Quote from: mlorrey on 10/26/2009 02:51 pmHmmm, could the military be backing Blue Origin as a black ops squad delivery vehicle, to overfly a country suborbitally, dropping the squad with retro rockets and parachutes? Perhaps this explains all the secrecy around Blue Origin. Even the company name sounds like some Area 51 black project.that concept has been debunked many times. It is not militarily feasible. Again, you are seeing things that don't exist.
Hmmm, could the military be backing Blue Origin as a black ops squad delivery vehicle, to overfly a country suborbitally, dropping the squad with retro rockets and parachutes? Perhaps this explains all the secrecy around Blue Origin. Even the company name sounds like some Area 51 black project.
Even stupid ideas get airtime sometimes.Can you imagine a less stealthy way of deploying troops than suborbital ballistic delivery? If your intended target is:A) a powerful nation - they would detect the unscheduled launch and interpret it as an incoming ICBMor B) some random warlord - then the concept is complete overkill, just do a high altitude paratrooper insertion instead
Yeah sure, Jim, its all figments....
a) air launched manned suborbitals have distinctly different trajectories (and much cooler exhausts),
Quote from: mlorrey on 10/29/2009 07:49 ama) air launched manned suborbitals have distinctly different trajectories (and much cooler exhausts), What says they are airlaunched? SS1 is not an example.
so it appears that i am in charge of blue origin's official twitter account. uhh... what is one to post if all our work is secret?
Thats funny Jim, tell us another one. Why is it then that the SUSTAIN page specifically shows an air launched suborbital, includes SS1 as an example of the type of vehicle.
Why go through such an elaborate way to get them in there and then no real way to extract the team?
Quote from: mlorrey on 10/29/2009 11:26 pmThats funny Jim, tell us another one. Why is it then that the SUSTAIN page specifically shows an air launched suborbital, includes SS1 as an example of the type of vehicle. Show me where SUSTAIN is taken seriously by anybody other than the Marines.
Quote from: OV-106 on 11/09/2009 11:00 pmWhy go through such an elaborate way to get them in there and then no real way to extract the team?The aim now is to insert robotic troops instead. The insertion vehicle needn't land in enemy territory, it could probably insert troops and fly away at high altitude. As for the enemy shooting it down, when was the last time someone like the Taliban succesfully downed something like a U-2?Legally, this capability is actually very very important for the United States. You don't have to phone the prime minister of country Y at 3am in the morning and ask him/her to authorise passage through his/her country's airspace so you can go and pound somebody in country X. Right now, there are serious legal issues about using drones to kill people, which is technically assassination. 13 Marines wouldn't wipe out a wedding party but a Hellfire missile sure would.
Zond, thanks a lot. I adjusted my Google map a bit, using the picture at Terraserver that you linked. Google lags by years in that location. Interestingly, the auxiliary pad (west-south-west of the technical facilities) that I thought was older does not even exist at Terraserver photo, so it is in fact very new.Also, I renamed pads according to the scheme used in the Space.com map, e.g. the northmost pad is "Landing" pad, and the main pad where bleachers point is now "Launch" pad. The aero pictures do not identify any structures where the "explosive storage" area should be, so I didn't mark it.-- Pete