Space Plane: Mysterious US military aircraft launches

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-52698133

by willvarfar • 6 years ago

205 173 6 years ago

bbc.co.uk

Did this mission not transfer to the new Space Force? If not, what kind of things are they doing?

Given the frequency and consistency of narrative with which it appears in the press, at this stage I'm convinced it's an empty UAV used entirely for some marketing purpose

mhh__4• 6 years ago

It's spending months in space, I don't think it's for marketing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j56s46e97Lo

Based on what this talk indicates, the US Government is doing some questionable(...) things in terms of signals intelligence in space.

We probably won't know what X37-B is doing in space for years but I imagine they will have at least tried to do some big brother exercises. The US/Western Intelligence community effectively treats all communications as fair game - they always have (e.g. MI5 were capturing encryption keys from neutral embassies using microphones in the ~50/60s) they just possess the means to do it efficiently at large scale now.

I imagine a large part of its mission is also just testing military equipment that can't go on the ISS but that's not as sexy.

azernik4• 6 years ago

Most likely is for component testing - would explain the secrecy, the low flight rate, and the long (2 years or so) mission duration.

EDIT: And, in fact, the one publicly-released payload I'm finding was a test of a new heat pipe.

NortySpock2• 6 years ago

It did transfer to the Space Force. The mission number is USSF-7, not USAF-7.

https://www.ulalaunch.com/about/news/2020/05/17/united-launc...

icegreentea2• 6 years ago

It is transferred to the space force - the launch name is USSF-7 (https://www.ulalaunch.com/missions/atlas-v-ussf-7). The Space Force operates out of the Department of the Air Force (like how the Marine Corp operates out of the Department of the Navy), so it's it's civilian head is still the Secretary of the Air Force - it's military head is the Chief of Space Operations.

Rebelgecko4• 6 years ago

The Space Force is now responsible for all DOD launches. However I believe that the payload itself still belongs to the Air Force Rapid Capabilities Office. Most of the people operating it may be "on loan" to the Space Force, but aren't actually members yet (I think there's only ~100 people so far in the Space Force)

DuskStar2• 6 years ago

I think there's only ~100 people so far in the Space Force

It has to be more than that, now - I'm pretty sure more than a hundred just went straight there after graduating from USAFA a few weeks back

shockinglytrue2• 6 years ago

The press around the X-37B continues to perplex, it's particularly disappointing to see this "super secret but let's talk about it constantly" article using the word "very" 3 times.

I think it was drilled into me by the age of 12 to avoid "very" in written English in order not to obviously oversell, and yet here it is from a professional writer working for the BBC

jrockway2• 6 years ago

Newspapers tend to write for a very low reading level. Flourish is nice for readers of a long novel (for whom the words are as important as the story itself), but the goal here is for as many people to understand the content as possible. That includes people that don't natively speak English, children, etc.

zrail2• 6 years ago

Newspapers tend to write for a very low reading level.

I see what you did there.

chrisseaton2• 6 years ago

In general the BBC prioritises simple writing, a reasonably low reading level, and common words to make it as accessible as possible. They don't pay much attention to ideas of artistic writing and they aren't looking to use a different adverb or adjective every time for the whimsical sake of it. It's a public news service, not a mid-atlantic magazine.

ethbro• 6 years ago

The best news choice I made, as an American, was to get my primary news through foreign outlets.

Because generally, they don't really care enough to implement systemic bias about another country.

hammock• 6 years ago

If you wanted simple writing you would omit "very," not replace it.

w-ll• 6 years ago

the whole point of a Doomsday Machine is lost, if you keep it a secret!

Dr. Strangelove

kristopolous2• 6 years ago

I always assumed there's a chosen public facing secret plane with some PR management to represent the secret program in general and there's numerous other behind the scenes secret crafts without the PR.

I also assumed many of the silly rumors of antigravity or whatever planes are intentionally manufactured as part of the PR so if some information of an actual plane leaks it'll be buried with the noise.

This way, the formal channels could say "oh nonsense, that's just silly rumours, The Official Secret Plane is this one over here".

It also puts outsiders at a true zero knowledge position since there's no indication as to what is and is not nonsense.

Then you could have say, a top scientist defecting, taking all the secret plane information with them, write detailed books and lectures exposing all of it and people would just be like "oh, look at that silly conspiracy kook over there! how goofy"

Pretend it's already happened and there's scientifically sound diagrams, correct math, etc... Nobody would be able to find it among the garbage.

