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Secret USAF Unmanned Shuttle Returns from Orbit (Video)

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ChiTownBuffalo

Either I made up lies about the Boston Bomber or I fell for someone else's crap. Either way, I have absolutely no credibility and you should never pay any attention to anything I say, no matter what the context. Perm me if I claim to be an insider
Robotic X37B Space Plane Lands

SP_120616_X37B-IR-image.png


The U.S. Air Force's robotic X-37B space plane came back to Earth today (June 16) after 15 months in orbit on a mystery mission, and its much-anticipated landing was caught on video.

The X-37B spacecraft touched down at California's Vandenberg Air Force Base at 5:48 a.m. local time Saturday (8:48 a.m. EDT; 1248 GMT). Several hours later, Vandenberg officials released a short video of the event.

The first part of the 80-second video was apparently shot in infrared light. It shows the X-37B space plane cruising in for an automated landing, its belly and nose glowing a bright orange-yellow, presumably from the heat generated during re-entry to Earth's atmosphere.

The video switches over to visible wavelengths about 35 seconds in, after the space plane has touched down, and shuts off shortly after the X-37B rolls to a stop on the runway.

The X-37B, also known as Orbital Test Vehicle-2 (OTV-2), launched on March 5, 2011, from Florida's Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. Its flight was the second-ever mission for the X-37B program; the first was flown by OTV-2's sister ship, OTV-1.

OTV-1 blasted off in April 2010 and stayed aloft for 225 days, well below the supposed 270-day orbital limit for the space plane. But OTV-2 smashed that limit, zipping around our planet for 469 days before finally coming down today.

Just what OTV-2 was doing up there for so long remains a mystery. Details of the vehicle's mission are classified, as are its payloads. The secrecy has spurred speculation — notably from China — that the X-37B may be a space weapon of some sort, but Air Force officials have long insisted that the spacecraft is simply testing out technologies for future satellites.

The X-37B looks like NASA's recently retired space shuttle, but it's far smaller. The X-37B is 29 feet (8.8 meters) long and 15 feet (4.5 m) wide, with a payload bay about the size of a pickup truck bed. For comparison, two X-37B vehicles could fit inside the payload bay of a space shuttle.
The 11,000-pound (5,000-kilogram) space plane's orbital longevity is enabled by its solar array, which generates power after deploying from the payload bay.

The X-37B is built by Boeing, though NASA originally used the vehicle as an experimental test bed until funding for the project ran out in 2004. The space plane then passed to the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, and it was ultimately turned over to the Air Force in 2006.

Military applications aside, this is pretty cool.
 

LQX

Member
15 months in space? What the hell was it doing up there? And I wonder if anything alive went up with it.
 
Wasn't there a thread on this over the weekend?

Anyway, cool piece of tech to say the least. It is believed to have been testing new imaging systems while up there, which is a polite way of saying "Spy Satellites."
 

ChiTownBuffalo

Either I made up lies about the Boston Bomber or I fell for someone else's crap. Either way, I have absolutely no credibility and you should never pay any attention to anything I say, no matter what the context. Perm me if I claim to be an insider
Wasn't there a thread on this over the weekend?

Anyway, cool piece of tech to say the least. It is believed to have been testing new imaging systems while up there, which is a polite way of saying "Spy Satellites."

China is obviously not a fan, but I'm sure hard at work trying to copy it.
 
Its existence is hardly a secret, given that its launch was widely reported upon. It's also not a "Space Shuttle". The concept is somewhat interesting, although this doesn't give the United States any novel capabilities (just more convenient ways to do things they already could).
 
Its existence is hardly a secret, given that its launch was widely reported upon. It's also not a "Space Shuttle". The concept is somewhat interesting, although this doesn't give the United States any novel capabilities (just more convenient ways to do things they already could).
One of theories I read on it were that it was also a sort of rescue craft for astronauts. Getting that craft into space with supplies would be much easier to do in an emergency than relying on a Russian rocket.
 
This is unmanned aircraft that can be deployed in space, right? I pity NASA.

The majority of NASAs spacecraft are entirely unmanned.

One of theories I read on it were that it was also a sort of rescue craft for astronauts. Getting that craft into space with supplies would be much easier to do in an emergency than relying on a Russian rocket.

