GIGANTIC Aviation Week story, Pentagon has been flying 2-stage orbital spaceplane throughout 1990s&# Options

[Guest_BruceMoomaw_*]

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.

[Guest_BruceMoomaw_*]

Jim Oberg on MSNBC.Com Space News summed up the Boron fuel issue as follows:

'Another skeptical expert referred to the boron-based "fuel breakthrough."

"Boron-based fuels were the white hope of the 1950s because they have about 140 percent the energy/weight ratio of kerosene," the expert advised MSNBC.com by e-mail. "The B-70 and F-108 were designed to use them, and production plants were built. But when they actually tested the stuff, it turned out to produce combustion products that were liquid and destroyed the engines. Also, borane compounds are so poisonous they have been considered as CW [chemical weapon] agents! The whole program collapsed, and B-70 went back to kerosene."'

Who was that "expert" quoted by Oberg? I'll give you a hint: his initials are J.B. (That was one of his quotes that I didn't use, because I myself don't know for sure whether he's correct on that point, having no knowledge myself on the subject one way or the other.)

[ljk4-1]

I found this post from the FPSPACE list very interesting.

Make of it what you will. Anyone have a copy of that sketch available?

Message: 11
Date: Tue, 07 Mar 2006 10:18:52 -0600 (CST)
From: <eagle267@verizon.net>
Subject: [FPSPACE] Re: space plane
To: fpspace@friends-partners.org
Message-ID:
<22077073.1141748332547.JavaMail.root@vms063.mailsrvcs.net>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1

Thanks Jim, for posting this. There is an incident back in December 1990 when
SOyuz TM-10 was followed for half of an orbit (I think orbit 7 or 8)by a winged
vehicle....Viktor Afanasyev was filmed discussing it and he drew a picture of
the object. Later, however, in 2003, he disavowed what he said back in 1991/92
about it. He basically said he was misquoted. The object, according to the
"new interpretation" was that it was some sort of wrench. I have seen the
careful drawing by Afanasyev, and it looks like no wrench I have ever seen. It
looks like a winged vehicle. ANd while in the original discussion that it was
about 60 meters in length (forgive me, I am thinking extemporaneously, as I am
at a remote location, with none of my usual materials about me), he said later
it was 6 meters in length. I have never met a wrench six meters in length.

There is corraboratory information by one of the fpspacers in Belguim I believe,
who has been recording all air-to-ground transmits from Russian spacecraft. I
discussed this with him back in 1996 or so (forget his name) and he confirmed
that there was a great deal of discussion and some excitement from the Russians
on the crew during their transit of the ATlantic (coming off of central America)
before their craft started its traverse over Europe...

This incident could likely be the craft revealed by Aviation Week.

I myself attempted to track down more about this, and even contacted Lockheed
Martin. I got a very strange response--I sent it to the Vice Pres. of the
development division (a woman at the time), and I got the response from one of
their attorneys...LOL telling me that they weren't aware of such a craft (I had
submitted to the Veep the story and drawing by Afansyev), but even if they were,
they wouldn't be able to make any comments whatsoever.

So that's my story for the assembled today.