What is the military purpose behind the Boeing X-37B? Anything

It's a testbed for reusable spaceship hardware and long term experiments.

Why is that so hard to believe

>>33929871
reading your browser history

>>33929871

I've always imagined that it's a prototype of a much larger system. Something to test the materials and engineering out before they build the big one(s).

What that larger system might be is a military space shuttle. NASA's shuttle was used quite often to ship military stuff back and forth between orbit, and now that it's gone, the military needs a replacement.

Satellite attacking.

>>33929929

This. Materials, navigation, systems, thrusters...really anything that the Air Force/NRO wants to test for a while before making dedicated platforms and finding out later that they didn't perform as well as they wanted.

I don't understand why people think they're so spoopy.

>>33929982
>I don't understand why people think they're so spoopy.

Their personal lives are boring and monotonous so literally anything they don't immediately understand (or have spoon-fed to them) seems exciting to them.

Hence why this thread exists...we're spoon-feeding OP to distract him from his boring life.

>>33930038
>seems exciting to them
Well either this, or they go into tinfoil-territory

File: 1492997023040.png (390KB, 999x1030px) Image search: [Google]

390KB, 999x1030px

>>33930038
>we're spoon-feeding OP to distract him from his boring life
so rude

>>33930038
>>33930072

Yeah I've seen some pretty wacky theories on /k/ regarding the X-37. Anything from it being a rod-from-god platform or ODST-esque delivering soliders, to some /x/-tier stuff with aliums.

>>33929871
Launch satellites at will.

GPS is shot down? Launch a backup.

Enemy satellite is going up? Fly over there and attach a self-destruct for later.

Maintaining at-will launch capability is basic stuff for a superpower. If launch can only be done from 1 spot, that's a choke point enemy air raids are going to bomb the shit out of. With a spaceplane that can loiter and manuever in space, it's a lot harder to stop.

>space plane
>launched by a rocket

Being a target for China's space borne 5-ton chemical laser weapons platform.

>>33930098
>tfw you'll never witness Rangers dropping from orbit to remove kebab

Why even fucking live

>>33929871
Hypervelocity Allah Akbar device.

>>33930123

There are only a couple spots in the continental US to launch a sat from, and most of those missions can be done with typical rockets rather than a reusable platform.

The "fly over to enemy spy sats" mission seems a bit nonsense to me, considering this thing is tracked very closely by nations that would consider it a possible threat. The second it approached an enemy spy sat on radar there would be an international incident. Maybe in a time of war, but then again you could just shoot their stuff down with an ASAT.

The most common sense, simplest, and logical answer is that it tests materials and has the capability to bring them back and studied. Satellites are extremely expensive and testing things before sending them where you can't get them back is an attractive mission for those building them.

File: 2545234.png (2MB, 1024x768px) Image search: [Google]

2MB, 1024x768px

>>33929871
Delivering packages from "them".

>>33930086

It's really fine OP, I'm just replying to you to distract myself from my own boring-ass life.

Like many other animals in nature, we have formed a perfect symbiosis.

>>33929871
some form of space warfare apparently

File: x-37.jpg (74KB, 800x560px) Image search: [Google]

74KB, 800x560px

I'm thinking it's more for recon than espionage.

Aside from launching satellites, its orbit brings it over the Middle East a lot. My hypothesis:
>launches military cargoes
>tests maneuvers in orbit
>gathers intel

What kind of intel? I think it's electronic intelligence, namely of RADAR and air defense networks
>catalogs where radars are
>what bands they use
>where they're being moved

Ideally, you can launch a X-37B before or during a conflict to map enemy air defenses and keep a pretty good picture of where they're vulnerable/how to knock out integrated air defense as-needed.

This is in addition to use usefulness as a general military spaceplane as per what
>>33929929
>>33929982
said.

>>33930086
>so rude

So accurate. OP should get his conspiritard fix on /po/ because the spacecraft isn't really /k/ territory.

>>33930176
>The "fly over to enemy spy sats" mission seems a bit nonsense to me, considering this thing is tracked very closely by nations that would consider it a possible threat. The second it approached an enemy spy sat on radar there would be an international incident.

Yep. US already flipped its lid when China moved their own satellite towards their own booster:

http://www.cnn.com/2016/11/29/politics/space-war-lasers-satellites-russia-china/

>It was May 2014 when a small team of American airmen monitoring a Russian satellite launch saw something they had never seen before. An object the team thought was a piece of debris from the launch suddenly came to life.

>"The one object that we assumed was a piece of debris started to maneuver in close proximity to the (rocket) booster," recalled Lt. Gen. David Buck, commander of the Joint Functional Component Command for Space located at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California.

