Space Warfare and anti-satellite thread
More and more countries are starting a space program.Recently, space has become something not restricted to the governments of world superpowers, and private corporations and smaller countries have taken on the huge task of putting something into orbit. Thus, Iran has a space program(and has succesfully launched sattelites into orbit on iranian-desgined rockets).
Israel also has a space program.
The only treaty about warfare in space is the Outer Space Act, which essentially says that no nuclear weapons can be deployed permanently in space. Other than that, its fair game.
And all of you fags should know about the air force's secret shuttle, the x-37b. I think it's five times, it might be in the middle of its 5th flight right now, not sure. But the air force wanted its own shuttle to recover satelites. However, i doubt that the air force has put weapons on this thing just yet; They probably have drawn sketches for a payload on this thing of satellite kill vehicles, lots of people think a laser is likely, but every flight they've said they're testing purely scientific things; usually telling us in general whats onboard. (last flight they were testing some sort of heat exchanger and deployed some small satelites)
There's actually a small community of astronomers dedicated to tracking this thing from the ground. Its a shitton easier than most things launched because it's easily recognizable (ppl did this with the shuttle, and the ISS is babys first satelite to track). Everytime it goes up, its exact orbital perameters are posted online on a few forums.
Also, im going to leave this here because i feel nobody here knows about it.
The skylon spaceplane is being designed as a single-stage-to-orbit reusable spaceplane that takes off from a (very long) runway, flys a unique and precise flight pattern, and can achieve orbit. The secret behind this idea is a hybrid rocket engine. Essentially, rather than carrying onboard oxygen for rocket power during atmospheric flight, it will carry a very advanced air intake and precooler, which is supposed to cool incoming air from around 1000 degrees to -10 (in celsius iirc) before it gets into the engine. The cooled air is then compressed with power recovered from the heat exchanger and put into a rather traditional rocket nozzle with the fuel and burned. When the air is too thin to get useful amounts of oxygen from it, the engine switches to onboard oxygen. The plane will also be able to fly at hypersonic, but still suborbital speeds and cruise on semi-ballistic trajectories in the upper atmosphere for long-distance travel. This thing will be able to cruise at mach 5 for 6 hours, long enough to fly 3/4 around the world.
Nothing i've read about space has gotten me more excited than Skylon. Nothing seems more plausible. The only thing that Skylon needs to fly is a proof-of-concept engine. they have made heat exchangers and precoolers for lab testing that work to specs, this needs more r&nd. But it seems like the next big leap in aerospace technology, and the most plausible/closest thing to us.
Space fighters soon. Mark my words. But what would a real-life space fighter like Skylon be equipped with?