Interesting sighting of multiple glowing fast movers off Irish coast

a reply to: JIMC5499

Nope hypersonics are practically impossible. They don't exist. Can't do it. Also, tbcc the future of hyoersonics...if hypersonics was possible...which its not....cause...eight minute material science barrier n stuff.

a reply to: BASSPLYR

so like i was saying if something is TSTO and comes back hypersonic or is a boost glide setup where they can utilize some of the good material science we do have to dance around the time wall.

is that not viable?

and the sr-71's mission i can't remember where it was but Brian Shul was at the stick and he said he was seeing mach numbers that were surprisingly above what was safe and he said it handled like a dream.

i could imagine with some plasma, material and cooling methods there is room for mch 5-6 easy.

not a super high mach number but fast enough

originally posted by: BASSPLYR
a reply to: JIMC5499

Nope hypersonics are practically impossible. They don't exist. Can't do it. Also, tbcc the future of hyoersonics...if hypersonics was possible...which its not....cause...eight minute material science barrier n stuff.

I´m deeply impressed by your fine irony, sir.

As I said a while back the engine might last only 8 hours total so build me a dozen of them each quarter. Black budget money and a couple of other sources no problem.

originally posted by: penroc3
a reply to: BASSPLYR
i could imagine with some plasma, material and cooling methods there is room for mch 5-6 easy.

not a super high mach number but fast enough

very roughly i think

SR-71 - 2200 mph@80k ft - Mach 3.3 - 800 °F at nose tip
?1 - 3400 mph@100k ft - Mach 5 - 2000°F
?2 - 4100 mph@100kk ft - Mach 6 - 3000°F

Shuttle was worse. So slap on some thermal tiles and you could do a lot.

a reply to: mightmight

with active cooling(running cryogenic fuels thru the skin) and using a high power (RF or microwave)transmitter powered with MHD to make an area in front of the aircraft to break most of the bow shock away from the aircraft and on top of it using carbon-carbon tiles on areas that get to hot seems very doable to me

dont know why they said anything about fusion on this


Russian ideas

a reply to: penroc3
Well I doubt the usual supects have a usable true SSTO system utilizing Magnetohydrodynamics or whatever.
TSTOs maybe, BoostGlide vehicles probably, a handful of fastmovers up to say Mach 6.5 certainly and the TBCC demo to tackle hypersonics.
There is really nothing preventing you to go faster than the 71 on 80s tech. Just not too fast. But operationally, a say Mach 5 or 6 aircraft is perfectly fine. And if you have to go faster, powered hypersonic flight is not necessary at all. BoostGlide is the smarter solution with speeds in excess of Mach 20.
And that was only the 1960s and the CIA just gave up on Rheinberry an never ever touched high speed recon again after the A-12s went away.

a reply to: mightmight

see my other comments, i said a low mach number of 5 or 6. and tsto.

only the AF slide talks about a high mach number.

the russian Ajax is an air breather and i think whatever these people saw is an air breather as well(seeing as it was in the air).

the SR-71 was able to go surprisingly faster then the published speeds and that fact has even been dropped a few times if you listen carefully to the men who flew it.

what about COPPERCOAST, ISINGLASS(EDIT:saw you included that, sorry) and the ARCHANGEL/FISH(pre sr71) are programs that we know about that have high mach numbers ?

the powers that be wouldn't retire the A12 unless there was something to fill the gap, and i know people say well satellites but the thing with an aircraft is that it's not on a schedule. I would fire the JCoS if they let them retire the blackbird with no viable replacement.

there is something I 'believe' to be a TSTO platform that people have seen(myself included) that looks like a yellow/orange ball at EXTREME altitude that has a very distinctive way of moving that makes its IMPOSSIBLE for me to believe that there isnt a system already in play. I have only seen it two times and it covered the the 75% of the sky in seconds and because its not a regular sight means it went up and came back down at the bare minimum TWICE.


if you can get to space mach numbers don't really mean much anymore.

originally posted by: penroc3
a reply to: mightmight

see my other comments, i said a low mach number of 5 or 6. and tsto.

only the AF slide talks about a high mach number.

Sure, i was just refering to the slides. Instead 'Neutronic Fusion power and rocket Propulsion from Mach 14 to orbit' they could also have written 'the magic happens in this box there'.

Anyway, as i understood it the J58s on the 71 had no problem to accelerate beyond Mach 3.3. But the aircraft wasn’t built for the kind of aerodynamic heating that would entail. See my previous post, even a modest speed increase results in much higher temperatures. So the Libya story from Shul and stuff like that is totally believable in my mind.
About those TSTOs. I have no problem whatsoever believing in the existence of a boostglide vehicle on the lines of Isinglass/Rheinberry. In fact I do believe at least such a two stage system does exist for a couple of reasons.

I’m more sceptic when it comes to a true TSTO capable of reaching low earth orbit on 80s tech.