At least that's how I'd structure it.

buckminstrix6• 6 years ago

This is how disinformation could work. Also, disinformation existing does not prove that UFOs/antigravity craft are just silly rumours.

pengaru5• 6 years ago

"power-beaming technology"

mhh__4• 6 years ago

Sarcasm?

Even uBeam does work, it's just not very efficient

pengaru5• 6 years ago

I have no doubts beamed-power is possible, I just assume it's effectively an energy weapon and the real magic is at the receiving end harnessing the power without getting destroyed.

But if you aim it somewhere other than the receiver, it's a weapon, no?

nyolfen• 6 years ago

it doesn't have to be efficient, it just has to keep drones aloft indefinitely

seventytwo• 6 years ago

Kind of a useless thing to say, no?

TeMPOraL6• 6 years ago

uBeam works only as the longest-running scam in the Sillicon Valley.

But workable options are in fact possible when you switch from ultrasounds to beaming EM radiation.

HenryKissinger• 6 years ago

Mysterious US military aircraft launches
Mysterious US military aircraft

Journalists need to stop using adjectives like "mysterious" when writing about the X-37B. While the aircraft's technology and missions are classified, there is nothing mysterious about the existence of the plane itself.

pengaru5• 6 years ago

Journalists need to stop using adjectives like "mysterious" when writing about the X-37B.

Considering there isn't even a journalist attributed on the article, I'm not sure we should be presuming any were even involved in its publication.

lonelappde• 6 years ago

BBC doesn't put bylines on articles that are merely reporting general information cobbled together from press releases and public activity.

https://www.bbc.com/news/help-41670342

That does leave a hole when articles include opinion content mixed in with general facts.

monocasa• 6 years ago

Even as far as classified launches go, it's pretty mysterious.

Like one of the other more recent launches was Intruder 8, a pair of satellites used by Naval signals intelligence to detect ships using time of arrival from radio transmissions.

Compared to that, what's the new mission of the X-37B? I'd say it's pretty mysterious.

b34r• 6 years ago

Good thing this was built years ago, probably won’t glitch out like Boeing’s other products.

MisterBiggs• 6 years ago

More so that Boeing is lucky it's classified or else all the blunders would be public.

lifeisstillgood• 6 years ago

Sat here in lockdown, I have just rewatched Matt Damon's The Martian and yes, we want to go up and out. I am so glad someone is still trying.

I am also blown away by the American Federal budget - this is a classified military space program. How much does one of those cost ?!

zrail2• 6 years ago

The budget is classified. One can assume $texas levels of money.

azernik4• 6 years ago

Not sure, but I would imagine it's less than you'd think.

The spaceplane was originally a NASA project that DoD picked up after most development was done, and it launches from commercial rockets (eg they've used SpaceX rockets to launch these before).

I would assume that the payload (experimental sensors and components, most likely) are more expensive than the amortized-per-mission cost of the vehicle.

NortySpock2• 6 years ago

Well, the budget of NASA is $22.6B/year for all projects combined. And as others have said, this is a small unmanned reusable vehicle, with a few flights under it's belt, after all of the reusable R&D was done for the Space Shuttle.

If I were to lick my finger and lift it into the wind, I'd estimate this flight cost between $0.5B and $1.5B, and most of that would be the gear that they are testing, given that the spacecraft itself is fully reusable.

denlekke• 6 years ago

this is part of the Air Force budget (~$165.6 billion)

astronautjones• 6 years ago

ironically, the post below this about unemployment fraud with "potential losses in the hundreds of millions of dollars, according to a new alert issued by the U.S. Secret Service."

is full of people who don't really understand the scale you're working with with federal money

kortilla• 6 years ago

Unemployment fraud hurts the state budget where money matters.

CapitalistCartr• 6 years ago

This comes from the military budget; they can light Cuban cigars with hundred dollar bills as a rounding error. The US Navy has 11 large fleet aircraft carriers, 9 assault carriers, when the rest of the World considers two carriers to be a lot. Schools hold bake sales to buy supplies, the Pentagon/The Congress spends a Trillion USD on a new manned fighter we don't need just to shovel pork into as many Congressional districts as possible.

