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A comment on Secretive military spaceplane lands in Florida after record-long orbital flight. Parent comment

Re:Secretive military spaceplane lands in Florida after reco... by souprock on Monday October 28, 2019 @06:16PM (#21382317)
At best they could have skidded it down the runway, because opening the landing gear doors was purposely impossible without human intervention.
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Re:Secretive military spaceplane lands in Florida after reco... by Simon_says on Monday October 28, 2019 @08:34PM (#21383261)
Why?
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Re:Secretive military spaceplane lands in Florida after reco... by souprock on Monday October 28, 2019 @09:14PM (#21383445)
It would be quite deadly if they opened early. There was no need for automation.

Some time after the second wreak, NASA added the ability to run a cable for that. The idea was that a rescue mission would be launched, and the cable would be installed in the abandoned shuttle to allow a landing attempt.

BTW, the first mission was flown manually. I don't think the landing software could have been written without data from the first flight.

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Re:Secretive military spaceplane lands in Florida after reco... by NotSammyHagar on Wednesday October 30, 2019 @12:23AM (#21394688)
They could have installed remote control landing gear if they ever needed it.
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