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Zuma Discussion


Racescort666

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Spoiler
22 hours ago, monstah said:

Yeah, but, wouldn't blasting Earth with radio waves from above be the opposite of stealth?

The waves were stealth, too.
They are Z-waves, after Zuma.

16 hours ago, DDE said:

anti-nuke people

The an-nihilists

 

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https://arstechnica.com/science/2018/01/spacex-gets-good-news-from-the-air-force-on-the-zuma-mission/?amp=1

"Based on the data available, our team did not identify any information that would change SpaceX's Falcon 9 certification status," Lieutenant General John Thompson, commander of the Space and Missile Systems Center, US Air Force.

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13 minutes ago, Green Baron said:

Well, at least the military men are honest.

I am a complete idiot, but isn't there a wide span between Lieutenant and General ?

Wesa make you bombad general !

In regards to your question regarding Air Force rank:

https://www.federalpay.org/military/air-force/ranks

Lieutenant General is an 0-9 rank whereas General is 0-10 or 1 rank higher in the Air Force.

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49 minutes ago, Ignath said:

In regards to your question regarding Air Force rank:

https://www.federalpay.org/military/air-force/ranks

Lieutenant General is an 0-9 rank whereas General is 0-10 or 1 rank higher in the Air Force.

And its the second highest rank in practice, as 5 star has not been used so its pretty much as high as you can get, either space command or second in command for it.
 

 

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Spoiler

They should add Corporal General below (Sergeant) Major General and Major General General above Colonel General.

But back to Zuma.

Spoiler

Maybe it's just a spinner yo-yo on a rubber band, and they just are not sure if it is at the moment in orbit, below orbit or above orbit?

 

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I was thinking about Zuma.  Stuff I was thinking:

I think that it was probably a test vehicle that was designed to move around a lot.  That's probably why you wont find it on stuffin.space

Probably re-entered right?

Then I started to think about why you would want to launch stuff in a rocket that re-enters (besides a bomb), and I was thinking about how it would be a pretty cool way to quickly put a surveillance drone somewhere _real far_real quick_.

Something like this: (that goes to space)

This is all just pure conjecture of course.

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9 hours ago, MrChumley said:

Then I started to think about why you would want to launch stuff in a rocket that re-enters (besides a bomb), and I was thinking about how it would be a pretty cool way to quickly put a surveillance drone somewhere _real far_real quick_.

That's silly. Similar suggestions have been made for X-37B, which are also silly.

Even in the most responsive scenario, it takes weeks to charter a rocket, integrate the payload, and prepare it to launch, and the wait for a good launch window for the mission. Unless you stockpile ready-to-fly 50 million dollar rockets prepackaged with a 4 million dollar drone next to the launch site, in which case it will take only several days, but it will cost you a lot in unused inventory for no operational advantage.

It's still faster to simply fly your drone to where it needs to be, and of course, in real-life, military conflicts take months or years of escalation, so the military has plenty of time pre-stage equipment to bases and aircraft carriers all-around the world.

Edited by Nibb31
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18 minutes ago, Nibb31 said:

Unless you stockpile ready-to-fly 50 million dollar rockets prepackaged with a 4 million dollar drone next to the launch site, in which case it will take only several days, but it will cost you a lot in unused inventory for no operational advantage.

Maybe this is the test flight ? Ofc later it's just slapped on a icb-missile or some sort.

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1 hour ago, Nibb31 said:

weeks to charter a rocket

 

Well, it takes weeks to charter a Space X rocket.  Given.  But the payload could be slapped on top another type of rocket that can be launched at a moments notice (Such as a LGM-30 Miniuteman).  Those are quite expensive to launch compared to a "chartered" Space X flight.  Would make sense to run tests this way. 

I ask you to be respectful of my ideas please.  Calling them silly does nothing to progress the conversation in a positive manner.

