crockett

Did you know we had this let alone that it actually flew and has been in orbit for for 540 days in two separate flights of 270 days is today, but it's not coming back just yet..

It's second flight ended today..



I've seen concept pictures of it before but had no idea it was a reality and had already been in use..


http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2011...rious-mission/

_Richard_

the remote controlled shuttle? old news

crockett

Well I don't keep up with everything but I knew we had concepts in the works but had no idea it was actually flying already.

ZeroHero

They do a lot of things that we don't know

chaze

And why are they doing this? Costing us hundreds of millions for what result?

NASA is a fricken sponge, they need to be regulated for specific tasks not all this experimental money pit junk.

Sly

I completely disagree.

Experiments are what give us new technology, propel us forward, and make life interesting. Man/woman should explore, create, test, and break shit. It's the only way we learn.

NASA needs a clear and new vision. Landing on the moon, clear vision. Mapping Mars, clear vision. Etc., etc., etc.

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L-Pink

Is this NASA or the USAF ....

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Bladewire

Propaganda to keep Iran in check

wake up

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DVTimes

its the mini one.

nasa had it for a while but the army took it over.

its not maned.

i am not sure what use it has unless they can launch satalites with it, but its probably cheaper and easer to use rockets for that.

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DVTimes

they have had it for ages.

its now military use.

its much smaller than its big brother.

its remote controled - not sure if it can carry people.

its probably much cheaper to run as you do not have to worry about people inside.

but its what you use it for.

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DVTimes

no

it was a civilian use.

but the military took it over.

to be honest it probably has limited use as its probably cheaper if not easer to use rockets.

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DaddyHalbucks

I'm glad the US military has cutting edge technology.

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DVTimes

http://astrowright.wordpress.com/201...-mini-shuttle/

this is a nice blog post about it.

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DVTimes

its known as the x-33

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DVTimes

i supect its cheap to run.

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baddog

Are you serious?

cherrylula

I need an entire roll of tin foil after seeing that!

DVTimes

anyway, nasa is now going (from what i can make out) rent craft from private firms.

there are now a few firms building low cost 'space planes', even virgin. they are charging £100k (about $200k) to go into space. when you consider russia charges about £1 million for a civilian (as in you or me) you can see that costs are dropping.

in 20 year time space travel may be the norm. a bit like when planes came out only the rich could use them, now its cheap as chips.

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DVTimes

ps

look on the side it has also boing on it, so i suspect they may use it as a test machine to develop new planes/space planes.

what i heard was the theory is its cheaper and quicker to fly up to space (but not in it) and then drop back again.

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marlboroack

USAF and NASA are totally different organizations. I don't know anything USAF related.

DVTimes

it was nasa owned (from what i remember) but USAF took it over as i do not think nasa had a use for it.

but when you think about it, its probably cheap. the shuttle (or should i say orbitor) is expensive as its got so much inside to suport life for many days.

this is just a remote controll plane, so they can build it cheap as if it blows up, its not going to be a big deal.

its also small.

i am not sure if it can carry anything. it would be interesting to see inside.

but i sauspect its a test machine to be used to build new machines.

its sort of the next big thing is space travel.

we will probably see many firms building them.

i still find it amazing zirgin has built them, considering the uk's only space thing is an old boy with a toy rocket powered by sugar.

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marlboroack

That is actually pretty amazing.

DVTimes

i meant virgin (silly me, its late - almost 3am in the UK).

i did read that one firm wanted to use some old rockets, link them together and have a low cost hotel in space. not sure if that was a publicity stunt.

but its interesting boing have conection to it. they may be planning on doing there own.

i think also these things use cheaper fuel (but i may be wrong) than planes. i am sure i heard they use some low cost gas (but i may have got it wrong).

i think the virgin thing can carry 7 passangers and you go into space for 7 mins. but you have to do 3 days training.

but as i say give it 20 years and it will be the norm.

but think nasa said they planed to rent private craft, but these are not yet around. its why they are now using the russian craft to go back and forth to the space station. its not as sexy as the shuttle and it looks realy old fashioned when they land (as if its 1960), but its reliable and works.

I think the shuttle became more expensive than they expected. i think the idea was it shouyld have been cheap as the bulk could just be reused, but it became expensive. but it was still great.

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DVTimes

the only thing i can think this mini-orbitor (the shuttle is everything, including the rockets - yes i am a geek) is to pick up old satalights and bring them down, rather than letting them crash into earth, or worst still slamming into other satalights making a disater.

there is a thery that due to the amount of satalites and junk in space that there is a possibilty that they could damage each other.

space junk is a huge problem. you have small bits of metal flying about as the speed of a bullet.

they showed a satalight they brought down and it was perverated with holes.

makes you wonder how safe it is going up in a rocket in case you fly smack bang into a satalight.

there must be thousands of satalights as these days you have tv, phone weather and spy satalights. and most countries have them.

