[HN Gopher] US military's X-37B space plane lands, ending record...
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US military's X-37B space plane lands, ending record-breaking
mystery mission
Author : FinnKuhn
Score : 41 points
Date : 2022-11-12 18:19 UTC (4 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.space.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.space.com)
| BMc2020 wrote:
| Whenever I see an X-37B post, I like to remind people its real
| purpose is to keep one or more nukes on-orbit at all times.
|
| Do I have proof? No.
|
| Why not a satellite? Satellites run out of fuel, eventually break
| and need to be de-orbited before they do.
|
| It's against treaty to keep nukes in space. X-B37 has plausible
| deniability, and the nukes don't take up the whole cargo bay so
| you can still have room for experiments.
|
| Why? It's a great first strike weapon without a detectable
| missile launch. If terrorists are building a nuke you can drop it
| on them and make it look like they blew themselves up. Last ditch
| asteroid defense.
|
| Am I against it? Not really. But I do believe in an informed
| citizenry. YMMV.
| [deleted]
| zeristor wrote:
| Isn't the main point of a deterrent to deter people? If no one
| knows about it, it wouldn't really deter them.
| guenthert wrote:
| "It was to be announced at the Party Congress on Monday."
| akmarinov wrote:
| In this case, this changes the power dynamic, it's something
| that other countries have no defense against. If it's known,
| those countries will have no choice but to strike first.
| guhidalg wrote:
| Maybe Space Force knows that China is doing the same with
| their space station, and they can't use the ISS for the same
| given the Russians onboard.
| staunch wrote:
| > _Do I have proof? No._
|
| Do you offer even a single shred of evidence whatsoever? No.
| fooblaster wrote:
| So you think it would be useful to deploy one or two nuclear
| first strike weapon in space on the x37, versus let's say the
| Navy's 18 Ohio class submarines already actively deployed, each
| of which has the capacity to take out a small country? This
| makes no sense at all.
| shakezula wrote:
| The United States military industrial complex would shrug and
| ask "why not both?" At this question.
| toomanyrichies wrote:
| > Do I have proof? No.
|
| "Claims that are made without evidence can be dismissed without
| evidence."
|
| -Hitchens' Razor
| akmarinov wrote:
| Why bother with nukes when the US very likely has rods of god
| up there. Technically they're not a weapon, just a bunch of
| tungsten rods that dropped from space can obliterate pretty
| much anything.
| thunderbird120 wrote:
| No, it almost definitely isn't. The cost-benefit analysis of
| doing that completely fails at almost every imaginable level.
|
| Not only would it fail to increase American nuclear
| strike/retaliation capabilities by any meaningful margin, but
| if discovered it would set off a massive nuclear arms race in
| space which would be massively destabilizing and benefits no-
| one which is exactly why all the major players signed that "no
| nukes in space" treaty in the first place.
|
| > It's a great first strike weapon without a detectable missile
| launch. If terrorists are building a nuke you can drop it on
| them and make it look like they blew themselves up. Last ditch
| asteroid defense.
|
| No to all points. Nukes don't just unintentionally go off and
| hypothetically if the did people on the ground wouldn't
| normally expect the very noticeable trail of a reentry vehicle
| screaming in from space immediately beforehand. That kind of
| thing is very noticeable, go look at ICBM test footage. If you
| want to nuke someone without warning you use stealthy cruise
| missiles because those don't tend to get noticed until they
| detonate. Any nuke carried by the X-37 also lacks the delta V
| to ever get to any dangerous asteroid you might want to try to
| intercept.
| LargoLasskhyfv wrote:
| Maybe for https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kinetic_bombardment
| instead?
|
| _" Look Ma! No Nukez!"_
| squarefoot wrote:
| With all the junk we have orbiting over our heads, it would
| probably be a lot cheaper to just reach and deorbit some of
| the larger debris in a controlled way, rather than bring
| all that weight up there, or even do that with some of the
| enemy satellites if they have them: two birds with one
| stone.
| BurningFrog wrote:
| I really don't think you can drop a nuke from space unnoticed.
| mrshadowgoose wrote:
| What advantages would this have over the submarines that are
| already in use today?
|
| > If terrorists are building a nuke you can drop it on them and
| make it look like they blew themselves up.
|
| Not even going to get into what a ridiculous fantasy scenario
| that is. And anyway, has the US demonstrated any reluctance in
| dropping conventional warheads on terrorists?
|
| > Last ditch asteroid defense.
|
| This comes across as an idea one would develop from watching tv
| shows and movies, as it doesn't make a whole lot of sense.
