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A comment on US military's mysterious X-37B space plane zooms toward orbital record. Parent comment

Re:US military's mysterious X-37B space plane zooms toward o... by sandworm101 on Tuesday June 28, 2022 @08:02PM (#31914736)
The actual weapon issue came from the wings. They were far too big. They were designed for a massive cross-range, such as a single surprise overflight then return to the launch center rather than risk overflying the target twice. That looked very much like a weapons delivery profile.

The cargo retrieval potential was also suspect. Nukes are the one thing that could never be de-orbited into the atmosphere. Shuttle looked like something that could enable nuke weaponry in orbit.

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Re:US military's mysterious X-37B space plane zooms toward o... by smalley on Tuesday June 28, 2022 @08:31PM (#31914988)
I mean isn't the B in ICBM for ballistic reentry, that's probably about as fast a deorbit from the height of the space station as you would get?
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Re:US military's mysterious X-37B space plane zooms toward o... by dotancohen on Wednesday June 29, 2022 @02:14AM (#31917036)
Actually, intercontinental suborbital trajectories get even higher than the space station. The space station is only 400 km up.

Newer ICBMs are actually orbital, so they don't have to go so high and thus be visible over the horizon to radar. But they obviously deorbit after less than half an orbit. It also enables them to get to the target in much, much less time.

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Re:US military's mysterious X-37B space plane zooms toward o... by sandworm101 on Tuesday June 28, 2022 @08:51PM (#31915146)
A nuke warhead can certainly be made to survive reentry, but that isn't the same as safely bringing one back for maintenance.
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Re:US military's mysterious X-37B space plane zooms toward o... by Symmetry on Tuesday June 28, 2022 @08:22PM (#31914896)
In particular, the Space Shuttle looked like it could nuke Moscow from the south where there weren't any early warning radars pointed.
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Re:US military's mysterious X-37B space plane zooms toward o... by nradov on Tuesday June 28, 2022 @09:51PM (#31915537)
The cross range capability was supposedly also intended for military reconnaissance missions. Back then film cameras were still used. So they wanted to be able to launch from California into a polar orbit, make a single pass over the USSR, and land back at the launch site for immediate film processing. Of course they never actually flew such a mission.
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