Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Aqizzar]

Besides, there are far more cost-efficient ways to get payloads into space than developing a reusable robotic drone.

No... That's exactly the most cost efficient way, if you want to have any control over where the cargo ends up after it leaves the launchpad.

This whole conversation is remarkably silly.  A recoverable vehicle was launched that can carry a payload around?  Yeah, the Space Shuttle was doing that for years.  Anything can be a weapons-platform in space, because you could mount a blinder-laser or micro missile on anything you put up there.  Or even just put some unusually large maneuvering thrusters on a satellite and have it crash into another one.

Besides, as the Chinese have so aptly demonstrated, those camera-blinding lasers already work just fine when they're on the ground, probably better since that's where the camera is usually pointing.  You want to talk about cost efficiency, ask why you would bother putting weapons in space at all, when we're more than capable of destroying anything in orbit with ground-based weapons in the first place.

[Virex]

One of the national newspapers here had an article on the US's plans to develop conventional (that is non-nuclear) ICBM's to strike at targets of oppertunity within a realy short time (Like hitting a nuke while it's being hauled to the launch pad). Russia and China made a big fuzz about it because they won't be able to tell the difference beteen a nuclear payload and a conventional one. Anyway, this military space drone could be part of that project.

[RedKing]

http://www.csmonitor.com/Science/2010/0423/Shhhh%21-Air-Force-launches-top-secret-X-37B-robot-space-plane

So...yeah. The X-37B. Bastard child of a Predator drone and the Space Shuttle. So far, more of a proof-of-concept than anything, but it's a paradigm shift in US policy towards space weaponization. And it means that the "PEW PEW LASERZ!" crowd over at the Air Force are winning out over...well, EVERYONE else in the US military and intelligence communities, who are unequivacably opposed to weaponizing space.

Discuss.

Conclusions, you jump to them. Why couldn't the Air Force just be using it for what they said: unmanned cargo transport?

That's like asking why couldn't Iran just be pursuing a peaceful nuclear energy program.
Besides, there are far more cost-efficient ways to get payloads into space than developing a reusable robotic drone.

Because there are tangible reasons to think Iran is pursuing nuclear weapons (the fact that they're enriching uranium beyond 20%, for instance). On the other hand, there's no evidence that the Air Force has put weapons on, or plans to put weapons on, the X-37.

Other than 20+ years of Air Force papers touting the importance of space superiority and global strike capability?

http://www.fas.org/spp/eprint/occppr06.htm
http://www.fas.org/spp/eprint/98-170.pdf
http://www.allacademic.com//meta/p_mla_apa_research_citation/3/1/3/2/4/pages313244/p313244-1.php

Just for starters.

[Pwnzerfaust]

http://www.csmonitor.com/Science/2010/0423/Shhhh%21-Air-Force-launches-top-secret-X-37B-robot-space-plane

So...yeah. The X-37B. Bastard child of a Predator drone and the Space Shuttle. So far, more of a proof-of-concept than anything, but it's a paradigm shift in US policy towards space weaponization. And it means that the "PEW PEW LASERZ!" crowd over at the Air Force are winning out over...well, EVERYONE else in the US military and intelligence communities, who are unequivacably opposed to weaponizing space.

Discuss.

Conclusions, you jump to them. Why couldn't the Air Force just be using it for what they said: unmanned cargo transport?

That's like asking why couldn't Iran just be pursuing a peaceful nuclear energy program.
Besides, there are far more cost-efficient ways to get payloads into space than developing a reusable robotic drone.

Because there are tangible reasons to think Iran is pursuing nuclear weapons (the fact that they're enriching uranium beyond 20%, for instance). On the other hand, there's no evidence that the Air Force has put weapons on, or plans to put weapons on, the X-37.

Other than 20+ years of Air Force papers touting the importance of space superiority and global strike capability?

http://www.fas.org/spp/eprint/occppr06.htm
http://www.fas.org/spp/eprint/98-170.pdf
http://www.allacademic.com//meta/p_mla_apa_research_citation/3/1/3/2/4/pages313244/p313244-1.php

Just for starters.