Could be, although this is no real substitute for something with decent lift capabilities.
 
Its existence is hardly a secret, given that its launch was widely reported upon. It's also not a "Space Shuttle". The concept is somewhat interesting, although this doesn't give the United States any novel capabilities (just more convenient ways to do things they already could).

Considering we really don't know what its capabilities are, it could have a few tricks up its sleeve that we're not aware of.
 

andthebeatgoeson

Junior Member
Its existence is hardly a secret, given that its launch was widely reported upon. It's also not a "Space Shuttle". The concept is somewhat interesting, although this doesn't give the United States any novel capabilities (just more convenient ways to do things they already could).

The secret is that it's not a secret. Shhh.
 

Joel Was Right

Gold Member
The real secret stuff is probably 50 years more advanced than this. Read up on what Gary McKinnon found whilst snooping around on NASA and Pentagon computers
 

androvsky

Member
Wasn't there a thread on this over the weekend?

Anyway, cool piece of tech to say the least. It is believed to have been testing new imaging systems while up there, which is a polite way of saying "Spy Satellites."

Makes sense, since the National Reconnaissance Office just gave NASA two Hubble-class space telescopes, one would assume they have something to replace them.
 

Joel Was Right

Gold Member
at work...link?

He sat in his girlfriend Tamsin’s aunt’s house in Crouch End, and he began to hack. He downloaded a program that searched for computers that used the Windows operating system, scanned addresses and pinpointed administrator user names that had no passwords. Basically, what Gary was looking for – and found time and again – were network administrators within high levels of the US government and military establishments who hadn’t bothered to give themselves passwords. That’s how he got in. His Bufora friends “were living in cloud cuckoo land”, he says. “All those conspiracy theorists seemed more concerned with believing it than proving it.” He wanted evidence. He did a few trial runs, successfully hacking into Oxford University’s network, for example, and he found the whole business “incredibly exciting. And then it got more exciting when I started going to places where I really shouldn’t be”.

“Like where?” I ask.

“The US Space Command,” he says.

And so, for the next seven years, on and off, Gary sat in his girlfriend’s aunt’s house, a joint in the ashtray and a can of Foster’s next to the mouse pad, and he snooped. From time to time, some Nasa scientist sitting at his desk somewhere would see his cursor move for no apparent reason. On those occasions, Gary’s connection would be abruptly cut. This would never fail to freak out the then-stoned Gary. He sounds to me like a virtuoso hacker, although I am someone who can barely download RealPlayer. I nod blankly as he says things like, “You get on to easy networks, like Support and Logistics, in order to exploit the trust relationship that military departments have between each other, and once you get on to an easy thing, you find out what networks they trust and then you hop and hop and hop, and eventually you think, ‘That looks a bit more secretive.’ ” When I ask if he is brilliant, he says no. He’s just an ordinary self-taught techie. And, he says, he was never alone.

“Once you’re on the network, you can do a command called NetStat – Network Status – and it lists all the connections to that machine. There were hackers from Denmark, Italy, Germany, Turkey, Thailand …” “All on at once?” I ask. “You could see hackers from all over the world, snooping around, without the spaceniks or the military realising?” “Every night,” he says, “for the entire five to seven years I was doing this.” “Do you think they’re still there? Are they still at it? Or have they been arrested, too?”

Gary says he doesn’t know.

“What was the most exciting thing you saw?” I ask.

“I found a list of officers’ names,” he claims, “under the heading ‘Non-Terrestrial Officers’.”

“Non-Terrestrial Officers?” I say.

“Yeah, I looked it up,” says Gary, “and it’s nowhere. It doesn’t mean little green men. What I think it means is not earth-based. I found a list of ‘fleet-to-fleet transfers’, and a list of ship names. I looked them up. They weren’t US navy ships. What I saw made me believe they have some kind of spaceship, off-planet.”

“The Americans have a secret spaceship?” I ask.

“That’s what this trickle of evidence has led me to believe.”

“Some kind of other Mir that nobody knows about?”

“I guess so,” says Gary.

“What were the ship names?” “I can’t remember,” says Gary. “I was smoking a lot of dope at the time. Not good for the intellect.”

http://www.guardian.co.uk/theguardian/2005/jul/09/weekend7.weekend2

There is a video interview where he goes into a little more detail about the ships and their names.