Anyways, according to this article http://www.spacedaily.com/reports/US_Air_Force_set_to_replace_intercontinental_nuke_arsenal_999.html

Quote

Over the next 20 years, the US Air Force will switch out the entirety of its Minuteman III fleet with an as-yet-unnamed new missile known only as the Ground Based Strategic Deterrent (GBSD).

It seems to me that it wouldn't be too far flung to think that they may be looking into putting the disarmed missiles to other use.  They'd have to "clear the pipes" anyways, and one button press is cheaper (more convenient, and probably safer) than the operations necessary to extract it manually and cart it off to be scuttled or (worst case scenario) redeployed somewhere else.  It might give them justification to launch the things off too.  

Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman and Boeing are competing for the contract.

Edited by MrChumley
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I’m sure there are others on this forum which will disagree but for rapid deployment of satellites, air launch to orbit is the fastest. The military and DARPA have been looking into this for a long time. Pegasus is currently the only operational vehicle and its viability as a rapid response launch system is somewhat questionable. I suppose if the Air Force has spacecraft already mounted to Pegasus rockets and some L-1011s sitting around, they could get a bird in the air pretty quickly. 

The thing is though, this would only be a temporary solution and likely only as a response to an attack on a satellite. It would be a stop-gap to cover whatever lost capability. And whether such a system exists is purely speculative. 

Anyway, it’s doubtful that this is what Zuma is/was and rapid response is really best for air launch which is arguably the best use of air launch.

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4 hours ago, MrChumley said:

Well, it takes weeks to charter a Space X rocket.  Given.  But the payload could be slapped on top another type of rocket that can be launched at a moments notice (Such as a LGM-30 Miniuteman).  Those are quite expensive to launch compared to a "chartered" Space X flight.  Would make sense to run tests this way. 

They why use a 50 million dollar orbital launch to test a suborbital reentry vehicle ?

The only reason to use an orbital launch vehicle is to reach orbit.

4 hours ago, MrChumley said:

I ask you to be respectful of my ideas please.  Calling them silly does nothing to progress the conversation in a positive manner.

It's still a silly idea but don't feel bad about it, because you're not the first one to have had it. It's silly because it has no operational purpose. The US has allied bases pretty much everywhere around the globe from with they can launch drones and conflicts that would require reconnaissance drones don't spring out of nowhere in a matter of hours.

Launching an ICBM over enemy territory for a recon mission is hardly stealthy. It will set off all sorts of countermeasures and retaliation strikes and it's probably the best way to excalate into a nuclear exchange. Talk about counter-productive.

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3 hours ago, Nibb31 said:

They why use a 50 million dollar orbital launch to test a suborbital reentry vehicle ?

The only reason to use an orbital launch vehicle is to reach orbit.

50 million is small compared to the >= $ billions-worth contract if any.

And also, no, no it isn't.

3 hours ago, Nibb31 said:

It's silly because it has no operational purpose. The US has allied bases pretty much everywhere around the globe from with they can launch drones and conflicts that would require reconnaissance drones don't spring out of nowhere in a matter of hours.

This, on the other hand, is why it's not too likely.

But it doesn't preclude any form of test.

 

tl;dr it's still inconclusive.

Edited by YNM
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50 million is chump change to the Pentagon. They have several hundred billion to work with. That’s on the order of 0.01% of their budget. That’s an amount of money I don’t even think about when spending, personally 0.01% of our annual income. Wouldn’t notice it if it fell out of my wallet.

Not saying they did such a test, just saying the monetary argument is not the strongest con.

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28 minutes ago, PakledHostage said:

You do realise, though, that your own links indicate that both missions made two orbits (and hence reached orbit)?

This, one of my mission ideas was an test of an new ICBM warhead, it might be one who can maneuver in atmosphere who let you use an non nuclear payload. Missions would be target of opportunity rapid strike or an  3 meter long  rod penetrator at orbital speed, however as it did an orbit this is unlikely, unless it dropped payload before orbital speed, then burned for orbital speed did an orbit and deorbited to confuse people. 
This however would add complexity and think IR spotting satellites would spotted the warhead deorbiting anyway and its always focus on secret launches. 

