7 ms·

>Air Force X-37B The Air Force X-37B is not a missile or weapon. >Don't get me wrong, Russia aren't some good guy, but when you actively do a thing for tens o

by ktrl 6y ago

>Air Force X-37B The Air Force X-37B is not a missile or weapon. >Don't get me wrong, Russia aren't some good guy, but when you actively do a thing for tens of years and then the other guy does that thing, you have no moral high ground left to complain. Russia tested a satellite-to-satellite weapon which is completely unprecedented militarization of space. The US has tested ground-based anti-satellite weapons on satellites in decaying Low-Eart Orbits. The debris quickly burned up in the atmosphere. China is the only country to have blown up a satellite beyond LEO. The debris from that will be in orbit for decades. That was an unprecedented militarization of space and not comparable with anything the US has done in the space. You are pushing a narrative that the US is the warmonger in space and that Russia is only responding in kind. The truth is that Russia and China are far ahead of the US in weaponizing space. The US is playing catch-up.

knodi123 6y ago
> The Air Force X-37B is not a missile or weapon. No, but that seems a little bit disingenuous. Aircraft carriers are neither missiles nor weapons either. We can recognize things as military assets that are neither missiles nor weapons. The X-37B is a DOD asset, operated by the military, capable of deploying weapons systems. In that way, it is part of the military capability of the US.
- cryptonector 6y ago
  It would be silly to use the X-37 as an anti-sat weapon: it's too expensive. Think of how cheaply SpaceX is putting up Starlink! A single Falcon 9 could probably put up a bunch (20? 30?) of antisat weapons that only ever raise or lower their orbits and fire .22s at their targets. The idea is to disable targets with as little debris as possible. With larger anti-sat sats you could actually latch on to the target and de-orbit it for zero orbital debris destruction. This requires many more, much larger such devices because while it takes relatively little delta-v to raise or lower an orbit, it takes a lot more to match an arbitrary target's orbit (to which more fuel has to be added for de-orbiting).
  - knodi123 6y ago
    Just having a theoretical conversation now, but > antisat weapons that only ever raise or lower their orbits and fire .22s at their targets. raising your orbit is the hard and expensive part, it takes a lot of propellant, which generally rules out smaller vehicles, right? And if you want to destroy a satellite, you need a lot of kinetic energy, which for a tiny projectile means lots of speed relative to the target... But since your absolute speed determines the height of your orbit, the only way to get more than ~1000 ft/s is to have your gun-sat in an opposite-direction orbit to the target, right? And isn't it the case that our satellites are all orbiting in more or less the same direction, since they launch from canaveral and have to head east to be over water?
    - enkid 6y ago
      What if you used an object in another orbit to fire a projectile? Wouldn't that make the differences in energies pretty significant?
      - knodi123 6y ago
        I did suggest "have your gun-sat in an opposite-direction orbit to the target". Yes, that would dramatically increase the kinetic energy.
    - tankenmate 6y ago
      The only issue is that using kinetic weapons greatly increases the risk of Kessler Syndrome; in other words premature mutually assured destruction. Kinetic space weapons are so easy to get wrong with outsized repercussions. Otherwise raising orbit is expensive(ish) depending on whether you want a circular orbit. Matching an orbit can be expensive. If the target has auto avoidance like Starlink does then matching orbit becomes war of attrition; even getting the target to burn off its fuel is a win as it will drastically shorten its life span. Deorbiting is relatively easy at LEO, just increasing frontal area is a cheap way to achieve it. Above LEO would normally require fuel of some amount.
    - lutorm 6y ago
- m4rtink 6y ago
