Now if they'd just do an article on Stargate Command...

[jeriendhal]

Well, while everyone at NASA has been knocking their heads together trying to build a fully reuseable replacement for the Space Shuttle, it turns out the USAF and the CIA already had one.

Link: http://www.aviationnow.com/avnow/news/channel_awst_story.jsp?id=news/030606p1.xml

It's a nifty concept (and I love the idea of building a custom XB-70 as a carrier aircraft), but I doubt this revelation will have much affect on the civilian space arena. From the sounds of things it was a very specialized Black Project designed for recon missions, where cost was no object. Translating it into a civilian carrier that can compete economically with disposable launchers may or may not be a viable option, though I'm sure Rutan and Virgin Galactic will be hunting up for information that might useful for SpaceShip 2.

Comments

Just like pegasus, only not

[p-o-u-n-c-e-r.livejournal.com]

I'm having a hard time figuring out why the missions described need to be MANNED missions aboard a recoverable space "plane" that gets piloted back to a landing.

Place a sat? Pegasus can do that.

Destroy one? Ditto.

Catch one and land it for repairs? I don't see how the space plane is able to do that, either.

Take pictures, on a "first" orbit that can't be predicted? Pegasus supports that again, provided only you don't need film and can make do with broadcast TV images ...

Is film that much higher resolution than electronic imagery? Or did it used to be, way back in the 1990's? Maybe they're retiring the piloted bird that carries the film camera because now they can launch a drone with a TV camera that does the same, or better, from Pegasus.

Re: Just like pegasus, only not

[jeriendhal.livejournal.com]

Or for that matter why not just keep the SR-71 in service? It can't possibly take longer to get to a crisis area and snap photos compared to what had to be the prep time for an suborbital launch, and their airframes probably didn't have that many service hours on them compared to a commercial airliner or military jet.

The quality of photos might be an issue. At least in the early nineties the resolution of commercial digital cameras was signifigantly inferior compared to film. I'm not sure that holds nowadays for color photos, and I know there are digital still cameras out there that are quantitatively better in B&W photography.

It's probably a case of someone with an Agenda going "See! The shuttle blew up! We need something cool for a backup!" and much money being thrown around.