[paraclete]

Hypersonic Test Vehicle Falcon goes missing on test flight, DARPA admits | News.com.au

A highly secret weapon has just flown away, or has it? The US was testing a hyper-sonic glider on the edge of space and it just disappeared?

[tomder55]

Yes it could still be up there .

This is not the biggest embarrassment . The worse one I can recall is crashing a vehicle into Mars because they NASA engineers couldn't convert in metrics .
CNN - NASA's metric confusion caused Mars orbiter loss - September 30, 1999

[excon]

How embarrassing

Hello clete:

For what? For TESTING something?? This was NEW technology. When doing NEW things, sh*t happens. I don't know. To me, it would be more embarrassing if my country didn't even try new stuff.

excon

[speechlesstx]

If you want embarrassing look no further than the Nobel winning IPCC, who after whiffing on melting Himalayan glaciers, African crop harvests and Amazon rain forests - just discovered Bangladesh will not disappear under the rising seas as they predicted.

[Unknown008]

Oh, that was news to me speechless... thanks for the link! :)

[paraclete]

yes it could still be up there .

This is not the biggest embarrassment . The worse one I can recall is crashing a vehicle into Mars because they NASA engineers couldn't convert in metrics .
CNN - NASA's metric confusion caused Mars orbiter loss - September 30, 1999

Tom if it is still up there how come they can't see it with radar, etc? Did the US invent the invisible plane, if so there may be a good reason why they lost it. Aren't there transponders they put on aircraft so they can be located?

[paraclete]

Hello clete:

For what? For TESTING something??? This was NEW technology. When doing NEW things, sh*t happens. I dunno. To me, it would be more embarrassing if my country didn't even try new stuff.

excon

Ex there is a difference between innovation which we all applaud and incompetence which no one applauds and I would have made the same remark no matter who lost it

[tomder55]

What is truly embarrassing is that we had a major part in building ISS and we will not have a vehicle to get us there ,but instead will pay the Ruskies major $$$ to take our scientists up there in 1960s technology.

I expect in the not to distant future ISS will come crashing back to Earth ;just like Skylab and Mir did before it .

[paraclete]

What is truly embarassing is that we had a major part in building ISS and we will not have a vehicle to get us there ,but instead will pay the Ruskies major $$$ to take our scientists up there in 1960s technology.

I expect in the not to distant future ISS will come crashing back to Earth ;just like Skylab and Mir did before it .

If you can find it you can use your glider to get to the ISS. Developing the ISS has been done all wrong anyway, it is an underfunded project that deserves to fail. I think it is very enterprising of the Russians to get some of their development money back and there is nothing wrong with using proven technology, a lesson I don't think the US has learned very well but I notice the aircraft industry has

[tomder55]

If you can find it you can use your glider to get to the ISS

Not really . There is nothing close to the shuttle to carry and remove heavy cargo payloads. ISS is dependent on the Shuttle and there are only 3 missions left.

I signed a petition over the weekend to bring one of the shuttles to NYC's USS Intreprid Museum. The one chance I had to see a shuttle launch I sat on a beach near the launch sight on a cloudless day .But the mission was scrubbed anyway because there was weather in Morocco.

[paraclete]

not really . There is nothing close to the shuttle to carry and remove heavy cargo payloads. ISS is dependent on the Shuttle and there are only 3 missions left.

I signed a petition over the weekend to bring one of the shuttles to NYC's USS Intreprid Museum. The one chance I had to see a shuttle launch I sat on a beach near the launch sight on a cloudless day .But the mission was scrubbed anyway because there was weather in Morocco.

I really don't know why they don't want to keep flying shuttle, you can always build new ones if the old ones are a little tired or is it you have run out of Atlas rockets? The logical thing would have been to develop a system like shuttle for longer distance flights by equiping it and leaving it in orbit, they seem to be obscessed with landing things on Earth

[smoothy]

I really don't know why they don't want to keep flying shuttle, you can always build new ones if the old ones are a little tired or is it you have run out of Atlas rockets? The logical thing would have been to develop a system like shuttle for longer distance flights by equiping it and leaving it in orbit, they seem to be obscessed with landing things on Earth

Actually the situation is there is a limited run of parts were made decades ago.(except for some of the electronics).. the tooling doesn't exist to just keep making everything they need to keep flying forever.

