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Could the xb-70 be flying? Could the country have a sr-71 prototype?

http://www.aviationnow.com/avnow/news/channel_awst_story.jsp?id=news/030606p1.xml

Maybe that's what took of and landed at DM in 2002-2003. They cleared us off the flightline a couple times and put us in the base theater. Kept us quite a ways away from the line but we still heard what I think were "burners" roaring. Dunno though, never saw the "burner" trail just heard a loud jet taking off. It was louder than a F-15 or F-16 and I don't think it was a F-117 or a F-22. But who knows.

You might be a "Bulldog" if: You bend over and grab your ankles when you hear: "EXERCISE, EXERCISE, EXERCISE!"

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Put on your tinfoil hats, the black choppers are coming, and I'm calling them in.
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Well this certainly explains the McD involvement that I already knew about!

A 45 has a muzzle.
A 9mm has a bullet vent.

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The only time you have too much fuel is when you're on fire.

And the fishing line.<img src=icon_smile_wink.gif border=0 align=middle>

The Second Amendment: America's original homeland security.
Ya just can’t take life too seriously, because you aren’t going to get out of it alive anyway.

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\"Those who hammer their guns into plows
will plow for those who do not.\"
- Thomas Jefferson

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<BLOCKQUOTE id=quote><font size=1 face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id=quote>quote:<hr height=1 noshade id=quote> And the fishing line<hr height=1 noshade id=quote></BLOCKQUOTE id=quote></font id=quote><font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" size=2 id=quote>

LOL, this comes around more reliably than Halley's comet...

You're born, you keep your head down and you die. If you're lucky...

<img src=icon_smile_big.gif border=0 align=middle> "Thank you, thank you vera much".

The Second Amendment: America's original homeland security.
Ya just can’t take life too seriously, because you aren’t going to get out of it alive anyway.

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\"Those who hammer their guns into plows
will plow for those who do not.\"
- Thomas Jefferson

It's a cool idea. I do remember when I was young and dumb back in school I hade a "sience" teacher tell me that the space shuttle was just a myth and it could never be done and look it's a reality. So why is this so far fetched. We have already lanched anti satilite missles into space from a Eagle. Look at space ship one and you think that the military didnt come up with this long ago and put it to a working prototype. Lets see government money than verces privatly funding now you do the math. Is the idea of a two stage space plane viable "yes" it has been proven hell the X15 was right there in the early 60's. The idea that it has been flown out side the private sector by the military in the late 80's "most likley" the SKUNK WORKS RULES.

live to wrench, wrench to live

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Conventional boosters are easily tracked from space during launch, the idea of this system is to avoid the predictability of a vert launch system. Once a booster is detected and tracked the surprise is all gone.

A 45 has a muzzle.
A 9mm has a bullet vent.

Edited by - boomer on Mar 13 2006 1:16 PM

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The only time you have too much fuel is when you're on fire.

Well, the old XB-70 at at Wright-Pat isn't there anymore....

<img src="http://img23.photobucket.com/albums/v70/prkiii/70th.jpg" border=0><img src="http://img23.photobucket.com/albums/v70/prkiii/Mav_shot.jpg" border=0><img src="http://img23.photobucket.com/albums/v70/prkiii/25.jpg" border=0>

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hehehe now that would be nice refurb. Didnt the xb-70 once cancelled fly for NASA for period of time and testing.

Anyone really know how far along The X-20A Dyna-Soar got before being cancled?

Google can be a wonderful thing if used:
http://www.aerospaceguide.net/dynasoar.html

A 45 has a muzzle.
A 9mm has a bullet vent.

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The only time you have too much fuel is when you're on fire.

The opening scene of the one in the Movie "Real Genius" is hilarious. Vaporizing a 3rd World Entity from the comfort of his lawn Chair sippen on a Mai Tai.

It was a woman who drove me to drink, and I never had the courtesy to thank her for it.
The cost of living has gone up another dollar a quart.Somebody left the cork out of my lunch.

from what I see the dynasoar in principle could work. However, it was limited by the technology of the day which added and added wt. I wonder what modern CPU's and composits would do for it. After all the rutan space ship one is not far off from this concept.

The next thing I got to say is does anybody really believe the airforce is trying to have another option besides the shuttle? Remember vandenburg was supposed to be a lauch site for the shuttle, but was never used. Intriguing possibilities.