>Buck, who oversees US military space forces, said the deliberate maneuvers the mystery object made close to the rocket's booster were a red flag. Getting that close to another object in space is a complex feat, as objects can move as fast as 17,500 miles per hour.

>"That got our attention," Buck said.

>In other words, what the US military was witnessing was not debris at all, but instead a satellite with a dangerous capability, one that could allow it to cozy up next to another satellite and potentially destroy it.

>>33929929
>>33929982

These. It's basically a miniature self-contained version of the external experiment racks on the ISS or the old Spacelab modules that the Shuttle carried that can fly long-term experiments and return them back to earth for disassembly and further analysis. A re-useable payload module with wings.

From what I've heard, it's been testing ion engines/hall thrusters and new imaging technologies for the NRO.

>>33929929
why would the Air Force being doing general aerospace research, when we have NASA?

>>33930123
>GPS is shot down? Launch a backup.
X-37 is not a launch platform. It needs rocket Atlas V. If you are launching Atlas V you don't need any stinking X-37 inside that eats size and weight of payload. GPS satellite can't even fit in X-37 cargo bay.

>Enemy satellite is going up? Fly over there and attach a self-destruct for later.
You don't need X-37 for that. Just launch maneuverable satellite.

>Maintaining at-will launch capability is basic stuff for a superpower.
Too bad X-37 provides nothing of that.

>>33930325

Because NASA is a civilian organization that gets a trickle of money whenever the government is feeling generous. It was mostly set up to put a cute face on our ballistic missile research.

Meanwhile the USAF is the most powerful and well-funded military organization in the world and has been doing R&D for the better part of a century. All of the US's original rocket research was done by the air force. The whole reason NASA exists at all is because of stuff the air force started.

What is NASA up to right now? Right, diddly shit, and certainly not anything with any military applications. Trump just fucked them up even further by saying he wants them to go to Mars. Where are they going to get the money for that shit? Bush said the same thing 17 years ago and look what NASA's accomplished since.

File: 1591a.jpg (40KB, 400x319px) Image search: [Google]

40KB, 400x319px

>>33930098
Oh, I've heard rumors that the ODST platform DOES exist, but it has nothing to do with the X-37.

The murmurs I've heard is that it's a two-stage boost glider that's launched out of a C-5 a-la the Minuteman test that they ran in the 70s.

Basically, pic related, but with a cramped crew compartment about the size of a Hind's that can carry 6 or so people.

File: 1346794312184.jpg (31KB, 531x500px) Image search: [Google]

31KB, 531x500px

>>33930351
>and look what NASA's accomplished since.
SpaceX and reusable rockets.

File: hank.jpg (12KB, 236x236px) Image search: [Google]

12KB, 236x236px

>>33930198
I want to believe

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wijp4-3giNw

>>33930302

I know the EMdrive is borderline meme territory but I'd like to hope they're testing that up there too.

>>33930369

Imagine the crazy cocksuckers they'd get to ride in that fucking deathtrap.

>>33929871

So a F-35 project will never happen again.

>>33930379

Lol, SpaceX is not run by NASA you fucking retard. SpaceX is a customer of NASA. NASA didn't do shit, they literally paid a different space agency to do their jobs for them.

What an embarrassing mistake you've made here.

File: 41234123.jpg (61KB, 947x710px) Image search: [Google]

61KB, 947x710px

>>33930416
CIA is asleep. Post secret files.

>>33930463
>he think SpaceX can get anywhere without NASA bucks
>he thinks it is small independent vacuum cleaner company who landed man on the Moon not NASA.

>>33930416
The DEVGRU operator types who'd surely be stuffed into that hellish space rollercoaster all cut their teeth on swimmer delivery vehicles and the like which are all just as claustrophobic with the added fun of being dark, cold, and capable of drowning you.

A suborbital ride stuffed into a tin can with 5 other operators doesn't sound so bad in comparison. This fuckers are all insane anyways.

>>33930416
>EMdrive

It's not borderline meme territory, it IS meme territory.

Test

>>33930485
Oooh, what's this?

>>33930567
Peer review says otherwise. It does some strange shit. Oddly enough, the Fustrum on an EM Drive is set up in a similar fashion to the RF chamber in the Juday- White Inferometer.

http://www.sciencealert.com/it-s-official-nasa-s-peer-reviewed-em-drive-paper-has-finally-been-published

>>33929871
Finding the temple of famas, where the God famas keeps all of his famasi

launches EMP devices to fuck with everyone

File: X-37B.jpg (4MB, 3000x2400px) Image search: [Google]

4MB, 3000x2400px

We must weaponize space.