They have actually been canabalizing some shuttles to keep others flying for some time now. Sure they really could fly them a bit longer... but not really for decades... maybe a handfull of years at most.

[speechlesstx]

they seem to be obscessed with landing things on Earth

Uh, how else do you restock supplies?

[smoothy]

Its all about costs... reusible flight systems are cheaper over a period than one use throw away stuff.

Yeah they all cost a bundle... But a few million here, and a few million there might not mean anything to the current administration... but to an agency with a fixed budget... it adds up to real money.

[paraclete]

Actually the situation is there is a limited run of parts were made decades ago.(except for some of the electronics)..the tooling doesn't exist to just keep making everything they need to keep flying forever.

.

But there is an aircraft industry with the capability to build craft, there were so few of them the parts would have been one offs made in precision workshops, these are the same guys who would spend a million dollars on a hammer, it just doesn't figure unless what you have is political interference

[smoothy]

But there is an aircraft industry with the capability to build craft, there were so few of them the parts would have been one offs made in precision workshops, these are the same guys who would spend a million dollars on a hammer, it just doesn't figure unless what you have is political interference

Well, there IS a difference when you start dealing with spacecraft of any type vs. aircraft believe it or not, I only found this out myself a number of years ago after speaking with a couple people that actually build and test satellites. While there might be a bit of the excessive cost or preffered vendors factoring into the cost... a lot of the time there is some justification. Just like the used aircraft parts market... you often get what you pay for. And when you are outside the earths atmosphere.. the last thing you need is something failed because someone went with the lowest bidder.

Wish my uncle was still alive. He was an Aerospace engineer on the Apollo project. I'd love to hear some of his stories. But he died when I was young and he lived in Florida... a LONG way from where I grew up.

[tomder55]

I really don't know why they don't want to keep flying shuttle, you can always build new ones if the old ones are a little tired or is it you have run out of Atlas rockets? The logical thing would have been to develop a system like shuttle for longer distance flights by equiping it and leaving it in orbit, they seem to be obscessed with landing things on Earth

Channeling your inner Star Trek ? I think one of the plans for a Mars expedition was construction of the tranportation in space. Not sure how that was going to work.

Bottom line on the hypersonic glider is that it is still an experimental craft ,and it is reasonable that failures occure during the experimental phase . There is one left that hasn't launched yet. I'm sure the Air Force will make the necessary changes next time.

[paraclete]

Well, there IS a difference when you start dealing with spacecraft of any type vs. aircraft believe it or not, I only found this out myself a number of years ago after speaking with a couple people that actually build and test satellites. While there might be a bit of the excessive cost or preffered vendors factoring into the cost....a lot of the time there is some justification. Just like the used aircraft parts market....you often get what you pay for. And when you are outside the earths atmosphere..the last thing you need is something failed because someone went with the lowest bidder.

Wish my uncle was still alive. He was an Aerospace engineer on the Apollo project. I'd love to hear some of his stories. But he died when I was young and he lived in Florida...a LONG way from where I grew up.

I'm not concerned with cost, you do get what you pay for, so there is a different level of quality and integrity needed but it can't be as difficult as it is made out, after all, Branson is in the market, and he doesn't have the resources of the US government. The problem is the short term funding cycle and project concepts which really don't factor in seamless continuity. What seems good today, is abandoned tomorrow and consigned to history the day after but it seems to me that once you have the basic craft then it is reasonable to expect incremental growth and innovation, not stagnation. It took nearly one hundred years to get to the A380, now if you could put that, with a different level of quality and integrity, in orbit and use it as a living platform for long distance voyages without ever coming back down that might be progress.

[paraclete]

Channeling your inner Star Trek ? I think one of the plans for a Mars expedition was construction of the the tranportation in space. Not sure how that was going to work.

Bottom line on the hypersonic glider is that it is still an experimental craft ,and it is reasonable that failures occure during the experimental phase . There is one left that hasn't launched yet. I'm sure the Air Force will make the necessary changes next time.

Ah, Tom, I'm a gator myself just bypassing all that striving. Failures might occur, and frequently do, but completely disappearing? Give me a break, Please? This is either incompetence at a new level or reemergence of the Burmuda triangle.

I don't see construction in space is a problem but loss of a reuseable vehicle must be a set back.

[Fr_Chuck]

No better theory, what about the plane doing a secret worm hole to travel to another dimension and it worked?

Or it hit a hidden UFO and was destroyed, where are the better stories ?