GIGANTIC Aviation Week story, Pentagon has been flying 2-stage orbital spaceplane throughout 1990s |
GIGANTIC Aviation Week story, Pentagon has been flying 2-stage orbital spaceplane throughout 1990s |
Guest_BruceMoomaw_* |
Mar 6 2006, 02:24 AM
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Guests |
It may even have been manned:
http://www.aviationnow.com/avnow/news/chan...ws/030606p1.xml My God, what a story -- if it's even partially true. And, judging from this article, they are absolutely certain they have proof (along with proof that the thing, although it works, has recently been mothballed as not cost-effective). It's important to keep in mind, though, that this thing is NOT a workable prototype of the originally planned 2-stage winged Space Shuttle. The second stage -- the spaceplane that actually achieved orbit -- was relatively small and probably very inefficient as a cargo carrier; its advantage lay in allowing the US to get a military reconaissance (or weapons) satellite into orbit surreptitiously, with no advance warning of the launch going to other countries. Even at that, as I say, AW reports that the thing has been recently canned as not worth its (doubtless huge) black-budget expense. |
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Guest_BruceMoomaw_* |
Mar 9 2006, 09:17 PM
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#2
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Guests |
Okay, but a magazine which (according to you) is capable of "chumming the waters" with a story which they themselves suspect may well be fake doesn't exactly strike me as a reliable "aerospace expert". (It will be interesting to see what their letter column shows in response to this story.) As for myself, I've never tried to present myself as an "expert" in any field of aerospace, except (maybe) some aspects of planetary exploration. If I did, I would have been a hell of a lot more reluctant to turn so quickly and savagely against the "GIGANTIC" story that I myself presented with such fanfare at the start of this thread.
But you still haven't answered my question: what do YOU think of the supposed technical information in the AW article, and of Bell's criticism of it? I'm not asking to be sarcastic; I am genuinely interested in what you think of this whole affair. |
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