Author Topic: Blackstar Budget Line Item Found? (Read 33215 times)

mlorrey · « **on:** 07/02/2006 01:11 am »

FY 1997 US Air Force RDT&E Budget, tactical programs:
R-1 Line:148
Program Element: 0207424F
Description: evaluation and analysis program
Dollar amoung: $85.521 million

special access program -- this program was known as COPPER COAST until fiscal year 1994. Phase 2 of hypersonic aircraft studies the Air Force conducted under the COPPER CANYON (phase 1) program.

COPPER CANYON was, of course, the slightly well known USAF studies for a scramjet/combined cycle SSTO generally attributed to be a version of the X-30 "National Aerospace Plane".

Other line items that may pay for other aspects of this program:
150
0207433F
advanced program technology
$72.501 million
special access program -- this program was known as "tactical improvement program" until fiscal year 1994.

152
0207433F
advanced systems improvements
Dollar amount: [classified]
special access program

154
0207591F
advanced program evaluation
$198.327 million
special access program -- this program was known as OMEGA until fiscal year 1994. Rumored to be funding a high-speed aircraft.

Related program code names:
Have Blinders (I)
USAF TPS project, looked at limited visibility for NASP

Have Blinders II
USAF TPS project, looked at limited visibility for NASP

Have Blinders III
USAF TPS project, looked at limited visibility for NASP

Have Key
USAF Special Access Program; allegedly design effort by General Dynamics, as part of the design work that led to the A-12A Avenger II, though note that A-12A was a NAVY aircraft, and Blackstar is alleged to have poached budget money from the A-12 program.

Have Region
USAF (TAC ?) project, follow-on to Science Realm, production of [redacted]

Science Dawn
USAF HQ/SAC project, concept study for RLV, 3 different manufactures, 1 SSTO, 2 assisted SSTO

Science Realm
USAF HQ project, follow-on to Science Dawn, production of [redacted]

HAVE REGION and SCIENCE REALM appear to be the production phase of the three RLV projects. A declassified RAND Corporation report states that all three projects test flew, two were failures, while one was considered a "partial success". It stands to reason that an airlaunched SSTO would be an "assisted SSTO", and thus Blackstar may be the "partial success" of the RAND report. RAND states that these programs led into the COPPER CANYON, which was likely the test flight phase, and COPPER COAST was thus the evaluation of the entire flight regime and reconaissance capabilities of the vehicle... by 1997's budget year, it was a "special access program" without code name.

http://orbat.com/site/andreas/U_S_%20Military%20Code%20Names.htm

http://www.fas.org/irp/mystery/nasp.htm

PurduesUSAFguy · « **Reply #1 on:** 07/02/2006 05:23 am »

There is more then enough room in the black budgets of both the intelligence community and the DOD from the mid 80s to early 90s to fund the blackstar and whatever happened to replace it. (Not to mention money from the NASP and A-12 both of which are now increasingly obvious fronts for funding other projects) It's just a question of what they called it under which line items.

The thing I am perplexed about is if the AvWeek article is accurate and the TSTO system was shelved what it is being replaced with. Getting a launch-on-demand reconnaissance capability is more needed now then ever before, and global strike through hypersonic orbital/suborbital systems is going to be the force multiplier we are going to need in the 21st century. Given the merit of the Douglas VTVL SSTO proposal in the early 90s I would sort of wonder if something like the DC-Y is in operation somewhere out there. It would explain the disinterest from the USAF in pursuing the X-33 program after NASA walked away and the shelving of the alleged blackstar.

Thinking about what the DC-X managed to pull off given its budget is really impressive; I would like to think that the next step in that program would have been taken somewhere.

[img=http://www.astronautix.com/graphics/d/dcycu.jpg]

Jim · « **Reply #2 on:** 07/02/2006 12:26 pm »

Hiding aircraft flights is one thing, hiding rockets launches is another.
The NRO realized that long ago that it couldn't and accept that fact wrt security. Even with Minuteman launches; prelaunch, T-0 could be kept secret but once it launched, people on the west coast knew.

Even if is was tested outside the US, Johnston Island for example, long range launches (longer than the DC-X) require more assets than just the launch crew.

mlorrey · « **Reply #3 on:** 07/02/2006 06:05 pm »

Quote

Jim - 2/7/2006 7:13 AM

Hiding aircraft flights is one thing, hiding rockets launches is another.
The NRO realized that long ago that it couldn't and accept that fact wrt security. Even with Minuteman launches; prelaunch, T-0 could be kept secret but once it launched, people on the west coast knew.

