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_*]

Oberg using a quote from Bell that Moomaw didn't use (but knew of, of course). Perfect.

It's eerie but I just had a weird flash.

Very weird indeed, Alex.

As I said, I didn't use that quote from Bell because -- and only because -- it is one on which I had no idea whether or not he was right, and therefore decided not to include among the evidence he provided that I did find convincing (in destroying my own original story). I hope you're not implying that I made up all this after the fact. If you are, I'll be happy to send you a copy of Bell's original E-mail to me (and, in fact, have just sent it). You'll note one glaring error he did make -- he originally misread that eyewitness account of the plane overflight at Salt Lake City as being 2:35 AM rather than PM (because, he told me later, he had jumped to the conclusion that the sighting had to have been made at night).

By all means, however, let's hear your own opinion of the AW story at this point.

[ljk4-1]

It is a known fact that the CIA and USSR "supported" UFO reports
when the public spotted their secret aircraft and rocket launches.

See here:

http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_..._23/ai_57533273

http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/space/1282426.html

http://www.cufos.org/IUR_article3.html

These recent posts from the FPSPACE list include a link to the sketch of
the "wrench" the cosmonaut saw. If it is legit, that ain't no wrench.

Message: 9
Date: Tue, 7 Mar 2006 21:35:20 -0000
From: "satcom" <john> Subject: [FPSPACE] Re: FPSPACE Digest, Vol 25, Issue 6 To: <fpspace>
Message-ID: <000c01c6422f$08cc7130$6ed6fea9@DELLMASTER>
Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed; charset="iso-8859-1";
reply-type=original


eagle267@verizon.net wrote.....

>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.

Is this the same incident ? *

The date quoted is 1979...and there's an image here

http://www.ufoevidence.org/cases/case392.htm

................................................................................
................................................................................
........................
*

In April of 1979, Cosmonaut Victor Afanasyev lifted off from Star City to
dock with the Soviet Solyut 6 space station. But while en route, something
strange happened. Cosmonaut Afanasyev saw an unidentified object turn toward
his craft and begin tailing it through space.

"It followed us during half of our orbit. We observed it on the light side,
and when we entered the shadow side, it disappeared completely. It was an
engineering structure, made from some type of metal, approximately 40 meters
long with inner hulls. The object was narrow here and wider here, and inside
there were openings. Some places had projections like small wings. The
object stayed very close to us. We photographed it, and our photos showed it
to be 23 to 28 meters away."

In addition to photographing the UFO, Afanasyev continually reported back to
Mission Control about the craft's size, its shape and position. When the
cosmonaut returned to earth he was debriefed and told never to reveal what
he knew, and had his cameras and film confiscated.

Those photos and his voice transmissions from space have never been
released.

It is only now, with the collapse of the Soviet Union that Afanasyev feels
that he can safely tell his story.

"It is still classified as a UFO because we have yet to identify the
object."

................................................................................
................................................................................
.......................


I think you are confusing it with the following ** , which apparently
happened in 1990.........

These incidents are widely quoted on various UFO sites as factual evidence
of little green men )

John

................................................................................
................................................................................
..................

**

http://ufocasebook.com/nasafacts.html

Gennadij Strekhalov, another cosmonaut - MIR Space Station, relates:

"On the last two flights I saw something. During the flight of 1990, I
called Gennadij Manakov, our commander to come to the porthole - but we did
not manage to put a film in the camera quickly enough. We looked on
Newfoundland and the atmosphere was absolutely clear - suddenly a kind of
sphere appeared. Beautiful, shiny and glittering - I saw it for 10 seconds -
it disappeared. What was it, what size it had? I don't know, there was
nothing I could compare with - it was a perfect sphere. I reported to the
Mission Control Center, but I did not say I have seen a UFO - I said I saw a
kind of unusual phenomenon. I had to be careful with the choice of my
words - I don't want someone to speculate too much or quote me wrong".

During docking with the Russian Mir space station astronaut Musa Manarov
filmed an anomalous object, he stated: "At some point during the filming I
caught sight of something I thought had separated from the ship. however, it
was not very close, I know this because the camera was focused on infinity.
Nothing could have broken away. There were no alarms were going off. Later
there were arguments over what possibly it could have been".


------------------------------

Message: 10
Date: Tue, 7 Mar 2006 21:48:33 -0000
From: "satcom" <john> Subject: [FPSPACE] Re: FPSPACE Digest, Vol 25, Issue 6 To: <fpspace>
Message-ID: <000401c64230$e1bbc300$6ed6fea9@DELLMASTER>
Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed; charset="iso-8859-1";
reply-type=original

Subject: [FPSPACE] Re: FPSPACE Digest, Vol 25, Issue 6


>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 [ snip ]

Forgot to add.....

According to records , Viktor Afanasyev didn't fly his first mission unitl
1990.... So confusion seems to reign amongst the UFOlogy crew [ nothing new
there then ! ]