AF doesnt use the shuttle anymore ( publicly ), they signed off after the Challenger tragedy, went to rockets for all thier launches.
Vandenburg was for the military to launch it's own space shuttles from but they never bought any.
Nothing tech wise holding back a DynaSoar type craft, been do-able for 20 years or more, it's all about the $$$ as usuall.

If you can get your hands on it, Bill Sweetmans book "Aurora The Pentagons Secret Hypersonic Spyplane" will give you a glimpse of just how usefull a Mach 5 aircraft can be to the military. The <u>weapon</u> potential is rather awsome to say the leaste!

A 45 has a muzzle.
A 9mm has a bullet vent.

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The only time you have too much fuel is when you're on fire.

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with that said if you have a few hundred billion to throw away I am sure stress will build you a space plane, and figure out a cost over run or two lol <img src=newicons/anim_lol.gif border=0 align=middle>

<BLOCKQUOTE id=quote><font size=1 face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id=quote>quote:<hr height=1 noshade id=quote>Won't the exhaust plumes from the carrier aircraft and the orbiting vehicle be visible to an IR satellite too, especially those "aerospike" engines mentioned in the article? Is there any nation other than the US that has launch detection capability anyway? I am still a fan of ballistic missiles for surprise. Even if you do detect them during boost, it is a difficult problem to intercept them. <hr height=1 noshade id=quote></BLOCKQUOTE id=quote></font id=quote><font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" size=2 id=quote>

In the US they only have to monitor the Cape and Vandenburg. Do we launch Sats out of anywhere else? I dont recall.
I would like to have conventional ICBMs but I think they might suck at recon lol, again once they are launched, they can be tracked to where they are going and where they came from. KH's can be nudged here and there a bit, but without on orbit refueling it's a game of propellant husbandry and how important a pic is in relation to the sats usefull lifetime.
A mothership could fly anywhere in the world, launch a reletively stealthy parasite that could manuever to strike or recon any spot at high Mach within a given radius with almost no reaction time for the target. I dont think it would take a lot of pre-planning to launch a much simpler system than the shuttle. SR-71 took a lot of pre-flighting ( even for the pilots )but we may be well past that need with a newer system.

A 45 has a muzzle.
A 9mm has a bullet vent.

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The only time you have too much fuel is when you're on fire.

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If you can snap pics out the window of your ICBM type system at what, Mach 18-30 or more? ( STS does Mach 18 in some parts of it's regime with windows aplenty ) You shouldent have trouble with Mach 5, the X-15 didnt. We cant build silos in our own country anymore, we sure wont be building them anywhere else lol. You would have to aquire the target, take your pics and transmit them to sattelite before impact of the warhead in some foreign city, county, state, good luck getting approval to do THAT!
I didnt say timing wasnt criticle, I said sattelites were predictable and the target can just be tarped or rolled inside while the sat spends 90 seconds or so in view of the target during it's scheduled overhead time( Groom had/has shelters along taxiways that planes can park under while sats pass overhead, Tacit Blue apparantly made use of these, Have Blue probobly did too).
A Blackstar type system could operate globaly, taking off from Groom Lake taking a circuitious route to the target with the orbiter landing pretty much anywhere there is a long runway where it can be packed up in a C-5 and returned home. The mothership would be in-flight refueled and return to Groom.
As far as squadrons go, I have only heard of three of these ships in existance, so one squadron at one base( supposedly two flying and one CanX). Not so hard to take care of and no longer in operation anyway.
How would your notional system differ from recon sats other than having waaaayy shorter lifetimes?
GlobalHawk is an easy target for an advanced country to detect and defend against. It's great for surveiling punks diddling around in thier garage, but for doing recon in a hostile country it wouldent last long. We dont have control of the skies over any country worth watching for new developements.

A 45 has a muzzle.
A 9mm has a bullet vent.

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The only time you have too much fuel is when you're on fire.

gets me nervous when we talk about launching from undeclared silo complexes. Too much room for mis understanding. You launch a space plane they send an ICBM back before you declare hey we were just gonna take pictures.

<BLOCKQUOTE id=quote><font size=1 face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id=quote>quote:<hr height=1 noshade id=quote>
Google can be a wonderful thing if used:
http://www.aerospaceguide.net/dynasoar.html

A 45 has a muzzle.
A 9mm has a bullet vent.
<hr height=1 noshade id=quote></BLOCKQUOTE id=quote></font id=quote><font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" size=2 id=quote>

it was,,,,

I was hoping there might be more real information from what seems like a rather knowledgeable and informed bunch of people.

But thanks for tjhe google link,,,, can you explain to how to use that though?