>>33931401
>Implying we haven't already

>>33929939
god damnit snowden

Just a way to spend money & budget

File: hqdefault.jpg (13KB, 480x360px) Image search: [Google]

13KB, 480x360px

>>33930256

>>33929871
It's a short deployment recon sat.

They send it up with the latest greatest equipment. When that is no longer the cutting edge they bring it back down, re-equip it and send it back up.

It probably makes a lot more sense to reuse the general purpose hardware than building a whole new satelite every time and having that sat stuck in an orbit compromised for coverage and lifetime usefulness. With this they can throw it right over wherever the current global hotspot is.

And yes I get that satelites cover the whole globe but they aren't always over where you want them to be at the time of day you want them there.

>>33931401
Anybody else getting a boner from those suits?

>>33929871
Platform for space based pew, pew, pew.

File: 1472693158944.jpg (791KB, 3032x2008px) Image search: [Google]

791KB, 3032x2008px

>>33934232
This. Holy shit those suits are dope. Why do they need them though... don't they only quarantine things that have been to foreign celestial bodies....? hmmmmm

File: Hypergolic_Fuel_for_MESSENGER.jpg (505KB, 2000x3008px) Image search: [Google]

505KB, 2000x3008px

>>33934898
hypergolic propellant is nasty stuff.

>>33929871
Successor to U2. Maybe some anti-sat capabilities.

File: 1418678929403.jpg (175KB, 1200x905px) Image search: [Google]

175KB, 1200x905px

>>33934919
Thanks, this is super cool shit, never new about that type of engine

>>33934919
Toxic? Acidic? I don't know shit about rocket fuel besides that it goes boom

>>33934957
potent fuel is usually extremely reactive
extremely reactive substances are usually corrosive and hazardous to organic matter

>>33934957
Hypergolic fuels are composed of two chemicals that instantly ignite upon contact. normally you use Hydrazine (fuel) and NTO (oxidizer)

>Symptoms of acute (short-term) exposure to high levels of hydrazine may include irritation of the eyes, nose, and throat, dizziness, headache, nausea, pulmonary edema, seizures, coma in humans. Acute exposure can also damage the liver, kidneys, and central nervous system. The liquid is corrosive and may produce dermatitis from skin contact in humans and animals. Effects to the lungs, liver, spleen, and thyroid have been reported in animals chronically exposed to hydrazine via inhalation. Increased incidences of lung, nasal cavity, and liver tumors have been observed in rodents exposed to hydrazine.[41]

>On 24 July 1975, NTO poisoning affected the three U.S. astronauts on board the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project during its final descent. This was due to a switch negligently, or accidentally, left in the wrong position, which allowed NTO fumes to vent out of the Apollo spacecraft then back in through the cabin air intake from the outside air after the external vents were opened. One crew member lost consciousness during descent. Upon landing, the crew was hospitalized for 14 days for chemical-induced pneumonia and edema.[7]

and remember, just to make it that much worse, if these two contact each other (which they will if you're FUCKING LOADING IT INTO A SPACECRAFT), they will explode, which will probably break other containers and put you next to 1.5 tons of explosive.

>>33934919

I've seen that photo so many times, and that guy looks like such a bad ass. Just a cold-hearted scientist that has beat his morality with a hammer into a more efficient, and useful shape so that he could engage in some truly insane experiment without remorse.

Launch a minuteman. Everyone in the goddamn world knows exactly when, and where.

Drop a Guided bomb from a X-37, nobody in the goddamn world knows where it was, where it is, or where it's going next.

MAD is Broken, USA wins.

Bring back the USSR,
We need that, motivation.
What could we win?
Eternity of night!

>>33930198
Jews?

>>33934957
>Toxic? Acidic? I don't know shit about rocket fuel besides that it goes boom


Hydrazine is a bitch, toxic as fuggggg.

Russia is hydrazine central. If they were still using primus burners, they'd use hydrazine instead of benzene. Fucking Communist, Socialist, Marxist shitbags.

Meanwhile the SLS is going full Liquid Hydrogen/Liquid Oxygen.

Why mess with a good thing? Because we CAN motherfuckers

>>33935119
Until they look at the radar trajectory and find out that it came from an X-37.

>>33930098
>rod-from-god platform
Would this meme die already?
Rods from God are too heavy to justify the fuel cost of putting them in orbit. Some guys at NASA did the math once and it came out to something like you can buy 100 Tomahawks for the same price and aim them far better than you ever could kinetic anything. And that's assuming everything works right.

