Pentagon plans ‘spaceplane’ to reach hotspots fast

The American military is planning a “spaceplane” designed to fly a crack squad of heavily armed marines to trouble spots anywhere in the world within four hours. At a recent secret meeting at the Pentagon, engineers working on the craft, codenamed Hot Eagle, were told to draw up blueprints for a prototype which generals want to have in the air within 11 years.

Pentagon planners have been encouraged by technical breakthroughs from Burt Rutan, chief designer on Sir Richard Branson’s White Knight spaceship, which is due to begin test flights next year and to carry tourists on suborbital journeys from 2010.

www.timesonline.co.uk...

So the United states are planning a space plane to reach a hotspot in 4 hours so they drop a group of marines .. Finally the video games are come true. Drop ships..



[edit on 19-10-2008 by MarkLuitzen]

"At a recent secret meeting at the Pentagon, engineers working on the craft, codenamed Hot Eagle, were told to draw up blueprints for a prototype which generals want to have in the air within 11 years. "
HA! 11 years!
What a load of horse manure!
They already have the technology operating this is just a media release to try and take peoples minds off it.
This means they might tell people about what they have been using for the past 40 years, in 11 years.
The meeting was oh so secret, the press have details what was said?

I'm pretty sure the US has a base within 4 hours of any place on the Globe already. Just use normal planes and save a few billion... Unless there are terrorists that need a whooping on easter island of course, that might justify it...

Why don't they just base Marines all over the world, you know, like they usually do? Team America, world police? And use the Osprey or something to insert troops... just fly it quick and low.

[edit on 19/10/2008 by C0bzz]

This seems odd given that NASA has already built the X-43A. n Why would the military want something within 11 years?? This story really smells fishy to me.

reply to post by WatchNLearn


Because the X-43 is a hypersonic unmanned vehicle, that requires a launching plane and a rocket. It's only a testbed, and will never go farther than that. Not to mention that the X-43 is TINY. Building hypersonic aircraft is much harder than people realize.

Originally posted by WatchNLearn
This seems odd given that NASA has already built the X-43A. n Why would the military want something within 11 years?? This story really smells fishy to me.

Because the X-43A is a 4 metre long test bed, has only flown three times, of which one was a complete failure, a second was operated while the aircraft was still connected to the booster and only the third was a free flight, and lacks any development into a fully viable aircraft at the moment.

Sorry, it takes a lot more than that to go from testbed to fully flying. The F-22 took 15 years between first demo flight and EIS, and that was still using technology of its predecessors (yes, for all its impressiveness, the F-22 is not a revolution, only an evolution) - still think this story is fishy?

Doesn't the Pentagon ALREADY have this technology?

Why do they think we are so dumb to believe they don't?

11 years? more like 11 days.

Worth looking at-

DARPA's Top 10 wicked cool high-tech aviation systems (4/08/08)

I believe DARPA is working on two HCV's-

Falcon - Hypersonic Cruise Vehicle capable of delivering 12,000 pounds of payload at a distance of 9,000 nautical miles from CONUS in less than two hours.

Blackswift - A reusable Hypersonic Cruise Vehicle for intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance, strike or other national need missions.


Small Unit Space Transport and Insertion or SUSTAIN

SUSTAIN is a concept first proposed in 2002 by the United States Marine Corps to deploy Marines via spaceflight to any location on Earth. Project Hot Eagle, launched by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency and the Air Force Research Laboratory, is an investigation into the development and use of suborbital spacecraft to fulfill this vision. Hot Eagle would use a craft based on a design similar to Space Ship One, which could launch a squad on a suborbital trajectory in two stages and deliver them anywhere on two hours notice.

Originally posted by aecreate
Worth looking at-

DARPA's Top 10 wicked cool high-tech aviation systems (4/08/08)

I believe DARPA is working on two HCV's-

Blackswift - A reusable Hypersonic Cruise Vehicle for intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance, strike or other national need missions.

Was cancelled in the last week or so.

Originally posted by star in a jar
Doesn't the Pentagon ALREADY have this technology?

Why do they think we are so dumb to believe they don't?

11 years? more like 11 days.

I disagree - my opinion is they don't have it.

reply to post by RichardPrice


More like it went Black a week ago.

Originally posted by Zaphod58
reply to post by RichardPrice

 

More like it went Black a week ago.

I concur, but of course you know I would...

A rocket spaceship like Hot Eagle can launch a squad in the world, in 2 hours but may be it can evolve to launch a weapon or a satellite in orbit?

Originally posted by Zepherian
I'm pretty sure the US has a base within 4 hours of any place on the Globe already.

That is not always true or a viable route. Immediately after 9/11 when the White House requested what options the DoD had for immediate (rapid) deployment of conventional forces to Afghanistan the Generals were left red faced. This in part helped spawn the new concept of Global Strike. A slew of systems are being developed to provide the US with a (non nuclear/non ballistic) capability of striking any point on Earth within two hours of an order. But that's just placing steel on target, information warfare or ISR. Getting Spec Ops troops there as well in the same time frame would be remarkable.

[edit on 20-10-2008 by WestPoint23]

The point of all of this was spelt out in the USAF Space Command full spectrum dominance and global hegemony - their goal is to maintain an orbiting craft which can drop into the atmosphere and strike anywhere within this time frame (the original time frame in the leaked document was 30 mins) the idea of this is that ballistic missiles can be shot down - due to trajectory analysis etc - these type of craft have much greater chance of strike success.

This is as originally mentioned very old news - and is without doubt already in service - I have seen some pretty spooky landing craft considered to be space platforms (THOR - rods in space) which show platforms landing at AREA 51.

This is definitely a feel the water type release.

Remember the Raptor is almost 20 years old, while the f117 stealth fighter was conceptualised in late 50's.

Technology lag is a SPOOOOKY issue.

reply to post by audas


While I agree that the "black" world may be far ahead in R&D and that there are no doubt some SAP programs in varying stages of development at this time. However such things (those that never go white) are not full scale in service systems, at best technology demonstrators. And inevitably compartmentalization means overlapping of technology. If WWIII broke out tomorrow whatever we have out in the desert will not be on the front lines, at least not immediately. It is not that type of program, as such it's is not a piratical option.


[edit on 20-10-2008 by WestPoint23]

The Pentagon can "plan" away, but they will have extreme difficulty bringing this to fruition.


For instance, how do you actually get your people back down to the ground? A cursory examination of the two methods used in space travel so far.


In a lifting body? (like the space shuttle) Needs a run way to land and gives off a massive thermal signature - what use is a dozen men if the baddies know they are coming/there?

In a capsule using parachutes? Gives off large thermal signature from re-entry and offers minimal control over flight profile. A slow moving capsule is vulnerable to enemy air-defences.



There are good reasons why a helicopter is the favoured insertion tool of special-ops and not parachuting from a B-2.

reply to post by MarkLuitzen


IMO this is a project that is actually worth investing in even if it just provides another starting point for space based transport . As the aircraft has shown technology takes time to come of age and mature . I cant say much more until there is some idea how the troops and other supplies would be landed . Although I do wonder if the craft wouldn't also geared towards a reconnaissance and/or attack role. Reconnaissance wise the craft wouldn't suffer from a predictable orbit . Attack wise the craft could skip countries air space as needed .