Is it possible that the Dyna Soar X-20 is part of USAF Space Operations

Originally posted by northwolf
It's possible that few amout of orbital ops could go unnoticed, but continous operations would sooner than later show up somewhere.. Lets say that test flight may have been done, anything other is highly unlikely. USA is not the onlyone with super-hightech sigint sytems knowhow

Oh sure but that doesn't mean we couldn't develop certain technological advantages. For example I don't believe any other nation has invested heavily in stealth technology. Just look at the US defense budget compared to the rest of the world. Alot of that goes to R&D. And the US military black budget is estimated at $30 billion a year. It cost $25 billion stretched over ten years to get us to the moon. I think there is more than enough cash to develop an sub-orbital or even a orbital space plane. And like what was mentioned before even if another nation knew of such a crafts existence what makes you believe they would reveal it. If it were the Russians I think the first question the Russian people will ask is what do we have?

Originally posted by jra
Rocket launches aren't exactly subtle. I think it would have been noticed if it were in use. Classified cargo is one thing, but to have a space plane launched in secret would be rather difficult, if not impossible in my opinion.

Although the DynaSoar utilized a conventional rocket booster in its launch cycle, there is NO reason to believe that a conventional rocket booster, with its high observitability, is the Only method available.

Advances in aeronautics, materials and electronics may very well have made a low-observable "spaceplane" a possibility. High altitude launches, from a larger "mothership" aircraft, a la SpaceShip One/White Knight (or even earlier: X-15/B-52 launches) would be significantly aided by such advances, and might be quite routine by now. Such launches would have the added advantages of being "unpredictable" by rival/opposition forces and be significantly harder to detect.

Another possibility, although a bit more far-fetched, would be to launch a vehicle from an extremely high-flying balloon: the rockoon concept developed in the 50's-60's.

Although technologically more challenging than a conventional aircraft launch, the rockoon system would allow a very small recon-type spaceplane to be lofted, almost on demand. The vehicle could be launched into orbit from an extremely high altitude (80-120+KFT) using considerably less fuel for orbital insertion than other methods (less "plume-time" to be detected), and thus be able to reserve more fuel to slow the craft for de-orbit.

A slow de-orbit means little or no firey vapor trail to track the craft on re-entry.

As to operational security, all the ground crew would know is that they are sending up a big balloon with an experimental high-altitude vehicle for "drop tests" or aerodynamic flight tests or some other euphanism.

Not much glory in talking about launching friggin' weather balloons! Might even encourage them to keep silent just to avoid the ridicule.

This tech may not be so secret for much longer. A program known as RASCAL all though recently cancelled seems to be a concept that fits some of the possible technological characteristics of a space plane.

RASCAL

RASCAL's critical technology dates from the 50's.

Originally posted by Bhadhidar
Although the DynaSoar utilized a conventional rocket booster in its launch cycle, there is NO reason to believe that a conventional rocket booster, with its high observitability, is the Only method available.

In Theory, you could use standard Aerodynamic lift to carry the craft to >100'000 Feet, at which point the air becomes to thin to support aerodynamic lift. At that point you should be able to accelerate to orbital speeds.

While I don't know for sure if it's been tried, I know NASA looked into the idea years back in the Cancelled X-30 National Aerospace Plane Program!

Wikipedia: X-30

Tim