In a similar vein as our Carriers, we have 123 military satellites. Since the X-37 is maneuverable and reusable, it might be cheaper in the long run than more satellites.

willart4food• 6 years ago

This and similar mission are not NASA missions but USSF's missions (United States Space Force), and USFF is part of the United States Armed Forces, different budget:

Sources:

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_X-37#Operational_histor...

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Space_Force

ericmcer2• 6 years ago

It’s hard to quantify because military supremacy and having the best weapons in the world is a huge part of why the dollar is THE global currency. And we can print dollars, hell we just printed 5 trillion in a couple weeks. This gives us insane leverage when it comes to foreign debts because most debts are in dollars. The dollars for military budget and the dollars raised by a school fundraiser are not even the same currency.

quietthrow• 6 years ago

Yet heavens forbid if we spent a little more trying to fix healthcare. This all is thanks to mentality of fear which has deep roots in American consciousness. At the nation level - what if somebody attacks us to at the family level there all kinds of crazies here let’s not let our children play outdoors in the neighborhood without supervision- it’s a fear based society.

jseliger2• 6 years ago

Schools hold bake sales to buy supplies

https://www.epi.org/publication/books_wheremoneygone/: "With appropriate inflation adjustment, it appears that total real education spending per pupil increased by 61% from 1967 to 1991." And that's from 1995. Real expenditures have grown enormously in the last four decades, and the results are to be left as an exercise to the reader.

sandworm101• 6 years ago

> it might be cheaper in the long run than more satellites.

Wrong comparison. It is cheaper than the previous military spaceplane: Shuttle.

NiceWayToDoIT2• 6 years ago

I cannot help myself thinking, although probably is not comparable: USD 1 trillion for new fighter vs. USD 10 billion for the entire Startlink constellation

vl3• 6 years ago

Schools hold bake sales to buy supplies.

Did you have a chance to compare US schools to other countries’ schools? By any other standard US schools are lavish. The only reason schools have bake sales to raise funds because of bureaucracy and because parents will pony up anyway.

badrabbit3• 6 years ago

Enlighten a simpleton here please, why do "we" need to leave the planet. I am far from a space nerd but I do know that neither mars or any solar object other than other is known to contain climate that is better or would even come close to earth's climate even with no polar ice caps and extreme global warming.

Wouldn't it be cheaper (more humane as well) to "colonize" earth? For the next 100 years,even with full on warming , coastal areas and certain eco systems will be lost but you will still no matter have most parts of the big continents in tact. The land there exists now can support humanity even with 10x the population (if made arable). I mean things like beef and single story housing would certainly be rare.

How about building new cities by the rockies and great planes and build things like the hypertube (whatever it:s called) to make emmigration easier. Have friendly eco-immigration policies to avert a humanitarian and geopolitical crisis. Heck, even "colonize" the sahara,antarctica or ocean beds! Half your problem is solved on earth once you desalinate ,irrigate and build viable transport.

alex_young• 6 years ago

Mostly because it’s not a zero sum game.

Yes it’s more achievable to build a pod on the antarctic (we’ve done that) or the ocean floor, but we should also see what we can do outside of our bubble.

I personally think Venus cloud stations are a better target, but why not try them all?

We learn great things and enable wonderful tech like the internet and GPS when we do huge projects like this, so why not?

tjbiddle• 6 years ago

I just want an off-site backup for humanity. Sure, it's high latency and the restoration process takes forever - but it's something!

rnikander• 6 years ago

1. Adventure, exploration. 2. The earth will be destroyed by the changing Sun in a few 100 million years. :) 3. Better to not have 10x the human population here. Leave big open spaces for the other animals and national parks. I'm sure there are other reasons too...

inamberclad2• 6 years ago

It's a long term investment in the future of the species. Much more space in the near-earth region than we will ever have on the planet itself. It also is a technology driver. Microchips, image sensors, advanced synthetic fabrics and super-alloys are all products of the space program in one way or another.

AlanSE• 6 years ago

Your ideas for the Earth would play out in a catastrophic manner in practice. Every bit of it requires violation of a basic economic principle - we build out based on the lowest marginal cost. Before we go to the Rockies, we will saturate more fertile and coastal areas. Easier to use what nature provides than to supply those things artificially. Humans will eventually switch over to artificial options, but only after collapse of the parallel natural system is in terminal collapse. Examples start with fishing, and then never end.

