This Hoot Gibson
Robert L. Gibson (Captain, USN)
NASA Astronaut (former)
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honoring a deal that dated to 1969, when the National Reconnaissance Office—an organization so secret its name could not be published at the time—requested certain changes to the design of NASA’s new space transportation system.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 ...
“Panama Theory”
Can’t find any links - do you know of one? Or care to expound further? Very interested guy here.
Lucifer’s Hammer is one of the best SF apocalypse/post apocalypse novels. These two men are better together than apart.
We must maintain a creditable nuclear force, and have proven method to deliver such weapons
We must be able to fight a large scale conventional war, and at the same time fight another large scale holding action until the first is completed.
We must rule the high ground of Space, both for reconnaissance and weapons platform purposes.
We must be able to defeat counterinsurgencies and their associated terror campaigns.
Space is exceptionally helpful in a three other areas, but it not the sole battle ground.
As I understand it, it is a strategic theory that
whoever controls the sun-earth lagrangian points controls space.
Not necessarily. It would affect the satellite if the missile tubes were closed at the bottom but not if they were open.
Think rifle vs. bazooka.
Garde la Foi, mes amis! Nous nous sommes les sauveurs de la République! Maintenant et Toujours!
(Keep the Faith, my friends! We are the saviors of the Republic! Now and Forever!)
LonePalm, le Républicain du verre cassé (The Broken Glass Republican)
Further north, near Maastricht, in one of the war’s most daring missions, German paracommandos of Koch Storm Detachment captured Belgium’s Eben Emael, Europe’s largest and most powerful fort, by landing in gliders atop the huge, underground work, then knocking out its cannon and turrets with a newly introduced secret weapon, shaped charge explosives. Fifteen intrepid Germans immobilized the 800-man garrison. This writer was fortunate enough to have been given a tour of the fort by one of its 1940 Belgian defenders.
anyone having any faith in fixed defenses and not preparing for full out assault will get their clocks cleaned.
that's just life
here is some stuff on all this, my only point is with tech the way it is today relying on fixed anything is a fools game
just my opinion
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iD_rX71O78I
“Because STS-27 was—and remains—a secret mission. Not any more.”
If two or more people know a secret, it is not a secret.
Got a triangular object above the trees in second to last clip:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Fx5WFT3Ef8
“Lucifer’s Hammer is one of the best SF apocalypse/post apocalypse novels.”
I agree. I need to uncrate my SF collection to see if I still have a copy, as I would love to reread that book.
Thank you again
Only if those points are in fact stable... else too much energy needed to sustain.
Better yet:
Whoever controls Mars, controls the inner solar system including the lagrange points.
WELL! You could have at least told us!!!
Agreed. All part of a big package. If I remember correclty, while the Germans were way far advanced in aviation during WWII, Hitler was stupid in how he used that tech, and weakened its usefulness. The German twin engine Me262 was the world's first operational fighter jet (key word: operational; yes, the Brits had I think it was called the Meteor, but it was NOT in combat with or shooting down/being shot down by enemy fighters, as were the Me262s). IIRC, Hitler stupidly chose to use it as a bomber instead of a fighter (it could go about 100 mph faster than a Mustang). And interestingly, although it was a jet in the age of prop fighers like Mustangs and Spitfires, at least one fast-thinking American pilot, Lt. Urban Drew, in the P-51 "Detroit Miss," shot down THREE Me262s (he was credited with two kills, having blown the landing gear out of the third). He did it as the planes were taking off from the runway.
So it just shows that technology is important ... but the real deciding factor are the minds of the men using the tech. I hope the U.S. goes balls-out to aggressivily pursue superiority in space tech, and I agree with another poster that NASA is the wrong critter to do it.
BUMP!
Thanks to you all for giving logical replies to my question regarding possible recoil from a missle firing.
Guess I was too close to sleep time to think clearly when I posed the question. lol
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