>>33935198

Also, still using the basic design of Saturn V.

I wanna be an old man, Damn you Von Braun.
I wanna be an old man Keep Calm and Carry On

I've been struck down, by a blinding light.
I've been laid low, by a banshee's wail

>>33935204
>Until they look at the radar trajectory and find out that it came from an X-37.


And since your X band radar is so fucking smart, where is that fucking X-37 now?

No doubt it was dropped from altitude by a low orbit craft, but Obviously there were a couple tiny little adjustments in the orbital course... so where is it now?

Austrailia? Brazil? India? Doesn't matter, by the time you figure it out, it's like 12,000 nMiles away on a different trajectory. almost back for round two.

Depending on what they acheive payload wise, and what they can get accuracy wise... MAD is dead.

>>33934232
We used to make all kinds of parts for those suits, my family's shop isn't that far from the cape. We did the metal bit that holds the faceplate in, the locking collars for the gloves and boots, we injection molded those black rectangle things, and the air distribution hub that makes sure the whole suit stays puffed.
I'm pretty sure we still have all the drawings floating around somewhere.

>>33935323
gib

>>33935239
>>rod-from-god platform
>Would this meme die already?

I fucking wish.

Still trying to contain the autism from the "throwing rocks from the moon" horseshit.

Kinetic weapons from space make ZERO sense. It's ALL Boosted nuclear, in any sensible situation.


Kinetics are for deep magazine cruisers seiging land based targets (BAE version) and intercepting hypersonic threat missiles (General atomics)

The rest will eventually be pulsed lasers, but there is a long trydge ahead for that whole idea,

>>33935296
No. You only have a single X-37 which can carry one nuke. Every satellite in space is being tracked right now. You can see the trajectory, extrapolate the trajectory it came from, and see the only vehicle that was at that point at that time.

>>33935466
>No. You only have a single X-37

I'm sure you have this on good and absolute authority

>You can see the trajectory, extrapolate the trajectory it came from, and see the only vehicle that was at that point at that time.

True, I conceeded that already, but where is it NOW, now that it's altered trajectory or landed, like 12 seconds later

>>33935654
>now that it's altered trajectory or landed, like 12 seconds later

that's not how this works

>>33935654
>I'm sure you have this on good and absolute authority
Satellite launches are pretty difficult to hide
>True, I conceeded that already, but where is it NOW, now that it's altered trajectory or landed, like 12 seconds later
It doesn't fucking matter where it is at this exact moment (even though it is being tracked like every other fucking satellite so everyone will know where it is or where it went at the very least.) Everyone knows where it was when a nuke fell from that trajectory and will tie it to the US, thus nukes start flying. Better idea to try to just launch a shitload of ICBMs and pray that it hits the right targets to neutralize the enemy nuke threat before they realize they're being nuked and launch back, which is a pretty fucking big gamble. Also, LOL at landed 12 seconds later. What the fuck are you on?

>>33930351
>What is NASA up to right now? Right, diddly shit
Wow! Its almost like if you cut funding to an government funded group they cant do jack shit!

>>33934957
Hydrazine is very toxic and extremely explosive. MON is hugely corrosive.

File: 1494327120748.jpg (170KB, 1024x768px) Image search: [Google]

170KB, 1024x768px

>>33930038
>''literally anything they don't immediately understand (or have spoon-fed to them) seems exciting to them.''
>New spacecraft aren't /k/
Imagine being this fucking boring, jfc

>>33934948
What is that aircraft on the left there?

>>33936070
Sort of looks like a prototype F-35. The black one top left is a F-117 if I'm not mistaken

>>33936096
No shit asshole, but the timeframe on the SR-71 is totally off for that to be an F-35. Also, yes that's an F-117

>>33935190
>Jews in Space plays
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Cy9HeM8QQc

>>33929871
Orbital mechanics aren't really conducive to this thing being a reconnaissance platform. Takes a lot of fuel to change an orbit one in orbit. It could potentially be used to launch microsatellites though.

>>33935936

Did you even read the first line of my post, where I said exactly that?

What was the point of typing this reply? To demonstrate that you're a total idiot?

File: X-35.jpg (379KB, 1920x1530px) Image search: [Google]

379KB, 1920x1530px

>>33936125
Woah, someone needs to take it down a notch. I said it "looks like". Anyways, its a X-35, jees

>>33936188
Oh nice, that's super cool

>>33936131
I'm really going to be sad when Mel Brooks dies. Young Frankenstein and Blazing Saddles are two of my favorite movies.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_vlUPnG81ec