In these macroeconomic terms, there is 1 viable way to save life from destruction - open up new frontiers that have characteristics which are MORE attractive to humans than counterparts on Earth.

In practice, that means the moon. The moon is smaller than Earth, but the accessible area is possibly greater because of lack of oceans and lack of existing use. It doesn't end there. Lower pressure and temperature gradients mean that you can dig MUCH deeper. With similar original compositions, industrial mineral availability (in terms of raw elements) from the moon vastly outstrips the Earth. Some asteroids can be cherry picked, but depth of the resource is more shallow.

Much high-tech lithography requires vacuum, which is produced artificially on Earth. Space gives you that for free. We don't even really know what's possible industrially with diffusion and surface tension effects, because gravity cannot be eliminated on Earth for factory-type work, at all. Combined with the mineral abundance, you have what you need for a self-sustaining super advanced and practically limitless robotic industrial society. That is the draw. Other things that fleshy humans need are a cost, which the other benefits have to offset.

Materials from the moon can be delivered to low-Earth orbit at extremely low physical effort compared to delivery from Earth's surface. Rockets are improving such that human trips to space stations from Earth could be economical, but a cislunar robotic presence must be able to sustain activities beyond there.

This is the only option for saving the planet, and we are lucky that the richest person on the planet shares the view that Earth should be light industrial and residential... but ultimately, narrowly specialized in environmental tourism. All we have to do is move the primary economic engine into orbit.

barkingcat• 6 years ago

Because there's no money in that. If the space colonization works out, private companies can charge a lot of money for each passenger and that's what's really driving the "need" to leave the planet, so rich people can continue making money.

gfosco• 6 years ago

The way I see it, it's not about you and me, but humanity. Humanity needs to step forth from Earth, to avoid future destruction. Until humanity is space-faring and multi-planetary, it is vulnerable to total erasure.

herbstein• 6 years ago

Robert Zubrin has what I consider a great, comprehensive answer to why we should go to Mars. But ultimately it generally applies to all space exploration.

https://youtu.be/j2Mu8qfVb5I

Rebelgecko4• 6 years ago

It kind of reminds me of another bit about the size of the US military budget (What's the largest Air Force in the world? The US Air Force. What's the second largest Air Force in the world? The US Navy)[1]. In terms of budget, the United States probably has at least the top 2 biggest space programs in the world and depending on what parts of the military/intelligence budgets you lump together, #1 is probably not going to be NASA.

[1] I believe that this is actually true if you combine the Navy and Marine Corps and don't count helicopters

awinder• 6 years ago

One day after https://twitter.com/realdonaldtrump/status/12617475806665523... can’t be a coincidence right

jacobush2• 6 years ago

Someone hacked my computer - it looks like the president of the United States of America is posting some kind of ironic meme video about himself on Twitter.

mavhc• 6 years ago

Someone hacked reality

mschuster912• 6 years ago

Not the first time he did this (https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/12251747139929907...). It's ... awkward to watch this as an European.

azernik4• 6 years ago

Probably is a coincidence - these launches are planned and contracted far in advance, and Trump didn't seem to care last time one was launched during his administration.

henrikschroder• 6 years ago

Maybe this is a super duper space plane?

yellowapple• 6 years ago

If Bill Pullman ran for President I'd vote for him in a heartbeat.

Hell, I'm tempted to write him in this time around.

jacquesm2• 6 years ago

Hell, I'm tempted to write him in this time around.

Another Trump vote, then?

mschuster912• 6 years ago

What in the name of all that's holy did I just watch?

dpcan• 6 years ago

Something the President of the United States of America retweeted.

inamberclad2• 6 years ago

This is the least secretive X-37 mission yet. We know a fair amount about the payloads onboard.

dgudkov• 6 years ago

Or, this information can be thrown in intentionally to divert attention from the real mission. Make it plain and boring so that people quickly lose interest and switch to next topic in the newsfeed.

russli1993• 6 years ago

all the money on military, and not in investing in healthcare, improve public health responses, increasing financial reward for the front line workers that are sacrificing themselves for the greater society. In my opinion, this is sad. I would rather have this money being written as a check to every nurses and doctors served in COVID19.

waheoo• 6 years ago

I dont disagree that we spend too much on defense but the idea that we should stop all spending on science to help out some nurses is super strange.

Its akin to saying we should stop funding nasa be ause who needs space travel.