Even if is was tested outside the US, Johnston Island for example, long range launches (longer than the DC-X) require more assets than just the launch crew.

That is the interesting thing, Jim, at least one of the reports of a Blackstar sighting was over San Francisco, lots of people saw it, but the media blacked it out. Air launches over open ocean are much easier to hide.

As for ground launched DC-Y... I have an idea about that, a purloined letter, hidden in plain sight. You may recall reports of a number of ABM system launches that were reported as "failure to intercept". I suspect that it would be easy to disguise a DC-Y type launch as an ABM test, so long as the launch site is remote from public view. Discerning one from a real ABM launch would require that you track the vehicle and measure a noticably different acceleration/climb rate than the typical high boost ABM launcher.

SpaceCat · « **Reply #4 on:** 07/02/2006 07:19 pm »

See those guys out in your dirveway? Tampering with your brakes?

I think there were too many things shown wrong with that particular AvWeek article to take it at face value- still, 'where there's smoke.....'
I would be much more worried if the military did NOT have secret projects in the works. But- DARPA continues to put R&D into X-37, and I wonder why they'd be doing that if Blackstar were for real?

Anyway- just stumbled across this handy wrap-up of RLV works- military, NASA, private and foreign- from Hobbyspace:
http://www.hobbyspace.com/Links/RLV/RLVHistory.html

meiza · « **Reply #5 on:** 07/02/2006 07:23 pm »

what about launching in an opposite orbit like the israelis do? Or straight up in the first stage?

mlorrey · « **Reply #6 on:** 07/02/2006 07:40 pm »

Actually, since the Vandenberg launch corridor for polar or SSO is due south, approaching Russia from the Indian Ocean, it explains why the Russians have so many radar ships and ELINT trawlers, as this mandates an entirely separate early warning system from those focused solely on detecting ICBMs coming over the poles. Anything used to observe Russia requires high inclination, polar, or SSO (sun synchronous orbit is a slightly retrograde polar orbit). This is probably what would make a big mothership like that alleged for Blackstar so useful: being able to fly to stage out of various bases depending on where all the Russian trawlers were to plot a trajectory that both avoids these trawlers and gives a useful 1st or 2nd orbit over target territory.

The Israelis launch due west because that is their only access to open seas, having a launcher fail and drop a payload on muslim territory would be a serious intelligence loss and failure.

mlorrey · « **Reply #7 on:** 07/02/2006 07:53 pm »

Quote

SpaceCat - 2/7/2006 2:06 PM

See those guys out in your dirveway? Tampering with your brakes?

I think there were too many things shown wrong with that particular AvWeek article to take it at face value- still, 'where there's smoke.....'
I would be much more worried if the military did NOT have secret projects in the works. But- DARPA continues to put R&D into X-37, and I wonder why they'd be doing that if Blackstar were for real?

Who knows. What I do know is that in the late 1990's, a number of workers at Area 51 sued the federal government, represented by a well known Georgetown law professor, Jonathan Turley, (who is currently suing the government over the Gitmo prisoners), for OSHA violations that involved the open pit burning of waste materials, some of which contained boron, in order to avoid an opsec intel leak through the EPA hazardous waste tracking system, which is all open and unclassified. As a result, and while the suit was dismissed (though the families of the victims seem to have been compensated), a special arrangement was made with the EPA to allow for the classification of USAF hazardous waste from classified projects, particularly those coming out of Groom Lake.

So, if boron is as nasty and toxic as is claimed by those who are critical of the AvLeak story, the Area 51 worker suit both corroborates that claim AND the claim that boron was used on a classified aircraft program at Groom Lake, which thus corroborates the AvLeak story, so the claim of toxicity as an excuse to discredit the boron-gel fuel claim is instead additional proof, and could be a very good reason why the program was allegedly shut down, under the expectation that a newer non-toxic system was in the offing.

As for X-34, X-37 and the like, note that X-34 was also to test a scramjet (and may yet) or combined cycle engine in its belly. I myself see little reason for the vehicles. They don't appear to break any new ground. IMHO they are a cheap cover story to deflect attention (just as F-117 flight test/training radio chatter was covered by flights of A-7s).

