X-37 lands after two years in orbit

I’m sure it was just up there doing nothing at all… :thinking:

US Air Force Spaceplane lands in Florida (B-Roll) - YouTube

US Air Force Spaceplane lands in Florida (Profile) - YouTube

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Does it have anything to do with thargoids?

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I think it is delivering supplies to the Thargoid shield - designed to encircle the planet and keep them out. It’s a new project our country has started on. :eyes:

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I think the X-37 is the just coolest little space plane.

I wonder if it needed to be up there for 2 years or that just that it’s expensive to throw stuff up there so it might as well stayed up ‘doing stuff’ for that long, i.e. perhaps an experiment that needed a long amount of time? Does the ‘cargo bay doors’ open like the big shuttle? I would suspect it was looking downwards and not upwards a lot of the time. :slight_smile:

I don’t think anyone that knows would speak about it in public but it’s an absolutely fascinating project!

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Yep, good point - if anyone one does know what it was doing, please don’t say here :smile:

I think…it…juuuust…might fit in the VAB. Barely.

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Worry about what? :dizzy_face:

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The most logical assumption is that they are testing the Orbital Shrinking Machine. They send up in secret enormous Shuttle Version 2’s and then get back these adorable miniatures. I feel for guys inside, but hey, it’s for science.

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Naaah, that’s what friction does. Friction.

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It’s getting smaller each flight. It’s ablating to nothing.

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There is the possibility that they just forgot they had it up there.
Think about it. Budget cuts. They guy monitoring the X-37 got sacked or forced into early retirement.
A year later somebody starts wondering why they can’t get no feed from that satellite…
:wink:

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Nedry went to the vending machines, was never seen again, and nobody knew his password to regain access to the X-37…

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Ablate. That’s a word it’s so seldom used.
I like that word.
Defenestration is a cool one too.

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But did it stay in orbit for two years?

Technically slightly less, as relative velocity time dilation would put its internal clock behind about 0.02 seconds for the two years compared to down here. :slight_smile:

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Looks like the space shuttle suffered a bit from lorentz fitzgerald contraction, should have listened to betty about the overspeed warnings…

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