So most likely now is some sort of stealth satellite.

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9 hours ago, Racescort666 said:

I’m sure there are others on this forum which will disagree but for rapid deployment of satellites, air launch to orbit is the fastest. The military and DARPA have been looking into this for a long time. Pegasus is currently the only operational vehicle and its viability as a rapid response launch system is somewhat questionable. I suppose if the Air Force has spacecraft already mounted to Pegasus rockets and some L-1011s sitting around, they could get a bird in the air pretty quickly. 

The thing is though, this would only be a temporary solution and likely only as a response to an attack on a satellite. It would be a stop-gap to cover whatever lost capability. And whether such a system exists is purely speculative. 

Anyway, it’s doubtful that this is what Zuma is/was and rapid response is really best for air launch which is arguably the best use of air launch.

I would disagree: in terms of speed there's no material difference between using a Pegasus and a Strela, the latter being the converted Topol used at Svobodny.

I don't think stop-gap response is the only purpose. Fixed orbits have long been an impediment of spysats, which is why SR-72 is/will be a thing. Having the ability to spam microsats whenever you need that specific orbit for that specific operations seems to have been long in the works.

It's also interesting to note that this pesky thing showed up with the fall of the Soviet Union.

102549_original.jpg

Why limit yourself to a specialist platform? In this case you'd actually be looking at further development of the MiG-31D, which was designed for the 79M6 Kotakt ASAT. It's still different enough from a regular Winged Ivan for it to be a problem... so, how long is the bomb bay on the B-1 Lancer?

Spoiler

b1-b-lancer-bomb-bay-turret-29658570.jpg

Not terribly. Well, that's quite unfortunate - although merely palletizing the booster for use on a C-130 or C-17 is quite plausible.

https://youtu.be/H8d21iOowjo?t=732

12 hours ago, YNM said:

Maybe this is the test flight ? Ofc later it's just slapped on a icb-missile or some sort.

Then why use an upper medium class vehicle for it? That's stupendous overkill. The payload would be 80% concrete ballast.

12 hours ago, MrChumley said:

It seems to me that it wouldn't be too far flung to think that they may be looking into putting the disarmed missiles to other use.  They'd have to "clear the pipes" anyways, and one button press is cheaper (more convenient, and probably safer) than the operations necessary to extract it manually and cart it off to be scuttled or (worst case scenario) redeployed somewhere else.  It might give them justification to launch the things off too.  

Well, they have two options.

You have the Soviet method of either controlled disposal or conversion to orbital launchers.

And then you have the Trident variant of the Prompt Global Strike. Which is humanity-wide suicide because it's impossible to distinguish conventional and nuclear ICBMs.

22 hours ago, MrChumley said:

That's probably why you wont find it on stuffin.space

Or maybe NORAD wouldn't publish TLE data for it. It's not a reality detector.

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5 hours ago, PakledHostage said:

You do realise, though, that your own links indicate that both missions made two orbits (and hence reached orbit)?

With upper stage attached. Two orbits isn't really orbits, esp. when the orbit "continually change" (as was the case with EFT-1).

2 hours ago, DDE said:

Then why use an upper medium class vehicle for it? That's stupendous overkill. The payload would be 80% concrete ballast.

Yeah, it's not too logical tbh. Yet.

As I said, doesn't preclude everthing for being possible/impossible.

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1 hour ago, YNM said:

With upper stage attached. Two orbits isn't really orbits, esp. when the orbit "continually change" (as was the case with EFT-1).

Yuri Gargarin (and the rest of the world) were satisfied with just one back in 1961... For what that's worth.

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15 minutes ago, PakledHostage said:

Yuri Gargarin (and the rest of the world) were satisfied with just one back in 1961... For what that's worth.

Yeah, was thinking such.

But I'm sure that there are some more mission where the payload is suborbital. Usually it's capsule testing. DARPA's HTV also tested on minotaur, though indeed it's a bit too small.

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