Jim · « **Reply #8 on:** 07/02/2006 09:50 pm »

Quote

mlorrey - 2/7/2006 1:52 PM

Quote
Jim - 2/7/2006 7:13 AM

Hiding aircraft flights is one thing, hiding rockets launches is another.
The NRO realized that long ago that it couldn't and accept that fact wrt security. Even with Minuteman launches; prelaunch, T-0 could be kept secret but once it launched, people on the west coast knew.

Even if is was tested outside the US, Johnston Island for example, long range launches (longer than the DC-X) require more assets than just the launch crew.

That is the interesting thing, Jim, at least one of the reports of a Blackstar sighting was over San Francisco, lots of people saw it, but the media blacked it out. Air launches over open ocean are much easier to hide.

As for ground launched DC-Y... I have an idea about that, a purloined letter, hidden in plain sight. You may recall reports of a number of ABM system launches that were reported as "failure to intercept". I suspect that it would be easy to disguise a DC-Y type launch as an ABM test, so long as the launch site is remote from public view. Discerning one from a real ABM launch would require that you track the vehicle and measure a noticably different acceleration/climb rate than the typical high boost ABM launcher.

DC-Y is alot bigger than a ABM booster and slower as you said. I could tell the difference between a Minuteman and Altas launch visually from Los Angeles.

But going to orbit would use other assets for tracking and telemetery. Even for the blackstar, if if went to orbit. That is harder to hide. All NRO spacecraft have to use them and the fact they are flying is not hidden.,

hop · « **Reply #9 on:** 07/02/2006 10:16 pm »

Quote

Jim - 2/7/2006 5:13 AM

Hiding aircraft flights is one thing, hiding rockets launches is another.
The NRO realized that long ago that it couldn't and accept that fact wrt security. Even with Minuteman launches; prelaunch, T-0 could be kept secret but once it launched, people on the west coast knew.

Even if is was tested outside the US, Johnston Island for example, long range launches (longer than the DC-X) require more assets than just the launch crew.

There is also the danger that someone will notice and assume it is a missile launch. Given that we do announce spysat launches and missile tests, this could cause serious diplomatic problems. The Russians early warning systems are in bad shape since the fall of the USSR, but would we be really be confident enough that neither Russia nor China would notice and spark an international incident ? In the post-coldwar era, it's hard to see it resulting in actual shooting war, but it might mean that those nations would stop announcing their own tests, which would be bad for everyone in the long run.

People have claimed that blackstar wouldn't look like an ICBM launch, but even so you can't get to orbit without a big IR signature. If you did detect it, you wouldn't know whether it was a space launch or some previously unknown missile system.

vt_hokie · « **Reply #10 on:** 07/02/2006 10:28 pm »

I was always amazed (and saddened) by the reports of burning toxic materials in open pits at Groom Lake. Couldn't they find some more responsible, common sense approach toward waste disposal? I mean, come on...it doesn't take a Ph.D. to figure out that you shouldn't burn toxic waste in your backyard!

stargazer777 · « **Reply #11 on:** 07/03/2006 03:49 am »

I am not sure about the SF sighting, but I think that some of those people who so quickly dismissed the Blackstar story and the reporter who authored it might want to reconsider their position. There are many ways that the budget for such a project could have been hidden from all but a few. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

Captain Scarlet · « **Reply #12 on:** 07/03/2006 10:44 am »

Quote

vt_hokie - 2/7/2006 5:15 PM

I was always amazed (and saddened) by the reports of burning toxic materials in open pits at Groom Lake. Couldn't they find some more responsible, common sense approach toward waste disposal? I mean, come on...it doesn't take a Ph.D. to figure out that you shouldn't burn toxic waste in your backyard!

Groom Lake? Isn't that what they call Area 51? Or was that Hollywood giving it that name?

mong' · « **Reply #13 on:** 07/03/2006 12:23 pm »

the base is built on a dry lake(like edwards) named Groom Lake, hence the name, but there are many other designations, the hollywood name is 'dreamland'

Jim · « **Reply #14 on:** 07/03/2006 01:05 pm »

Quote

Captain Scarlet - 3/7/2006 6:31 AM

Quote
vt_hokie - 2/7/2006 5:15 PM

I was always amazed (and saddened) by the reports of burning toxic materials in open pits at Groom Lake. Couldn't they find some more responsible, common sense approach toward waste disposal? I mean, come on...it doesn't take a Ph.D. to figure out that you shouldn't burn toxic waste in your backyard!

