: »

That contrail was off the west coast, going west over the sea.

Any organisation with any knowledge of rocket science would know that you expend far less energy launching a rocket into orbit to go to the east, to take advantage of the rotation of the Earth.

I think this was covered in a recent episode of Richard Hammonds Lab Rats.

Maybe you should do a little more research, or occupy your mind to more important matters rather than persuing this conspiricy silliness. :rolleyes:

Yeah, good advice, you keep watching Richard Hammonds Lab Rats.

Off the west coast, going west, seems a great spot for testing secret shuttle/rocket/missile.







http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DARPA_Falcon_Project
Past projects
The aim was always to be able to deploy a craft from the continental United States, which could reach anywhere on the planet within an hour or two.

King Mob wrote: »

A military shuttle would offer no more advantage to the US than a single ICBM.
A shuttle would be way more expensive just to keep in a hanger and ready to fly, let alone actually launch.
Any military satellites they want get launched by cheaper launchers anyway.
I personally can't think of a reason to have one even if they got around the whole secret shuttle thing...

Di0genes wrote: »

I'm comforted to know the reason the US won the cold war because it would have been harder for Soviet missiles to fly west,

The earth is not flat, I suggest you invest in a globe and tear that map of dreams off your bedroom wall.


USA wins Cold WAR..............

12 Hours Later, things take a turn for the worse........


USSR Wins Cold WAR

Actually the reason the USA "won" the cold war is because they controlled it, it was their thing, the commies were yester-years muslims, the boogeymen.

Testimony of the Author before Subcommittee VII of the Platform Committee of the Republican Party at Miami Beach, Florida, August 15, 1972, at 2:30 pm.
This appendix contains the testimony presented by the author before the Republican Party National Security Subcommittee at the 1972 Miami Beach convention. The author's appearance was made under the auspices of the American Conservative Union; the chairman of the subcommittee was Senator John Tower of Texas.
Edith Kermit Roosevelt subsequently used this testimony for her syndicated column in such newspapers as the Union Leader (Manchester, NH). Both major wire services received copies from the American Conservative Union; they were not distributed. Congressman John G. Schmitz then arranged for duplicate copies to be hand-delivered to both UPI and AP. The wire services would not carry the testimony although the author is an internationally known academic researcher with three
{p. 253} books published at Stanford University, and a forthcoming book from the U.S. Naval Institute.
The testimony was later reprinted in full in Human Events (under the title of "The Soviet Military-Industrial Complex") and Review of the News (under the total of "Suppressed Testimony of Anthony C. Sutton"). It was also reprinted and extensively distributed throughout the United States by both the American Party and the Libertarian Party during the 1972 election campaign.
The following is the text of this testimony as it was originally presented in Miami Beach and made available to UPI and AP.
The Soviet Military-Industrial Complex
The information that I am going to present to you this afternoon is known to the Administration. The information is probably not known to the Senator from South Dakota or his advisers. And in this instance ignorance may be a blessing in disguise.
I am not a politician. I am not going to tell you what you want to hear. My job is to give you facts. Whether you like or dislike what I say doesn't concern me. I am here because I believe - and Congressman Ashbrook believes - that the American public should have these facts.
I have spent ten years in research on Soviet technology. What it is ?what it can do ? and particularly where it came from. I have published three books and several articles summarizing the work. It was privately financed. But the results have been available to the Government. On the other hand I have had major difficulties with U.S. Government censorship.
I have about 15 minutes to tell you about this work.
In a few words: there is no such thing as Soviet technology.
Almost all - perhaps 90-95 percent - came directly or indirectly from the United States and its allies. In effect the United States and the NATO countries have built the Soviet

who the fug

uprising2 wrote: »

I'm just playing devils advocate here, but does this really look like a contrail?,

Have a look a Pprune, they have even listed the flight.

uprising2

who the fug wrote: »

Have a look a Pprune, they have even listed the flight.

But that area would have an endless stream of aircraft all the time, so a plane being listed doesn't do much for me.
Here's 2 pics from now and 20 minutes ago.

4 planes coming into LA



One heading in a few mins ago. I don't buy that it was a contrail

who the fug

uprising2 wrote: »

One heading in a few mins ago. I don't buy that it was a contrail

When a body of aviation professionals agree that its most likely cause was a contrail that is good enough for me.

Yitzhak Rabin

I've deleted a few OT posts. Quit the muppetry here as well. Discuss the posts and keep it civil

Overheal

I'm surprised you all seem to have missed the rebirth of the X-34:

http://gizmodo.com/5699838/the-real-story-behind-nasas-resurrected-space-plane



Nobody really knows what the X-37B was doing up there. Maybe it was just a performance test before they actually committed any hardware to it. Maybe it really did perform some routine maintenance on spy sats as part of a test, who knows. But being that it was essentially a maiden voyage (right?) I doubt they comitted expensive new hardware into the payload without first figuring out if she could fly in orbit.

As for what we can put in orbit nowadays, well! Boeing has been pretty successful with Laser tech in the last few years. Not exactly Ion Cannon strength, and probably not enough to nullify M.A.D. with Russia not by a long shot, but a single prototype could theoretically be used to nullify a missile launch from a rogue nation.. assuming you could take down a ballistic missile in atmosphere from space. Probably, but it would require extensive testing before it became a game changer against Iran or Korea. And yes they could load up something with DARPA kinetic warheads but again I doubt you could do that in enough quanitity - unnoticed - as to illicit a First Strike scenario using Nuclear Payload. Remembering that Russia and other nations such as China have their own anti-sat capabilities, and bearing in mind what a complete cluster**** would occur if the US actually did something like that and was caught doing it. I think if they did anything of the sort it would be with some measure of cooperation with other permanent security council members.

uprising2

The US military are constantly upping their war capabilities, taking war to space is the the natural next step for them. There are known secret projects and unknown secret projects.

As far as I'm concerned that trail is not an normal aircraft contrail, possibly came from something like this:
HTV-3X


http://www.darpa.mil/Docs/Falcon-Blackswift%20FS%20Oct08.pdf

Or ongoing tests and development of Prompt Global Strike (PGS)

US military planners have won President Barack Obama’s support for a new generation of high-speed weapons that are intended to strike anywhere on Earth within an hour.
Obama’s interest in Prompt Global Strike (PGS), a nonnuclear weapons programme, has alarmed China and Russia and complicated nuclear arms reduction negotiations.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article7107179.ece

Or a newer model/version of one of these:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IiBsD-cafH8

But definately not a simple contrail.

who the fug

Have a read of this

uprising2

who the fug wrote: »

Have a read of this

Have a look at THIS

Overheal

So are you guys telling me the official line was that is actually a Contrail?

...it doesn't take a mad scientist to spot the difference. Come on. And those people live in range of LAX.