Hoot Gibson!? :-)
Posted on 12/12/2009 11:28:58 PM PST by ErnstStavroBlofeld
The giant gold and silver satellite glittered against the black sky as space shuttle Atlantis closed in on it from below. Commander Hoot Gibson and pilot Guy Gardner flew the approach, while mission specialist Mike Mullane, at the other end of the flight deck, readied the shuttle’s robot arm for a capture. Downstairs in the airlock, mission specialists Jerry Ross and Bill Shepherd waited in their spacesuits for Gibson’s order to go outside and attempt a rescue.
The mission of STS-27 had been to deploy the first in a series of new spy satellites that used radar to observe ground targets, in any kind of weather, day or night. But shortly after the astronauts released the spacecraft, called ONYX, from the shuttle’s cargo bay, on December 2, 1988, one of its antenna dishes had failed to open. Without intervention by the crew, the billion-dollar satellite would become a hunk of space junk. As it turned out, they succeeded in grabbing, fixing, and re-releasing ONYX, for which they later received a medal from the U.S. intelligence community.
At least that’s one possible scenario for what happened. The astronauts may just as well have fixed the satellite without a spacewalk by Ross and Shepherd. We don’t know because not a word of the ONYX rescue was reported in newspapers or on television. Why not?
Because STS-27 was—and remains—a secret mission.
Between 1982 and 1992, NASA launched 11 shuttle flights with classified payloads, honoring a deal that dated to 1969, when the National Reconnaissance Office—an organization so secret its name could not be published at the time—requested certain changes to the design of NASA’s new space transportation system.
(Excerpt) Read more at airspacemag.com ...
Every country has a strategic interest in aerospace. China’s space program is formally controlled by their army. Space is the next frontier for the next war. Too bad we are neglecting our programs in this regard.
I agree
Space is the ultimate high ground of the battlefield.
Ping
I disagree. The only that gets built for space are satellites and land based missiles can take them all down
Not if those satellites are armed with missiles and lasers.
A proposed Russian Laser Satellite battery
as if a satellite can withstand unlimited number of missiles and unlimited number of different means from lasers to jamming
If you have a constellation of satellites it will defeat incoming missiles
waste of money and pointless. Its like the French Maginot Line
No it is not. Space satellite systems with lasers will render all missile attacks obsolete. That is the purpose of National Missile Defense.
You're right - shooting down satellites is so easy and straighforward that Saddam Hussein did it in his historic wins over allied forces in 1991 and 2003.
Not if they are armed to defend themselves from such attack.
WELL SAID. It is hard to believe how many intelligent people fail to grasp the truth of what you wrote.
The nation that dominates in space this century will dominate the world. American military should put a premium, as in top priority, on attaining and maintaining superiority in space technology.
SOS... Wouldn’t firing a missile from a satellite result in the satellite moving in the opposite direction and losing its normal orbit? ....I’ll vote for the lasers.
Only if you didn’t open the back door, too.
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