  Actually back in the day the Soviets were genuinely afraid of the Space Shuttle, as they though that due to it's capability for sudden orbit changes via aerodynamic surfaces. They thought it might start on an otherwise routine mission only to do a sudden orbit change that makes it fly over Moscow & nuke it with hardly any warning at all. It is said that was also the reason they started the Buran and Energia project - while their engineers though the Space Shuttle was too complicated, expensive and dangerous (and they were right...) they also though there must be something special about it, otherwise the Americans would not build something that bad.
  - coolspot 6y ago
    I am pretty sure that engineers of a country that has sent first man to orbit, built first space station, got first pictures from lunar and venus surfaces, those engineers knew very well that “sudden orbit changes via aerodynamic surfaces” can’t be done in a vacuum. They have seen some dangers like sattelite theft and others, so they have built a vehicle with similar capacity just because you have to match the opponent, even if the idea doesn’t really work and there are more efficient ways of achieving same results.
    - sobellian 6y ago
      It appears that the study was considering the shuttle's ability to glide while re-entering. They were afraid a shuttle could launch from Vandenberg and do a maneuver similar to the shuttle's once-around abort and approach the USSR from the south (most of their early-warning systems were facing north) and possibly even return home afterwards. It's a cute theory but you should be skeptical of the claim that this study was the motivation for the Soviet shuttle program.
      - mandevil 6y ago
        The main thing necessary to understand Buran is... why the big heavy delta wings? It is clear why the US shuttle has them: Reference Mission 3A/3B, which the USAF added to the design requirements in exchange for political cover in Congress (see T.A. Heppenheimer, _The Space Shuttle Decision_). If you launch due south from Vandenberg and you need to return back to your landing site (either because of the Reference Mission or because of a Abort-Once-Around) you have to be able to move roughly 1/16 of the Earth's diameter in the atmosphere (otherwise you end up in the Pacific Ocean), and that forces you to the big heavy delta wings that sacrifices a lot of payload. But why did the Soviets need that much cross-range? First of all their spy satellites were not generally put into polar orbits (they used shorter lived satellites that didn't need sun synchronous orbits) and second of all, one polar orbit around from Baikonur runs right over Russian land rather than the Pacific Ocean, so they had no need for all of that cross range. The only thing that makes sense to me is that a design goal for Buran was "copy the STS, but don't do quite as many silly things" because I simply can't find a use case for that much cross range for them.
barkingcat 6y ago
"The Air Force X-37B is not a missile or weapon." Unless you have a security clearance and are using the information from classified sources, you cannot claim this, and people should not believe this statement at all. The X-37B is a classified US military project. There is no confirmation, either way, whether it is or isn't a weapons system, or whether it has already been used as a weapon system. In fact, you can ask the US military point blank, is the X-37B a weapon, and you will get "no comment"
- wil421 6y ago
  To be fair, if you asked them if it was a time machine they would probably say “no comment”.
- 2OEH8eoCRo0 6y ago
  Yup it's classified. Do you have evidence that it's a weapon?
  - chillacy 6y ago
    The parent did not claim that it is a weapon, only that the statement > The Air Force X-37B is not a missile or weapon. cannot be proven. In fact they went on to say > There is no confirmation, either way, whether it is or isn't a weapons system
guhidalg 6y ago
I think it’s naive to think the X-37 doesn’t have the capability to be used a weapon. A spacecraft able to stay in orbit for years with the ability to hide its payload from observers we must assume is carrying something onboard that can be considered a weapon.
- cryptonector 6y ago
