Tommygun

The US Air Force wants a practical space plane in the future. A cost effective way to do that is to test and fly small prototypes. NASA had one it didn't want anymore, so the Air Force gets to practice on this one. What they learn from it, they can use to design a better space plane. They also get to develop the daily procedures needed to run a space plane fleet. The payload bay is just a bonus. I think people want to believe it's used for some high tech spycraft because it is more exciting than a two year old sun bleached plastics experiment.

Sorry you're right, my dyslexia causes my visual memory to do weird word substitutions.

To be more specific; if there were no magnetic field, then would too much radiation destroy the ozone? In other words do you need to have the magnetic field to get a decent stable build up of ozone and could that then be used as an indicator of a possible magnetic field? Or does higher radiation cause higher amounts of ozone.

They are using H2O2 (hydrazine) with Jp-8 jet fuel in orbit. Pure hydrazine will burn eyes, lungs and skin with just its fumes. At higher levels it will cause your clothes and skin to combust. I think they forgot where they parked it.

Would finding a certain amount of ozone be a good indicator of a magnetic field?

.....MechNasa?

Yes, but if we could detect all those items on one planet, that would be very exciting.

Well if it's good enough data to tell us if the planet has water vapor, methane and other organic compounds in its atmosphere, that alone would be big. It doesn't mean there is life there, but its a good place to start looking. If it also has industrial like pollutants and small amount of radiation in the air that may suggest a civilization. But that all depends at how good our sensing equipment ever gets to be and if it can ever be that good.

Can a plant survive at 21 kPa without the low pressure dehydrating it? I know they can compensate some with plant hormones. I was thinking about that too, if they have the power for it.

I just noticed in that previous photo that its engine isn't on the craft's center line.

While the padded walls of the Voskhod are tempting, I would have to go with the 7K, as I believe it has more cargo straps to keep me tied to the walls after day 10.

So if I understand this right, if I eat a potato chip in chemistry class that had one gram of lead on it, I would have 0.00482625482625 moles of lead in me?

This is interesting and strange at the same time. NASA has been doing greenhouse experiments for a long time, but I have never heard of this problem. I remember Biosphere 2 problems with too little oxygen due to several causes, but nothing like this.

I think they are trying to compete with the Seven Minutes of Terror video.....Seven Hours of Anxious Waiting.

Landed about 9:30 AM local time, I didn't hear the sonic boom though.

I don't know if this helps to visualize it:

Well the starting transfer orbit for the IRNSS-1b and I assume for the IRNSS-1c as well wasn't a circle but an elliptical orbit. It was then boosted up to GSO over time and several elliptical orbits. So you are trying to get the timing right with smaller elliptical orbits to match up to a specific place on a larger circular one. http://www.spaceflight101.com/pslv-c24-launch-updates-irnss-1b.html

They are working on them. Bofors HPM Blackout: https://r3zn8d.files.wordpress.com/2012/02/bae_pdf_bofors_hpm_blackout.pdf http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpl/articleDetails.jsp?arnumber=5386327 There are also devices that work on ultra low frequency infrared lasers that destroy electronics. I don't know how good ether of these things are at long ranges.

What's the big deal, Anime is just a cartoon.

I think about the time VentureStar was being developed, there where several paper proposals about the possibility of a military SSTO space plane or simpler capsule like drop pod to deliver commandos to remote areas around the world. At the time (about 10 to 15 years ago) I saw a retired US Army general with special forces experience interviewed about what he thought about these ideas. I'm paraphrasing because I can't remember the exact quote after all this time, but he said these vehicles have the real potential to send a group of highly trained professionals anywhere on the planet in 45 minutes and strand them without any hope of extraction, fire support or resupply.

Have they said anything on how accurate it will be? I was wondering if seven satellites total are good enough for street navigation systems. They don't have to cover the whole globe, but it seems it might be hard to keep two or three satellites in view at any given time. Well maybe if they are high enough.

I would imagine trying to grapple and place an unwilling satellite into the shuttle's cargo bay while the satellite is firing its rcs thrusters and gyros could get ugly very quickly.

The x37 isn't a stealth aircraft and can't get near another satellite without being detected by another country. At the moment there is probably nothing the x37 can do that can't be done better and cheaper by a satellite. Someday I think that will change as the technology gets better and this is what the x37 is really doing. It may have a secondary role up there, but I would guess that secondary role if any, is an afterthought of what to do with its cargo bay. What's in that cargo bay may be just a mundane materials study test on long term exposure to space.

This is my Boom stick. There are many like it, but this one is mine..........

....or it could be a testbed to develop technologies and procedures that will be needed to eventually make and daily operate a practical, affordable and reliable space plane.