| fifilura wrote:
| > Whenever I see an X-37B post, I like to remind people its
| real purpose is to keep one or more nukes on-orbit at all
| times. > Do I have proof? No. ... I do believe in an informed
| citizenry. YMMV.
|
| <satire> Every time I see someone mention that Biden won the US
| presidential election 2020, I like to remind people that the
| election was stolen. Do i have proof? No. I just believe in an
| informed citizenry.</satire>
| aae42 wrote:
| suspiciously after the classified Space Force launch of falcon
| heavy on Nov 1
| mateo1 wrote:
| You wouldn't steal a satellite
| justahuman74 wrote:
| Honestly that sounds really fun to go up into space on a secret
| mission like that
| rektide wrote:
| I wonder if we'll get any reports on the purpose of these
| vehicles in our/my lifetimes. It was only a decade ago we heard
| about Key Hole 9 - Hexagon, a 1971 evolution of 1996 KH8 Gambit
| that could drop multiple buckets of film over time. Thats a lot
| of lag before a reveal.
|
| Optical survelliance is probably not the mission here, but it's
| still wild that we know about this thing but have no idea what it
| does. It's both very reasonable to call it a "tesr vehicle", but
| given it's flight time, it has so many orders of magnitude more
| time being tested than other test flight systems that the name
| OTV, orbital test vehicle, feels somewhat silly.
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/KH-9_Hexagon
| [deleted]
| lizardactivist wrote:
| No more Boeing passenger jets that buzz around in circles or
| nose-dive into the ground for the time being then.
| ChuckNorris89 wrote:
| Can someone please explain the picture in the article: Why are
| the technicians dressed like astronauts? They're not going to
| space in the vehicle.
| badwolf wrote:
| protection against possible hypergolic fuel
| Quekid5 wrote:
| The stuff of nightmares. You might say... nightmare fuel.
| PhasmaFelis wrote:
| Now you're just being hypergolic.
|
| (But seriously that stuff is awful)
| throwanem wrote:
| John Clark's "Ignition!" is back in print, as it happens.
| It's a personal history of liquid rocket fuel research in
| which there's a lot of chemistry of which I understood
| none, but the stories made it worth reading anyway.
| eesmith wrote:
| Available at https://archive.org/details/ignition_201612
| and https://archive.org/details/ignitioninformal0000clar
| .
| Quekid5 wrote:
| I... might get that one. I've only read snippets, but the
| "running shoes" bit always gets me :D
| [deleted]
| eesmith wrote:
| "Why are these people wearing SCAPE Suits near the X37-B?" at
| https://space.stackexchange.com/questions/39544/why-are-thes...
| adds slightly more context beyond what the other HN'ers have
| already said here.
| jleyank wrote:
| Toxic fuel vented?
| addaon wrote:
| Hydrazine (used for maneuvering thrusters) is not your friend.
| Tanks will not be fully empty -- draining them safely requires
| safety gear.
| lost_tourist wrote:
| Does it evaporate if little drops on the ground (I know it's
| bad to breathe it)
| [deleted]
| dpkirchner wrote:
| TIL space-based solar power beamed to earth is in the
| experimental phase. For some reason I thought it was still just
| speculative.
|
| https://www.space.com/x-37b-space-plane-solar-power-beaming
| vkou wrote:
| Why would anyone do this when solar farms produce electricity
| at too cheap to meter rates?
| heavyset_go wrote:
| You could reflect light from the sun to places on Earth that
| are experiencing night.
| iancmceachern wrote:
| Exactly, it's always sunny in space.
|
| Also, a big part of the inefficiency in conventional power
| collection (in the case of solar) is transmission losses in
| the power lines. This converts light directly into
| microwave energy that can then be transmitted without power
| lines. That's a game hanger, just like wifi is to ethernet
| tehbeard wrote:
| Given how stodgy and variable WiFi tends to be, I'll
| stick with the Neanderthal way of copper lines.
| jonas21 wrote:
| High voltage power lines have losses of 0.5% to 1% per
| 100 miles. Beaming power from space microwaves would have
| a total loss of 40-60%.
|
| And that doesn't include the cost (both money and carbon)
| of launching all the collection and transmission
| equipment into space in the first place.
| undersuit wrote:
| Is efficiency that important? It's not like were
| delivering the photons to the solar panels like we use
| trains to deliver coal to power stations.
| scarier wrote:
| If we're talking military logistics, that may well still
| win out on efficiency over current methods. Even if it
| doesn't, it still has enough potential advantages to be
| game-changing.
| scatters wrote:
| The military are extremely interested in being able to power
| expeditionary bases without having to truck in diesel. It
| would be a game changer to logistics.
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(page generated 2022-11-12 23:02 UTC)