  It's overkill as an anti-sat sat. It'd be much cheaper to put up tons of anti-sat sats meant only for that purpose -- no need to reenter and land, no need for reusability, etc. The X-37 is obviously a military device, since they're the ones using it, and it may well be meant for servicing U.S. military sats, spying on others' sats, jamming them perhaps, or outright stealing them, and, yes, maybe destroying them, but again: there's no point using the X-37 for anti-sat purposes as it's too expensive for that.
  - stainforth 6y ago
    Why do we have all of this historical evidence about military purchasing and yet continued belief that current projects are all sensibly intended and operated?
    - cryptonector 6y ago
      I didn't say the X-37B is used sensibly. I said it's not a practical and inexpensive anti-sat weapon. It's just not comparable.
  - willcipriano 6y ago
    > or outright stealing them They took a page out of Blofeld's book. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/You_Only_Live_Twice_(film) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/You_Only_Live_Twice_(film)
- enkid 6y ago
  Orbital dynamics means that literally anything in orbit could be an anti satellite weapon.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
justicezyx 6y ago
The first satellite caused huge concern in US, because it can be easily turned into a ICBM. To state X-37B is not a missile or weapon, is simply inconceivable for anyone who is not owning the thing. This is precisely how most major superpowers justify their behaviors. Just because of their size and power, a lot of things can hurt other nations. It's not a matter of what one things, one has to consider their impact, and their target's tolerance.
dirtyid 6y ago
At the end of the day, US has 3-4x more space infrastructure than CN/RU, and relatively more dependence. This gap has to be closed through whatever means even if it doesn't accommodate for best practice. Sometimes asymmetry in capabilities rationalizes pissing in the commons.
NiceWayToDoIT 6y ago
Sadly I think more and more, that we are in the point of no repair (return). Regardless being US, UK, China, Russia we are in world govern by mafia like diplomacy/politics, and with recent development in nuclear, space and Antarctica militarization ... things does not look great... unfortunately there is no planet B nor there is a good enough bunker :/ ... My whole life I thought that things could be solved with science and reason, but it seems we need a miracle...
- CarbyAu 6y ago
  You seem bummed out by the idea of where the world is going. Look back at "The Future" as thought of by people in the 1950's and see how accurate they were. So don't think you will be accurate. And if it is that bad, or worse, well you can only do so much. Even though I am devoutly NOT religious there is a nice set of words: "God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference" Good luck.
DyslexicAtheist 6y ago
> You are pushing a narrative that the US is the warmonger in space the US is a warmonger. period. there is no need for telling people about their narratives without disclosing where you're posting from. Nothing is more powerful, hypocritical and worse worse in the world than the US military complex and their (lack of) foreign policy / diplomacy. Considering the current imbecile ruling this country the US in it's current form is a failed state. If you're American and not out on the streets right now protesting or engaged in overthrowing your current government then why post? It's boring, hypocritical, drivel and it doesn't make you look good. Go vote or join a protest instead of grandstanding for a failed country that wants to paint itself as the leader of the world.
pdubs1 6y ago
>Russia tested a satellite-to-satellite weapon which is completely unprecedented militarization of space. No, it's not unprecedented. Reality: The public is obviously not privy to the the 100% truth of geopolitical conflicts. Based on what a source told me (son of a state department employee), US and China have both shot down each others satellites-- back around 2007 or 2008. Back when the US claimed it was testing out the ability to shoot down its own satellite... Yep, that's what they told the public. The reality? Let's just say it's a bit different from what the government releases to the public. ... as in... The US shot down a Chinese satellite after they shot down one of the US'.