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Bladewire

It is propaganda to keep Iran in check.


and a bit more info to spell it out for you:

"The spaceship, dubbed a 'secret space warplane' by the Iranians, has been in orbit since March 5, although the mission and its cargo are on a need-to-know basis." > source <





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oscer

I guess nasa stopped its program to allow the air force to work on theirs

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DVTimes

do not be silly

why would iran care?

its protected by russa for a start and china

they know that usa and uk will have spy satalights pointed at them, so why would they care about a small remote controled plane, which they probably cannot track.

if usa wanted to anoy iran, all they do is move there aircraft carriers near by.

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Bladewire

So I wasted my time because you didn't read the quote in my last post, or bother to follow the links. bummer. I'm out.







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candyflip

This is the one that they use to knock Chinese satellites into the Ocean?

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DVTimes

ps

of course iran will claim its against them, thats what you would expect.

you always acuse your enermy of plotting against you, even if you know they are not.

china and russa protect iran so they do not realy fear the usa. in fact iran is split in polotics, as it has a qwerky political set up. its not technicaly against the usa or uk, its just polotics.

iran is not an enery country, its just has polotics.

its just political games.

all countries play it.

its a bit like usa has one side polotitions but on the other its got miliery presuer. if you remeber JFK had to play games with the militery to prevent a huge war. and its a bit like that in iran at the moment, its just games.

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DVTimes

I am not sure the usa will want to upset china, as they owe them too much money.

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DVTimes

yes i did

but as i have said, they will publicly claim anything is a threat, just for the heck of it.

its all just games they play.

chances are the leaders are all best pals in private.

remeber that iran leader only a few years ago came to the usa to have chats at universites (if i remeber corectly), so he is no hater of the usa. in fact he loves to be on tv. he even did a alternative queens speech one quitmass on uk tv ch4 (in the uk the queen des a queen speach on xmass day, so ch4 does an alternative one).

iran is no threat, its just polotics.

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DVTimes

to be honest i suspect the way forward is civilian.

for military its basicly missiles. they have some (my mate told me) in the usa that can go miles very quick and very acuate. if thats the case you almost have no need for even planes as they can be launched miles away. its cheap and effective.

to be honest as most countries are now skint, i suspect most will cut back on militery.

i noticed that even russa no longer seems to bother showing of its nukes on its millitery days. i watched a vid on youtube where there brought out all there toys (they seem to do a day of it from time to time) yet i never spotted a nuke. they used to drive them around. i think most countries cannot afford them now.

often i suspect most counties have far less nukes than they claim. i often wonder if the ones we have in the uk are even active. after all no one will know if they are are not. and even if they are real, they may be like the one on the simpsons were its so old, it does not work.

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2MuchMark

Without Nasa, you wouldn't have Satellite TV, GPS, Google Earth, Artificial Limbs, Dialysis, MRI and CAT Scans, Breast Cancer Screening (which uses technology originally developed for the Hubble Space Telescope), Ear Thermometers, Concrete Grooves in roads (really!), Freeze dried food, Scratch resistant lenses, Cordless power tools, etc.

Don't forget it also made weather monitoring possible which today saves thousands of lives every year by accurately predicting the path and intensity of hurricanes.

And of course, it got Man to the moon, sent robots to Mars, orbiters to various planets, is looking for life on Jupiters moons like Europa with space ship Galileo (which on Nov 16th they announced that they think they have found LIQUID WATER ON EUROPA, and has sent space ships completely out of our solar system (Voyagers 1 and 2).

Just 2 days ago Nasa launched Curisoity, a new robot to Mars.

Etc, etc.

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Phoenix

the new heart surgery machine...that thing is amazing...developed by nasa...saving lives in every town across the usa/canada/europe...daily

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crockett

Don't forget ballpoint pens & Velcro.. The 80s would of sucked with out Velcro shoe laces..

as a side note I just noticed in the picture the guy in the front almost appears to be carrying some sort of Geiger counter. That's a scary thought as if he were checking for radiation leaks of some sort.

DVTimes

you forget, space is radioactive.

it may be a standered thing to check.

they may have sent it out much deeper into space were where you go through the radioation belt.

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CurrentlySober

i expected this thread to be about chlamydia ...

My bad... Dont I feel silly now ?

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DVTimes

It depends if silly lets you feel her.

i thank you.

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DVTimes

Ugandan is even building space planes





http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...rbit-2015.html

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Solace

I have all of it

_Richard_

i believe it's still in testing phase.. they did a flight a few months ago to my recollection

crockett

"The former astronomy student said: 'We are trying to have Africa participate in the contribution of knowledge into mankind's destiny.'


Perhaps, he should instead focus on getting water and electricity to people in his country rather than killing whom ever attempts to fly that thing.

V_RocKs

That is how we started...