Secret Space Shuttles

Air & Space Magazine ^ | 8/01/2009 | By Michael Cassutt

[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honoring a deal that dated to 1969, when the National Reconnaissance Office—an organization so secret its name could not be published at the time—requested certain changes to the design of NASA’s new space transportation system.

[Myrddin]

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.

You can gently release the missile and light off the propulsion system on the missile after it is safely clear of the satellite. The satellite is going to have station keeping gyros and small scale propulsion to permit it to correct it's position over time.

[ErnstStavroBlofeld]

That is why you have hydrazine manuvering thrusters.

[ErnstStavroBlofeld]

I agree

[ASA Vet]

MI Ping

[ASA Vet]

It is hard to believe how many intelligent people fail to grasp the truth

The unintelligent too, several examples have posted on this thread already.

[ffusco]

The Maginot line was not useless, it did force the enemy to use Belgium as a way into France. Every hard defensive line has a weak spot.

[Born to Conserve]

“Panama Theory”
Having to do with the strategic value of the Lagrangian points.
All worked out in the late 50’s/early 60’s.

[anymouse]

There was a time that good men tried to defend this country with lasers from space. They helped win the Cold War, only for the current crop of losers in Washington to give up without even a whimper. Had we followed their lead further, we would have regular inexpensive access to anywhere in space along with the ability to defend the country from nuclear missiles.

[hocndoc]

It occurred to me yesterday (while re-reading Crichton’s “State of Fear”) that the environmentalists hate space exploration and technology, because they actually want us trapped on Earth. If we’re not able to move about, then the crises they predict are more urgent than ever.

Of course, the Earth is not a closed system, humans are pretty darned adaptable and resourceful — and then, there’s that rapture at any time.

[hocndoc]

Think of it as evolution in action. (From Pournelle and Niven’s novel, “Oath of Fealty.”)

[Lucky Dog]

No... A missile creates no “recoil.” The mass change of the missile/satellite system from a missile’s “departure” relative to the total mass would be presumably be negligible.

[Vaduz]

Because STS-27 was—and remains—a secret mission. Not any more.

[David Isaac]

Thank you for post #30. I knew I should have known that name, Pournelle, having read Ring World and Lucifer’s Hammer (Niven & Pournelle?).

[Gaffer]

Agreed. However, NASA is not the agency to implement this interest. Granted, NASA has accomplished some groundbreaking feats. However, it has become a leviathan of waste and misdirection. Hansen is one good example. NASAs whole earth environmental program and associated systems is corrupted with such (just like the CDC and many of their 'health' initiatives such as gun control advocacy because it is a 'disease').

The strategic interest should be left to the military.

[driftdiver]

“waste of money and pointless. Its like the French Maginot Line”

The problem with the Maginot line was the enemy could just go around it. Can you go around high earth orbit?

[RoadTest]

Let’s keep the possessive case apostrophes away from the plural Ss, eh?

[joe fonebone]

the cia has probably been doing this for years....the parts of the third valkyrie were never destroyed, they just diappeared...using a design similar to the x-40, launched from under the valkarie, it is pretty damn feasable for this scenario....

[real saxophonist]

Sonny Carter, who flew on STS-33, was a family friend.

[PIF]

“There was a time that good men tried to defend this country with lasers from space. They helped win the Cold War, only for the current crop of losers in Washington to give up without even a whimper.”

The current crop is only putting the finishing touches on what Nixon did in 74 when he ended Apollo. Before him, the hand writing was on the wall that manned space programs were not serious. When Orion, Dynosoar, NERVA, etc. were killed and the ill-designed Shuttle was chosen, the message became clear.

[tanknetter]

Hoot Gibson!? :-)

There are two things about Hoot Gibson's career as a Shuttle Commander that really stand out:

He was responsible for the best shuttle landing on record: flying Endeavour back to Kennedy he achieved something like a .1 FPS sink rate on touchdown.

He also commanded the mission that resulted in the most exterior damage to a shuttle except Columbia/STS-107. On that mission, Atlantis achieved significant damage when the port-side SRB nosecap exploded during separation. Unlike STS-107, Gibson and the crew knew the event had happened and could see the damage to the orbiter. Gibson thought he and the crew were going to die on reentry, even had a "I TOLD you so, a**holes" message prepared that he figured he'd have just enough time to tell the NASA engineers before Atlantis disintegrated (he figured he'd hear the RCS thrusters kick in to compensate for parts of the orbiter burning off just before the ship went out of control).

Thing about him is that after he left NASA he went and flew commercial airliners, for SouthWest, iirc. I have a friend who is deathly afraid of flying (actually, he's smart enough to realize that he's just afraid of the impact when the plane crashes), real white-knuckle thing, who flew on a Gibson-commanded flight. He recognized Gibson's name when introduced as the Captain, asked the Stew to confirm he was the former Shuttle Commander. Ended up being the only airplane flight he ever actually slept on.