Military space shuttle

A military space shuttle would be the military equivalent of NASA's space shuttle. Many experts^[who?] believed^{[citation needed]} that it is extremely unlikely that NASA, the United States Department of Defense or any other Federal agency could keep the existence of such a spacecraft secret, given the official knowledge that stated extensive technical support and launching establishment would be necessary to fly it. However, recent developments, such as the X-37 robotic spaceplane, largely equivalent to the shuttle being used on actual missions, show that this military shuttle is now a reality.

In the design phase of what eventually became the Space Shuttle, there were plans for the U.S. military to purchase some of the vehicles for its own purposes (mainly the servicing and crewing of proposed "surveillance space stations"). The design requirements that thus emerged (in particular, the need for a longer-range glide capability, enabling the shuttle to land at specific U.S. Air Force bases), affected the eventual design of the vehicle, increasing its complexity. However, none of these "Blue Shuttles" were ever built, and the U.S. military turned to increasingly sophisticated unmanned satellites as a more viable alternative.

Regular space shuttles have on occasion carried out missions for the military. It is noteworthy that NASA and the DoD agreed on delivering Discovery to Vandenberg AFB, first in May 1985 and then in September of that year. Discovery would have been dedicated for military and civilian flights from Vandenberg's SLC-6 launch complex. The schedule slipped until the Challenger disaster in January 1986. In the wake of Challenger, on December 26, 1989 the Space Shuttle Program at Vandenberg was terminated by the USAF.^[1] Military Shuttle flights were conducted from Kennedy Space Center in Florida, the last dedicated mission being STS-53 in late 1992, deploying a military SDS B-3 communication satellite. Some military payloads have been flown on regular civilian Shuttle missions afterwards.^[2]

The Soviet Buran space shuttle was designed with military applications in mind as well. One of the main reasons for its creation was to counter the perceived military advantage that the NASA space shuttle gave the USA. On the first launch of Buran's Energia booster the military Polyus satellite was launched.

There have been several ostensibly aborted military programs to develop a form of space shuttle. Given that current, ongoing projects share similar goals and technologies, however, it is clear that some of these projects form a progression of development (from the X-20 to X-40 to X-37, for instance), rather than truly aborted, independent projects.

• X-20 Dyna-Soar - USAF program, canceled in 1963
• Project Hot Eagle - USMC program, proposed in 2002
• Boeing X-37 - A modern, operational, robotic spaceplane, largely feature-equivalent to the Space Shuttle.

There have been several programs speculated to exist inside the military world

• Blackstar (spaceplane)

Military space shuttles have, however, been featured in popular entertainment from time to time.

See also

• Boeing X-40
• Vandenberg AFB Space Launch Complex 6
• North American X-15
• Rockwell X-30 "Orient Express" National Aerospace Plane
• McDonnell Douglas DC-X
• Almaz
• Polyus (spacecraft)
• TKS spacecraft
• Merkur (spacecraft)
• Manned Orbital Laboratory
• Manned Orbital Development System
• Blue Gemini

References

1. ^ Jenkins, D: "Space Shuttle: The History of the National Space Transportation System", page 474. 2001
2. ^ Jenkins, D: "Space Shuttle: The History of the National Space Transportation System", page 331. 2001