Groom Lake? Isn't that what they call Area 51? Or was that Hollywood giving it that name?

Area 51 was the name for the restricted (airspace?) area around Groom lake

rsp1202 · « **Reply #15 on:** 07/03/2006 02:02 pm »

First came across the name "Dreamland" in Tom Clancy's "Red Storm Rising." If Clancy was using it, my guess is it was being used by insiders, long before Hollywood discovered it.

meiza · « **Reply #16 on:** 07/03/2006 03:57 pm »

Quote

mlorrey - 2/7/2006 8:27 PM
The Israelis launch due west because that is their only access to open seas, having a launcher fail and drop a payload on muslim territory would be a serious intelligence loss and failure.

I know this, but wouldn't one avoid detection launching west from some pacific island / from an aircraft over the pacific, it's not very populated territory after all.

rsp1202 · « **Reply #17 on:** 07/03/2006 06:37 pm »

Specific to the Israeli issue, they have cooperated militarily in the past with the South Africans and visa versa, maybe still do. (Google "Vela Incident," circa 1979, for one such--speculated--cooperative venture.) S.A. could launch polar, assuming the facilities were available.

mlorrey · « **Reply #18 on:** 07/03/2006 09:19 pm »

Quote

hop - 2/7/2006 5:03 PM

People have claimed that blackstar wouldn't look like an ICBM launch, but even so you can't get to orbit without a big IR signature. If you did detect it, you wouldn't know whether it was a space launch or some previously unknown missile system.

This isn't necessarily so. A ballistic missile follows a ballistic flight path: highly parabolic, which is like nothing else that flies, and its IR signature is primarily the launch plume from ground to 100,000 ft of the first stage overcoming all that gravity drag.

An air launched spaceplane would follow a much different trajectory, particularly if it used any air augmentation from its launch point up to practical ramjet max speeds. Its trajectory would be much flatter, and its launch plume, under a large aircraft at 70,000 ft, would be significantly less than the launch plume of an ICBM taking off from the ground. Furthermore, if it used aerospike engines, its plume would also be far more distributed within the tail shock of the vehicle (as the tail shock forms part of the thrust nozzle, the shock won't glow like a hot engine nozzle.

vt-hokie:
The whole reason they burned the toxics at Groom was for operations and information security: they had no authorization to build a hazardous waste dump, and the EPA wouldn't let them classify their toxics documentation until after the Turley suit. If an enemy state keeping track of public records here notices a lot of kerosene-boron gel waste being shipped from Noplace, NV to EPA toxic waste sites, they are going to wonder what it is for, and thus start looking for who is producing the fuel in the first place (I know of a few companies still producing JP-7, JP-8, and JP-10 in large quantities even though there are no aircraft publicly known that use these fuels). An intel agent can discern a lot of things from logistics paperwork.

vt_hokie · « **Reply #19 on:** 07/03/2006 11:09 pm »

Still, to burn toxic material in open pits and kill your workers in the process seems like insanity to me.

simonbp · « **Reply #20 on:** 07/03/2006 11:30 pm »

Quote

rsp1202 - 3/7/2006 6:49 AM

First came across the name "Dreamland" in Tom Clancy's "Red Storm Rising." If Clancy was using it, my guess is it was being used by insiders, long before Hollywood discovered it.

Clancy has a habit of finding codewords and then proceding to completely misuse them. My father worked on towed sonar arrays back in the 1980's; he said he was greatly amused when Red October came out and misidentified several classified codewords he knew...

Simon

bobthemonkey · « **Reply #21 on:** 07/04/2006 12:07 am »

Quote

mlorrey - 3/7/2006 10:06 PM
The whole reason they burned the toxics at Groom was for operations and information security: they had no authorization to build a hazardous waste dump, and the EPA wouldn't let them classify their toxics documentation until after the Turley suit. If an enemy state keeping track of public records here notices a lot of kerosene-boron gel waste being shipped from Noplace, NV to EPA toxic waste sites, they are going to wonder what it is for, and thus start looking for who is producing the fuel in the first place (I know of a few companies still producing JP-7, JP-8, and JP-10 in large quantities even though there are no aircraft publicly known that use these fuels). An intel agent can discern a lot of things from logistics paperwork.

Isn't JP-8 standard jet fuel for most military aircraft, and JP-10 is used in missiles such as harpoon and tomahawk.