by ktrl 6y ago

knodi123 6y ago

> The Air Force X-37B is not a missile or weapon. No, but that seems a little bit disingenuous. Aircraft carriers are neither missiles nor weapons either. We can recognize things as military assets that are neither missiles nor weapons. The X-37B is a DOD asset, operated by the military, capable of deploying weapons systems. In that way, it is part of the military capability of the US.

cryptonector 6y ago
It would be silly to use the X-37 as an anti-sat weapon: it's too expensive. Think of how cheaply SpaceX is putting up Starlink! A single Falcon 9 could probably put up a bunch (20? 30?) of antisat weapons that only ever raise or lower their orbits and fire .22s at their targets. The idea is to disable targets with as little debris as possible. With larger anti-sat sats you could actually latch on to the target and de-orbit it for zero orbital debris destruction. This requires many more, much larger such devices because while it takes relatively little delta-v to raise or lower an orbit, it takes a lot more to match an arbitrary target's orbit (to which more fuel has to be added for de-orbiting).
- knodi123 6y ago
  Just having a theoretical conversation now, but > antisat weapons that only ever raise or lower their orbits and fire .22s at their targets. raising your orbit is the hard and expensive part, it takes a lot of propellant, which generally rules out smaller vehicles, right? And if you want to destroy a satellite, you need a lot of kinetic energy, which for a tiny projectile means lots of speed relative to the target... But since your absolute speed determines the height of your orbit, the only way to get more than ~1000 ft/s is to have your gun-sat in an opposite-direction orbit to the target, right? And isn't it the case that our satellites are all orbiting in more or less the same direction, since they launch from canaveral and have to head east to be over water?
  - enkid 6y ago
    What if you used an object in another orbit to fire a projectile? Wouldn't that make the differences in energies pretty significant?
    - knodi123 6y ago
      I did suggest "have your gun-sat in an opposite-direction orbit to the target". Yes, that would dramatically increase the kinetic energy.
  - tankenmate 6y ago
    The only issue is that using kinetic weapons greatly increases the risk of Kessler Syndrome; in other words premature mutually assured destruction. Kinetic space weapons are so easy to get wrong with outsized repercussions. Otherwise raising orbit is expensive(ish) depending on whether you want a circular orbit. Matching an orbit can be expensive. If the target has auto avoidance like Starlink does then matching orbit becomes war of attrition; even getting the target to burn off its fuel is a win as it will drastically shorten its life span. Deorbiting is relatively easy at LEO, just increasing frontal area is a cheap way to achieve it. Above LEO would normally require fuel of some amount.
  - lutorm 6y ago
m4rtink 6y ago
Actually back in the day the Soviets were genuinely afraid of the Space Shuttle, as they though that due to it's capability for sudden orbit changes via aerodynamic surfaces. They thought it might start on an otherwise routine mission only to do a sudden orbit change that makes it fly over Moscow & nuke it with hardly any warning at all. It is said that was also the reason they started the Buran and Energia project - while their engineers though the Space Shuttle was too complicated, expensive and dangerous (and they were right...) they also though there must be something special about it, otherwise the Americans would not build something that bad.
- coolspot 6y ago
  I am pretty sure that engineers of a country that has sent first man to orbit, built first space station, got first pictures from lunar and venus surfaces, those engineers knew very well that “sudden orbit changes via aerodynamic surfaces” can’t be done in a vacuum. They have seen some dangers like sattelite theft and others, so they have built a vehicle with similar capacity just because you have to match the opponent, even if the idea doesn’t really work and there are more efficient ways of achieving same results.
  - sobellian 6y ago
    It appears that the study was considering the shuttle's ability to glide while re-entering. They were afraid a shuttle could launch from Vandenberg and do a maneuver similar to the shuttle's once-around abort and approach the USSR from the south (most of their early-warning systems were facing north) and possibly even return home afterwards. It's a cute theory but you should be skeptical of the claim that this study was the motivation for the Soviet shuttle program.
    - mandevil 6y ago
      The main thing necessary to understand Buran is... why the big heavy delta wings? It is clear why the US shuttle has them: Reference Mission 3A/3B, which the USAF added to the design requirements in exchange for political cover in Congress (see T.A. Heppenheimer, _The Space Shuttle Decision_). If you launch due south from Vandenberg and you need to return back to your landing site (either because of the Reference Mission or because of a Abort-Once-Around) you have to be able to move roughly 1/16 of the Earth's diameter in the atmosphere (otherwise you end up in the Pacific Ocean), and that forces you to the big heavy delta wings that sacrifices a lot of payload. But why did the Soviets need that much cross-range? First of all their spy satellites were not generally put into polar orbits (they used shorter lived satellites that didn't need sun synchronous orbits) and second of all, one polar orbit around from Baikonur runs right over Russian land rather than the Pacific Ocean, so they had no need for all of that cross range. The only thing that makes sense to me is that a design goal for Buran was "copy the STS, but don't do quite as many silly things" because I simply can't find a use case for that much cross range for them.

barkingcat 6y ago

"The Air Force X-37B is not a missile or weapon." Unless you have a security clearance and are using the information from classified sources, you cannot claim this, and people should not believe this statement at all. The X-37B is a classified US military project. There is no confirmation, either way, whether it is or isn't a weapons system, or whether it has already been used as a weapon system. In fact, you can ask the US military point blank, is the X-37B a weapon, and you will get "no comment"

wil421 6y ago
To be fair, if you asked them if it was a time machine they would probably say “no comment”.
2OEH8eoCRo0 6y ago
Yup it's classified. Do you have evidence that it's a weapon?
- chillacy 6y ago
  The parent did not claim that it is a weapon, only that the statement > The Air Force X-37B is not a missile or weapon. cannot be proven. In fact they went on to say > There is no confirmation, either way, whether it is or isn't a weapons system

guhidalg 6y ago

I think it’s naive to think the X-37 doesn’t have the capability to be used a weapon. A spacecraft able to stay in orbit for years with the ability to hide its payload from observers we must assume is carrying something onboard that can be considered a weapon.