Also please stop glorifying a set profession as some kind of ulturistic calling. Theyre in it for the money and prestige, and frankly, wouldnt be there otherwise.

If you want to thank someone, thank the delivery guy, the supermarket clerks, the flight attendants, or the casual staff out of the job right now.

These people are feeling the brunt of this. These people are the front line.

samstave2• 6 years ago

The "science" of Hegemony and Control and Power?

wrboyce• 6 years ago

Many of my in-laws are medical professionals: GPs, surgeons, physicians, anaesthetists, nurses, the list goes on.

Not a single one of them has done it for financial gain or prestige, and for the most part the driving force really does seem to be a genuine desire to help people. (I’m based in the UK, going into medicine for money or prestige would be a fool’s errand.)

Please don’t make assumptions about things with which you are clearly unfamiliar, and if you must do so please do not assert them as facts.

grecy2• 6 years ago

I genuinely believe that if Americans knew what the rest of the Developed world gets for it's tax dollars vs. what Americans have to put up with for their tax dollars, they would riot in the streets.

There's a very good reason the major news outlets in America never directly compare America to other Developed countries, and only ever compare it to undeveloped or "evil" countries (China, Sudan, Iran, Russia).

oyashirochama• 6 years ago

You're comparing it to nations that have little to no healthcare systems at all, the US has one of the largest healthcare systems with the main issue being the salaries of said doctors causing the imbalance of healthcare costs versus actual results. Our healthcare is among the best but at a cost. The compared countries are among the worst, and China is arguable a developed nation masquerading as a developing country. Our taxes for military also result in a lot of people having great knowledge for civilian jobs once out of the military if they plan correctly.

adventured• 6 years ago

If you want a more fair system for everyone, in fact you need to remove about $1.5 trillion (~42%; equivalent to two copies of the US military) from annual US healthcare spending. That just gets you down to matching what most Western European nations are spending per capita.

$3.6 trillion goes into US healthcare, providing healthcare workers - including doctors and nurses - with among the highest salaries and benefits vs their peers globally. You have to go to Switzerland to find comparable industry pay.

That is five times more than what is spent on the military. You can't slash enough spending out of the military to make a dent in that gigantic expense problem.

It's not the healthcare workers suffering in the US system, it's the patients that are suffering from paying the wildly inflated salaries in the field.

If you want a more fair system, you'll need to start by reducing incomes in the industry to levels you see in Britain, France or Germany. That means slashing doctor and nurse pay across the board. You have to shift the system toward the benefit of patients and away from the workers in healthcare. You'll also need to smash the US education system for healthcare simultaneously and remove the guild protection racket that makes becoming a doctor so expensive (you can't normalize US healthcare pay without normalizing the education costs).

You have to get spending down to near $2 trillion to create a system comparable to what you see in Western Europe, so you need to slash $1.5 trillion in spending. That means you need to fire massive numbers of doctors and nurses, squeeze resources (ration service as in all universal systems), and slash pay for every single worker in the industry.

A hazard bonus as part of one of the stimulus programs for front-line workers? Sure why not. None of it is going to be paid back anyway, it's all going to be perpetually monetized by the Fed. They deserve it in my opinion. That's very different from discussing the cost problem in military vs healthcare however. We need to remove maybe $150-$200 billion from the military to get down to a more reasonable spending level for what the US should be doing. You don't fix the biggest problem in healthcare - the extreme spending per capita - by adding more spending.

samstave2• 6 years ago

you need to remove about $1.5 trillion (~42%; equivalent to two copies of the US military) from annual US healthcare spending

You're conflating 'spending' with Value, Efficacy, Cost, Profit and Greed.

Its a far more complex subject when it comes to all 'spending' within the Government budget than just Cash Burn Rate/Volume.

jseliger2• 6 years ago

https://www.cms.gov/Research-Statistics-Data-and-Systems/Sta... "U.S. health care spending grew 4.6 percent in 2018, reaching $3.6 trillion or $11,172 per person. As a share of the nation's Gross Domestic Product, health spending accounted for 17.7 percent." The report itself finds Medicare spending is 21% of healthcare spending and Medicaid 16%, or about 1.3 trillion (with a "t") between them.

anigbrowl• 6 years ago

Here are some additional clues on the mission: https://thehill.com/opinion/technology/498210-how-the-latest...

ChuckMcM• 6 years ago

I find it amusing that I now consider it so wasteful to throw away all that rocket gear just to launch a payload :-).