JP-7 is interesting it was boron containing iirc - used in the A12/SR71 program.

mlorrey · « **Reply #22 on:** 07/05/2006 12:11 am »

Quote

bobthemonkey - 3/7/2006 6:54 PM

Quote
mlorrey - 3/7/2006 10:06 PM
The whole reason they burned the toxics at Groom was for operations and information security: they had no authorization to build a hazardous waste dump, and the EPA wouldn't let them classify their toxics documentation until after the Turley suit. If an enemy state keeping track of public records here notices a lot of kerosene-boron gel waste being shipped from Noplace, NV to EPA toxic waste sites, they are going to wonder what it is for, and thus start looking for who is producing the fuel in the first place (I know of a few companies still producing JP-7, JP-8, and JP-10 in large quantities even though there are no aircraft publicly known that use these fuels). An intel agent can discern a lot of things from logistics paperwork.

Isn't JP-8 standard jet fuel for most military aircraft, and JP-10 is used in missiles such as harpoon and tomahawk.

JP-7 is interesting it was boron containing iirc - used in the A12/SR71 program.

It appears I was wrong here: while JP-4 was the standard military jet fuel up until the mid-1990's, the Air Force changed to JP-8 then due to greater thermal stability, and is now transitioning to JP-8+100 http://members.aol.com/afp1fire/jp-8.htm JP-8 is essentially Jet A-1.

JP-10 is dicyclopentadiene, and is allegedly used in ALCM cruise missiles as well as Harpoon, however other sources say the ALCM is fueled by JP-9. JP-10 extended the range of the ALCM by 20%. http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/systems/aircraft/systems/engines-fuel.htm. JP-9 is also used to store extra F-16 aircraft in "flyable hold" status, preserving 85% of the fuel system.

Still other references claim that JP-7 was originally known as PF-1, yet some say that PF-1 is the fuel used in the ALCM.
http://dodssp.daps.dla.mil/dodiss/01nov_05.pdf (interestingly, this document lists Deuterium as a MIL standard propellant. What is it used as a propellant for? The only military use I know of outside of nuclear weapons is in the Tactical High Energy Laser)
USAF Fuels Directorate asserts JP-9 is the ALCM fuel.
http://afpet.ft-belvoir.af.mil/afpet/pdf/SFHistory.pdf

The X-37's AR-2/3 engine uses a mixture of JP-10 and hydrogen, exo-tetrahydro-cyclopentadiene
Zehe, M.J., and Jaffe, R.L., 2002, Quantum Chemical Calculation of Thermodynamics for Gas Phase Exo-tetrahydro-dicyclopentadiene (JP–10), to be published as a NASA TM, 2002.

Triethyleborane is used to ignite JP-7 in the SR-71's engines.

JP-TS is used in the U-2 and TR-1, has a very low freezing point and high thermal stability, which would lend it to high utility for hypersonic airbreathing apps that used the fuel to cool the airframe and intakes.

JP-6 was the fuel intended for the XB-70.

On a logistics note, the USAF fuels directorate says that one refinery,Exxon Baytown, Texas, supplied the 450 million gallons of JP-7 used by the SR-71 program over 24 years.

There are also two high density fuels, JP-8X and JP-11 which are referred to in international petroleum refinery documents. JP-8X is also referred to in documents describing the Space Operations Vehicle (SOV), which may be RP-2 (quadricyclane) or simply a similar high density fuel. There is an AIAA paper on advanced jet fuels that I can't access, which mentions these: "Properties and producibility of advanced jet fuels". T. Edwards, W. E. Harrison (USAF, Wright Lab., Wright-Patterson AFB, OH), and H. H. Schobert (Pennsylvania State Univ., University Park). AIAA-1997-2848. AIAA/ASME/SAE/ASEE Joint Propulsion Conference and Exhibit, 33rd, Seattle, WA, July 6-9, 1997

RP-2 is actually extremely low sulfur kerosene, not quadricyclane as globalsecurity.com claims.

Experiments in reducing or eliminating sulfur content show that the coking problem of hydrocarbons at high temp in engine plumbing is a function of sulphur content. http://yarchive.net/space/rocket/fuels/propane.html. For this reason, propane which has been pre-chilled seriously outperforms standard propane since the sulphur compounds are frozen out. This is particularly a problem for any private launch organization attempting a reusable launcher: the taggants and stenchants required by law are invariably sulphur compounds (are you paying attention, Blue Origin?).

