X-37 lands after two years in orbit

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

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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.

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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:

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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:

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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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12

Naaah, that’s what friction does. Friction.

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13

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?

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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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