This and the fact that this UAV landed in California reminded me; they were reports in the 70s, 80s and onwards of what looked like unofficial rocket launches somewhere in California.
 

Pollux

Member
http://www.guardian.co.uk/theguardian/2005/jul/09/weekend7.weekend2[/INDENT]

There is a video interview where he goes into a little more detail about the ships and their names.

This and the fact that this UAV landed in California reminded me; they were reports in the 70s, 80s and onwards of what looked like unofficial rocket launches somewhere in California.

Awesome, thanks man! Will watch the video when I get home.

Edit: Basically Stargate is real, then? lol
 

ChiTownBuffalo

Either I made up lies about the Boston Bomber or I fell for someone else's crap. Either way, I have absolutely no credibility and you should never pay any attention to anything I say, no matter what the context. Perm me if I claim to be an insider
He sat in his girlfriend Tamsin’s aunt’s house in Crouch End, and he began to hack. He downloaded a program that searched for computers that used the Windows operating system, scanned addresses and pinpointed administrator user names that had no passwords. Basically, what Gary was looking for – and found time and again – were network administrators within high levels of the US government and military establishments who hadn’t bothered to give themselves passwords. That’s how he got in. His Bufora friends “were living in cloud cuckoo land”, he says. “All those conspiracy theorists seemed more concerned with believing it than proving it.” He wanted evidence. He did a few trial runs, successfully hacking into Oxford University’s network, for example, and he found the whole business “incredibly exciting. And then it got more exciting when I started going to places where I really shouldn’t be”.

“Like where?” I ask.

“The US Space Command,” he says.

And so, for the next seven years, on and off, Gary sat in his girlfriend’s aunt’s house, a joint in the ashtray and a can of Foster’s next to the mouse pad, and he snooped. From time to time, some Nasa scientist sitting at his desk somewhere would see his cursor move for no apparent reason. On those occasions, Gary’s connection would be abruptly cut. This would never fail to freak out the then-stoned Gary. He sounds to me like a virtuoso hacker, although I am someone who can barely download RealPlayer. I nod blankly as he says things like, “You get on to easy networks, like Support and Logistics, in order to exploit the trust relationship that military departments have between each other, and once you get on to an easy thing, you find out what networks they trust and then you hop and hop and hop, and eventually you think, ‘That looks a bit more secretive.’ ” When I ask if he is brilliant, he says no. He’s just an ordinary self-taught techie. And, he says, he was never alone.

“Once you’re on the network, you can do a command called NetStat – Network Status – and it lists all the connections to that machine. There were hackers from Denmark, Italy, Germany, Turkey, Thailand …” “All on at once?” I ask. “You could see hackers from all over the world, snooping around, without the spaceniks or the military realising?” “Every night,” he says, “for the entire five to seven years I was doing this.” “Do you think they’re still there? Are they still at it? Or have they been arrested, too?”

Gary says he doesn’t know.

“What was the most exciting thing you saw?” I ask.

“I found a list of officers’ names,” he claims, “under the heading ‘Non-Terrestrial Officers’.”

“Non-Terrestrial Officers?” I say.

“Yeah, I looked it up,” says Gary, “and it’s nowhere. It doesn’t mean little green men. What I think it means is not earth-based. I found a list of ‘fleet-to-fleet transfers’, and a list of ship names. I looked them up. They weren’t US navy ships. What I saw made me believe they have some kind of spaceship, off-planet.”

“The Americans have a secret spaceship?” I ask.

“That’s what this trickle of evidence has led me to believe.”

“Some kind of other Mir that nobody knows about?”

“I guess so,” says Gary.

“What were the ship names?” “I can’t remember,” says Gary. “I was smoking a lot of dope at the time. Not good for the intellect.”

http://www.guardian.co.uk/theguardian/2005/jul/09/weekend7.weekend2

There is a video interview where he goes into a little more detail about the ships and their names.

This and the fact that this UAV landed in California reminded me; they were reports in the 70s, 80s and onwards of what looked like unofficial rocket launches somewhere in California.
Really? The guy's a nut, and he admits to doing drugs.
 
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