cryptonector 6y ago
It's overkill as an anti-sat sat. It'd be much cheaper to put up tons of anti-sat sats meant only for that purpose -- no need to reenter and land, no need for reusability, etc. The X-37 is obviously a military device, since they're the ones using it, and it may well be meant for servicing U.S. military sats, spying on others' sats, jamming them perhaps, or outright stealing them, and, yes, maybe destroying them, but again: there's no point using the X-37 for anti-sat purposes as it's too expensive for that.
- stainforth 6y ago
  Why do we have all of this historical evidence about military purchasing and yet continued belief that current projects are all sensibly intended and operated?
  - cryptonector 6y ago
    I didn't say the X-37B is used sensibly. I said it's not a practical and inexpensive anti-sat weapon. It's just not comparable.
- willcipriano 6y ago
  > or outright stealing them They took a page out of Blofeld's book. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/You_Only_Live_Twice_(film) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/You_Only_Live_Twice_(film)
enkid 6y ago
Orbital dynamics means that literally anything in orbit could be an anti satellite weapon.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

justicezyx 6y ago

The first satellite caused huge concern in US, because it can be easily turned into a ICBM. To state X-37B is not a missile or weapon, is simply inconceivable for anyone who is not owning the thing. This is precisely how most major superpowers justify their behaviors. Just because of their size and power, a lot of things can hurt other nations. It's not a matter of what one things, one has to consider their impact, and their target's tolerance.

dirtyid 6y ago

At the end of the day, US has 3-4x more space infrastructure than CN/RU, and relatively more dependence. This gap has to be closed through whatever means even if it doesn't accommodate for best practice. Sometimes asymmetry in capabilities rationalizes pissing in the commons.

NiceWayToDoIT 6y ago

Sadly I think more and more, that we are in the point of no repair (return). Regardless being US, UK, China, Russia we are in world govern by mafia like diplomacy/politics, and with recent development in nuclear, space and Antarctica militarization ... things does not look great... unfortunately there is no planet B nor there is a good enough bunker :/ ... My whole life I thought that things could be solved with science and reason, but it seems we need a miracle...

CarbyAu 6y ago
You seem bummed out by the idea of where the world is going. Look back at "The Future" as thought of by people in the 1950's and see how accurate they were. So don't think you will be accurate. And if it is that bad, or worse, well you can only do so much. Even though I am devoutly NOT religious there is a nice set of words: "God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference" Good luck.

DyslexicAtheist 6y ago

> You are pushing a narrative that the US is the warmonger in space the US is a warmonger. period. there is no need for telling people about their narratives without disclosing where you're posting from. Nothing is more powerful, hypocritical and worse worse in the world than the US military complex and their (lack of) foreign policy / diplomacy. Considering the current imbecile ruling this country the US in it's current form is a failed state. If you're American and not out on the streets right now protesting or engaged in overthrowing your current government then why post? It's boring, hypocritical, drivel and it doesn't make you look good. Go vote or join a protest instead of grandstanding for a failed country that wants to paint itself as the leader of the world.

pdubs1 6y ago

>Russia tested a satellite-to-satellite weapon which is completely unprecedented militarization of space. No, it's not unprecedented. Reality: The public is obviously not privy to the the 100% truth of geopolitical conflicts. Based on what a source told me (son of a state department employee), US and China have both shot down each others satellites-- back around 2007 or 2008. Back when the US claimed it was testing out the ability to shoot down its own satellite... Yep, that's what they told the public. The reality? Let's just say it's a bit different from what the government releases to the public. ... as in... The US shot down a Chinese satellite after they shot down one of the US'.