I also wonder if they still have the "crew return" insert for the ship. Early in its life it was envisioned as a way to bring the full crew of the ISS to earth.

Zenst• 6 years ago

"One of the experiments will test the effect of radiation on seeds and other materials."

Are seeds the baseline in testing biological effects in space? Asking as I would of thought that testing seeds in space had been one of the most tested avenues and with that, a known consistent form of biological matter that can be compared with.

Certainly if you wanted to test a space shield, you could test with something that can contain a few seeds and see how the results compare. Though as one of the tests is for energy transmission, then seeing if such equipment increases biological impact in proximity is worth knowing for future plans. Seeds certainly robust enough and can crudly test them by growing them as well, so I can see many reasons for them on many missions.

walterbell• 6 years ago

More on the "power-beaming technology", https://www.livescience.com/microwave-beam-military-space-pl...

... test the idea of using microwave beams to send solar power to Earth from space ... Build a big solar array in orbit, the idea goes, and it could collect enough sunlight (unfiltered by atmospheric effects or clouds,) to generate a powerful beam of microwaves. A collection station on Earth would then convert that beam into useful power ... down the road he said he hopes it will lead to a futuristic clean power source that could benefit everyone — and give the U.S. a new near-monopoly over a global energy supply.

dokument• 6 years ago

Didnt' China try to do this a few years back but was shutdown for some reason? Also, this would double as a great military weapon so I am sure that is being assessed as well.

dx87• 6 years ago

That brings back some nostalgia. I remember playing one of the early Sim City games and that was one of the types of power plants you could set up. It had a small chance to malfunction, causing the beam to miss the collection station and set everything in the surrounding area on fire.

tabs_masterrace• 6 years ago

The Navy has also demonstrated laser based transmission of energy recently: https://www.nrl.navy.mil/news/releases/researchers-transmit-...

They are talking about beaming power to drones, but thinking a bit larger, I wonder if it be feasible to have a high power laser transmit energy to a satellite and then have a cluster ala Starlink act as an relay to direct the power potentially anywhere on earth. Maybe you could power airplanes from space? Sounds like Sci-Fi, but apparently all the components and technologies exist, and people must have been working on it for a while, when they just letting the public in on it.

koheripbal• 6 years ago

Wouldn't a tech like this be more likely to be used as an ABM tech than something for power transmission?

Maybe Ronald Regan's Star Wars program is finally getting implemented.

littleweep• 6 years ago

Isn't X-37B the name of Elon's other child?

NiceWayToDoIT2• 6 years ago

Is it possible to use the same "power-beaming technology" as a directed-energy weapon ?

hyperpallium• 6 years ago

A mew Kzinti lesson? "a power beam's efficiency as a weapon is in direct proportion to its efficiency as a power beam."

JKCalhoun2• 6 years ago

Wife and I stopped in at Edwards AFB perhaps around 2000? Maybe 1998 or so.... Have to dig up the photos to be sure.

The armed guard let us on the base so we could head to Dryden Flight Research Center (now the Armstrong Flight Research Center). In those days I figured you just tried to do a thing until someone said you couldn't. It didn't occur to me that there would be a problem driving in to Dryden.

The guard asked a lot of questions, but, pre 9-11, we had no problem getting in.

Dryden has a small museum, a few hangars. One hangars has the original M2-F1 lifting body.

I distinctly remember this space plane (or it's predecessor?) being towed down a small road near Dryden. I guessed it was some sort of X-plane. We were on a sort of mini-tour at that point, being shown around, and I believe there was an attempt by the tour-guide to distract us from that plane.

_lbaq• 6 years ago

Wonder if you saw the x-34 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orbital_Sciences_X-34

JKCalhoun2• 6 years ago

Yes, you may be correct.

jacquesm2• 6 years ago

Interesting that they'd allow you to make photographs while they were towing classified hardware around.

lihaciudaniel• 6 years ago

I thought this would be about the declassified UFO

ncmncm• 6 years ago

That they send it up for years at a stretch mostly indicates that they have not discovered any good uses for it yet. If it were in demand, they would need it back before two years have passed.

Keeping it parked in a hangar when it's not needed would get embarrassing. Leaving it in orbit makes it seem to be doing something, particularly if you pretend it's all hush-hush.

Space Plane: Mysterious US military aircraft launches

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