Treatises on the future of warfare on space? Wowzers, that's convincing. Except not really. Those are essays about potential future scenarios and plans. Concrete evidence that they're sticking weapons on the X-37 would be preferable.

[Footkerchief]

Treatises on the future of warfare on space? Wowzers, that's convincing. Except not really. Those are essays about potential future scenarios and plans. Concrete evidence that they're sticking weapons on the X-37 would be preferable.

If they're not putting weapons on it, you can probably thank somebody outside the Air Force for that.  They have an unmatched and undying hardon for expensive, dangerous hardware that nobody needs.

[MrWiggles]

Yea, the Air Force tends to have a hard on to have toys for a war they'll never fight. The Raptor is a great example. Its designed to out rival Chinese, and other misc. south east asian threats for the next 20 years, that will probably never happen. The F-16, F-14, and A-10 ect... are still quite competitive if not superior for that area.

As for this being the first Military satellite, that seems kinda of silly. The Transit sats were dev. by the Navy in the 60's. So there been military satellites as long as there been ability to do so.

Overall, I think its far more practical to have anti orbital weaponry ground base then to have float in the sky. The US and China have proved to have the ability to take out Satellites from ground anyhow.

Even if this became a weaponized platform, I don't think it would start a space arms race. Simply due to inability for most countries to do so.  India, Japan and China may be able to, though we have an install base to launch, maintain assests in orbit already. So they'll be starting with the Atari 2600 where as we have PS2s.

[ein]

Weapons in space?
Blasphemy!

[Ampersand]

I don't see why the Air Force really needs a robotic space drone, unless this is the fall back option for satellite delivery once the Space Shuttles is retired for good, and Russia starts charging too much. A weapons platform in space just doesn't make sense. It's too vulnerable, too exposed. Blinding lasers can make them simply useless, a stray bit of rock utterly smash them, man made debris turn them into swiss cheese when they're needed, and so on.

They'd be worse than useless, they'd be a hazard to their owner, especially in peace time where other nations are encourage to weaponize space themselves to be competitive strategically. Do you really want communist space nukes looking down at you all the time?

[piecewise]

I'm surprised no one has brought up Reagan and his Star Wars debacle.

PEW PEW PEW

[PTTG??]

Imagine the power to drop a crowbar from space on to anywhere on the planet. Wreck a tank or obliterate an enemy commander... It is the perfect weapon system, capable of absolutely discriminatory payload delivery with no risk to material and no effective defense short of living in a mine shaft. You just need someone responsible and sane to control this system.

I nominate me.

[Lord Dakoth]

I read an article earlier this year for my Game Theory class that basically claimed that world peace is most stable when EVERY MAJOR POWER has nuclear weapons, and modern enough ones to hit any target on the globe.

Sounded like bull at first, but when I finished it, it kind of made sense. Essentially, if anyone attacks another country, they know that they're going to get simultaneously with ICBMs from a dozen different countries. Of course, they essentially LOSE if they get hit, even if they hit the intended target.

The idea is that no one can defend against nuclear attacks, but they can still retaliate. When playing with rational, self-preserving entities, no one will fire missiles except in a last-ditch "FU" counterattack.

(Only problem is, it may or may not work when dealing with insane North Korean rulers or suicidal Jihad-warriors.)

Imagine the power to drop a crowbar from space on to anywhere on the planet. Wreck a tank or obliterate an enemy commander... It is the perfect weapon system, capable of absolutely discriminatory payload delivery with no risk to material and no effective defense short of living in a mine shaft. You just need someone responsible and sane to control this system.

I nominate me.

No. Bad. Fail. It would burn up in the atmosphere, just like anything smaller than a large meteorite.

[Willfor]

The Europeans had devised a system by which, if any country decided to attack any other country they would all lose, that seems roughly the same as what that game theory class proposed. It went marvelously well, actually. Right up until it caused World War I.

[Lord Dakoth]

I think that we should make a Nuclear Doomsday Device like in Dr. Strangelove, then procrastinate on announcing it.

[ein]

Mutually Assured Destruction.
Keeping the peace since since 1945.

[Earthquake Damage]

Actually, I'm pretty sure the Soviets didn't have the bomb (or at least didn't test one, thus announcing it to the world) until ~1949.