Sunday, March 6, 2011

X-37B So what's it for?


This was the second mission of the Air Forces' space plane but no indication as to what the Air Force plans to do with it. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out what their plans for this thing are. First is establishing a space platform from which to operate. The beauty of the plan is that since this is all robotic it won't require a pilot and all the expensive training and life support. Second what a perfect way to knock out an adversaries satellites and cheaply too. This does however I believe violate some long standing agreements of not turning space into a battle ground. But have little things like international law and treaties stood in our way before? Of course not! Laws? We don't need no stinking laws!
With a little more research I'm just about sure I could give you a line up of this things' capabilities. Lasers have come a long way in the last 20 years.

And yes with a little bit of research I believe I've found their little secret:
Mobile Tactical High Energy Laser (MTHEL). The original fixed location design eliminates most weight, size and power restrictions, but is not compatible with the fluid, mobile nature of modern combat. The initial MTHEL goal was a mobile version the size of three large semi trailers. Ideally it would be further downsized to a single semi trailer size. However, doing this while maintaining the original performance characteristics is difficult. Furthermore, the Israeli government, which had been providing significant funding, decreased their financial support in 2004, postponing the IOC date to at least 2010.

I'm sure the money to continue the project turned up somewhere. After all exactly where did those billions in Iraq go when they went unaccounted for at the start of the war? Funny too how we can spend billions for weapon systems to kill people but we must cut out health care and housing for the poor.

And why would our military pursue such an endeavor? Because every boy in this country just loved growing up with Star Trec. They had the coolest weapon systems. Now if they'd just be so kind as to beam me to another planet so I wouldn't have to get caught in their cross fire...

6 comments:

The Blog Fodder said...

Scary stuff once they get up there. We are so dependent now on satellite communication that taking out the satellites would shut down the world. I am glad the Chinese are also developing anti-satellite technology and wish the Russians could too.
Knock out the high tech and the foot soldiers stand a more even chance.
I keep hoping Iran gets nuclear weapons too. A few more nutbars with nucs kind of evens the odds.

BBC said...

We don't need no stinking laws!

I don't but everyone else does. :-)

We're jealous cuz we don't have all that cool shit too blow stuff up with so we can stop all this bullshit.

Oh hell, the monkeys will fight until there are no more monkeys.

MRMacrum said...

I keep wondering when our supposed God is going to intervene. Seems we get crazier by the minute.

Anonymous said...

"...and charlie stole the handle and the train she won't slow down...."

S.W. Anderson said...

Maybe the space plane is intended to be a platform for laser weapons, but from what you dug up a lot more development is necessary. The plane, as described in our local paper, is quite small. Way too small to hold something that requires a large semi-trailer, much less three of them.

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