Mainly because:
The crafts or corresponding satellites were never detected in LEO by amateur satellite watchers. Sure, LEO orbits tend to decay over time but someone should have seen something at some point.

Nobody else looked into this. I understand why the system itself is classified, but why is everyone wasting money to come up with solutions for LEO access if TSTOs on 80s tech work? Why is the X-37 a thing, why the XS-1? And so on. Why are the Chinese working on a Hypersonic TSTO when you could do it on an 80s turboramjet / rocket combo?

Where are those vehicles stationed? We are looking at gross weights up to 2 million lb for the mothership and the orbiter. Sure, you can go much smaller, 1 million lb is more realistic. That’s about double the weight of an XB-70. Not many clandestine hangars around to house and service a system like that. Let alone more than one.
IF those study gross weights would pan out in reality of course. Which more often than not do not.

Another question would be why. What do to with a Two Stage System and a (crewed) return vehicle?
You don’t have to go to LEO to recon. Any *more modest* boostglide vehicle can do that, manned or unmanned. Unless you believe in the existence of a super secret space station or some similar bs, there is really no reason for the military to want a capability for manned LEO access independent of existent launch systems.

And if you want to launch satellites and a wartime quick turnaround capability for that an expendable upper stage booster would be much, much easier solution to deploy replacement satellites. Think Pegasus rocket on a Valkyrie. Deploying them by a (crewed) return vehicle just decreased your payload to almost nothing.
I’m sure you could come up with some scifi stuff like satellite maintenance or satellite by astronauts or crewed satellite interceptors or something, but there are much, much simpler solutions to do that too.

a reply to: mightmight

As for people seeing them, they have but call ufo's or shooting stars. The thing i saw made a stepping motion across the sky, almost like walking up stairs very very quickly and covered a good 70-75% of the sky in seconds.

where are they flown out of? well thats a good question, there could be long run ways anywhere. you could put you base way out in the ocean away from prying eyes and you could land at the more run of the mill secret bases as long as you could bleed the speed off.


the flight profile of what i saw was very strange, it might have been a BGV seen from a strange angle. the steeping motion i saw might be it dipping and climbing? but it seemed like rather abrupt changes and not the smooth motion i picture in my head.

There are a few uses i can imagine as what you would use it for 1. very very important recon and more doubtfully a strike, 2. messing with other people's assets in space and intercepting/inputting data 3. assisting our own assets(fuel,adjustments and repair) and god knows what else is up there, something like MOL but stealthy. The MISTY sat has all sorts of active and passive countermeasures. something like we're talking about im sure isnt flown on a ton of missions and that also means very very few people see them.



as far as replacing sats and quick launch and turnarounds i agree with you on you points. I dont think a system like this would be used for that. there are minutemen in silos right now with emergency communication sats to replace others taken out, at least there were during the cold war.

originally posted by: penroc3
a reply to: mightmight

As for people seeing them, they have but call ufo's or shooting stars. The thing i saw made a stepping motion across the sky, almost like walking up stairs very very quickly and covered a good 70-75% of the sky in seconds.

Sure but thats just ascent or return.
Orbiting satellites usually dont get confused with shooting stars by amateur satellite observers. There are only so many pole orbits. There should be more - any - reports on the lines of 'saw something, where the hell did it come from'.

As from where do you fly it - not really from anywhere if you want o do a polar orbit and dont go over inhabited areas. Runway isnt an issue, big enough hangars to service, maintain and mate the system. And get what ever juice they run on there.
To be clear, a fully fledged return vehicle means we're talking shuttle like refurbishment requirements. You dont do that in the middle of the ocean.

There are a few uses i can imagine as what you would use it for 1. very very important recon and more doubtfully a strike, 2. messing with other people's assets in space and intercepting/inputting data 3. assisting our own assets(fuel,adjustments and repair) and god knows what else is up there, something like MOL but stealthy. The MISTY sat has all sorts of active and passive countermeasures. something like we're talking about im sure isnt flown on a ton of missions and that also means very very few people see them.

Orbital bombardement from LEO is overrated. About the same effect as your average Mk84. Sure, you could strike anywhere. But you don’t need a manned return vehicle for that. Even if you don’t want to station those weapons in space, you would just use a expendable upper stage to get the weapon system into orbit in a crisis situation.

Recon, again, why bother with a crewed return manned to LEO. Manned or unmanned boost glide vehicle just fine. Why bother with a dedicated 1million lb booster if you could do it on a B-52 if you had to. Or if you really want to go to LEO, deploy satellites with expandable upper stages. That’s much cheaper than launching you recon vehicle every other Tuesday.

SIGINT Interception in space is being done by satellites ion parallel orbits. You don’t need an astronaut to provide physical access due to that. Maintenance may be a factor but we are talking about a ultra niche capability here. How big are the odds that a LEO satellite breaks down in such a way its economically feasible to get an astronaut up there to repair it? Not much id say.
Most US military satellites are in orbits unreachable with a TSTO LEO skipper anyway. As are those from the other side.