Henry Spencer has looked at this as well:
""Hydrocarbon-Fuel/Copper
Combustion Chamber Liner Compatibility, Corrosion Prevention, and
Refurbishment", by Rosenberg, Gage, Homer, and Franklin. It recaps the
earlier paper briefly, and adds some more. Briefly:

Copper appears to catalyze "classical" coking of RP-1, because the threshold
temperature for it in their copper tests (about 600F) is considerably lower
than that seen in traditional hydrocarbon engines (which aren't copper).

The copper-sulfide deposits in sulfur corrosion are fairly pure Cu2S.

Mil-spec RP-1 can have up to 500ppm sulfur, 50ppm of it as mercaptans.
This is much too high, at least for copper engines.

After some experimenting with possible metals for surface coatings, they
settled on gold: it's a relatively good match for copper in thermal
properties, and the technology for plating it onto copper is mature. They
in fact had trouble getting good coatings -- the gold itself behaved well,
but the nickel layer underneath it, meant as a diffusion barrier, gave
difficulties -- but decided that what they had was adequate for early
testing. It was quite successful; under conditions that clogged uncoated
channels badly, no deposits at all were seen in coated channels.

They also experimented with cleaning sulfide deposits out of channels.
Most cleaning agents either attacked the copper or didn't remove the
sulfide. Dilute aqueous sodium cyanide (!) left the copper alone and
removed the sulfide quickly and completely. However, the final surface is
rough and porous, and as you would expect, the result is slightly better
cooling performance at the price of slightly higher flow resistance.

The current DoD rocket-methane spec simply says "max 1ppm sulfur", and
this is not good enough. Based on their experience, they suggest "max
0.1ppm H2S, max 0.2ppm mercaptan sulfur, max 0.5ppm total sulfur".

Bulk methane, even top grades, does not meet even the DoD spec, never
mind their suggested spec. There was one exception, at the time they
did this work: Quadren Cryogenic Processing sells bulk methane that
actually exceeds their spec, with total sulfur less than 0.1ppm."

Norm Hartnett · « **Reply #23 on:** 07/19/2006 06:42 pm »

For you Blackstar fans.

Here is a propulsion system for you, note it is reusable.

http://sev.prnewswire.com/aerospace-defense/20060718/SFTU11218072006-1.html
http://www.nasa.gov/centers/marshall/news/news/releases/2005/05-062.html

That ought get the thing moving

edkyle99 · « **Reply #24 on:** 07/19/2006 07:18 pm »

Quote

Norm Hartnett - 19/7/2006 1:29 PM

For you Blackstar fans.

Here is a propulsion system for you, note it is reusable.

http://sev.prnewswire.com/aerospace-defense/20060718/SFTU11218072006-1.html
http://www.nasa.gov/centers/marshall/news/news/releases/2005/05-062.html

That ought get the thing moving

Here's another press release on the IPD. It went "mainstage" for the first time at Stennis a few days ago.

http://www.pratt-whitney.com/pr_071906.asp

This thing must not be flight-weight (they say it is a demo that will never fly), because otherwise it appears to already do what NASA's years-down-the-road J-2X will do.

- Ed Kyle

meiza · « **Reply #25 on:** 07/20/2006 07:50 am »

Has anyone estimated the man-hours one would save if this engine technology was used in space shuttle instead of the current SSME:s? Is it a significant saving in maintenance of the engines? Or is it too early to tell?
Of course the space shuttle will be retired before any upgrades, but it can give some data for the future reusable vehicles about what to do and what not to do.
There is some data about the cancelled Cobra engine http://www.astronautix.com/engines/cobra.htm which speaks about projections of 50 flights between maintenance, 100 flight life, 16 hour turnaround and less than 100 man hours per flight. With SSME turbopumps.

hop · « **Reply #26 on:** 07/20/2006 10:33 pm »

Paper engines always outperform real ones. On paper at least.

edit: I realize that the engines in discussion aren't all paper, but they don't seem to be flight hardware either.

Dana · « **Reply #27 on:** 07/20/2006 10:55 pm »

Quote

Jim - 3/7/2006 5:52 AM

Quote
Captain Scarlet - 3/7/2006 6:31 AM

Quote
vt_hokie - 2/7/2006 5:15 PM

I was always amazed (and saddened) by the reports of burning toxic materials in open pits at Groom Lake. Couldn't they find some more responsible, common sense approach toward waste disposal? I mean, come on...it doesn't take a Ph.D. to figure out that you shouldn't burn toxic waste in your backyard!

Groom Lake? Isn't that what they call Area 51? Or was that Hollywood giving it that name?

Area 51 was the name for the restricted (airspace?) area around Groom lake

The base is at Groom Dry Lake. Area 51 is an obsolete ID from the AEC maps that predated the base's construction for U-2 testing in the 1950s. The X-Files crowd latched onto that because it sounds mysterious and official; this also explains why the general area codename "RESTRICTED AREA FRENCHMAN" never caught on

. Pilots and engineers often used to refer to it as "The Ranch." My airport guides from several years ago list the approach and control frequencies for nearby government airstrips such as Yucca Flats and Pahute Mesa as "Dreamland Approach." Since neither Yucca nor Pahute are listed as controlled airports, nor is anything else within about 50 miles, three guesses where Dreamland Approach is.

The airspace over the base is Restricted Area R-4808N-that's Restricted, as opposed to an MOA. Most of the Nellis and Nevada Test Site airpace is Restricted. Here's a VFR sectional chart of the area:

mlorrey · « **Reply #28 on:** 08/03/2006 09:58 pm »

IPD really isn't up to the sort of spec we are looking for. Firstly, it is a hydrogen burning engine, which is terrible because of the horrendously low density of H2, fuel tanks are huge. Blackstar's feasibility depends upon high energy density fuels, which H2 is not. Blackstar's fuel is almost certainly a kerosene slurried with boron, carbon, or aluminum nanoparticle powder. See Dr. Dunn's "Alternate SSTO Fuels" paper, and NASA HEDF project for more on these topics.

Particulate deposition on engine nozzles (as is often claimed with borane (not boron) based fuels) is unimportant if the nozzles are disposable ablating nozzles, like SpaceX's Merlin engine (where do you think SpaceX got that technology from?). Furthermore, deposition can be neutralized through the addition of either flourine to the LOX, or hydrazine to the fuel.

As for Groom Dry Lake: there are unit patches from the facility that use many of the popularly known referents. Base personnel take a bit of glee in weaving the popular mythology into graphics and such, all the better for the disinformation, eh? The only official documents that are commonly known and available on the web from the facility is a base security handbook describing the different security areas, including the fabled "S4" area. This documents validity was confirmed when the government, in a federal lawsuit against the government by base workers for OSHA and EPA violations (their attorney was Georgetown prof Jonathan Turley), sought to have the document suppressed and confiscated on grounds of national security (which they had no reason to do if it was fictional), while at the same time trying to insist it was fictional.

NOTE: the base workers were suing over health effects of open pit burning of boron-based compounds.... hint, hint....

mlorrey · « **Reply #29 on:** 08/04/2006 04:20 am »

Quote

Jim - 2/7/2006 4:37 PM

DC-Y is alot bigger than a ABM booster and slower as you said. I could tell the difference between a Minuteman and Altas launch visually from Los Angeles.

But going to orbit would use other assets for tracking and telemetery. Even for the blackstar, if if went to orbit. That is harder to hide. All NRO spacecraft have to use them and the fact they are flying is not hidden.,

But look at who you are talking about, Jim: NRO, who is the alleged recon customer for the Blackstar. What makes you think they aren't covering up their own recon system?

Jim · « **Reply #30 on:** 08/04/2006 04:29 am »

NRO is not a customer. The NRO is a provider. They got out of the air recon systems decades ago.

mlorrey · « **Reply #31 on:** 08/04/2006 06:34 pm »

According to the story, the vehicle was operated by a defense contractor, providing air recon to NRO. If it is an indirect NRO asset, then the NRO has an inherent self interest in not noticing any launch signatures, and, technically, you said "air recon systems". Blackstar is a space recon system.... nice choice of words.

Jim · « **Reply #32 on:** 08/04/2006 10:13 pm »

NRO is not a user of data, they supply it. So thecontractor would not supplying recon to the NRO

josh_simonson · « **Reply #33 on:** 08/05/2006 03:03 am »

>NOTE: the base workers were suing over health effects of open pit burning of boron-based compounds.... hint, hint....

Such as the boron composites that are common on military aircraft? What do you do when you screw up a classified boron composite rudder? Torch it...

mlorrey · « **Reply #34 on:** 08/05/2006 06:49 pm »

Please name some military aircraft that commonly use boron composites... with cites.

Jim · « **Reply #35 on:** 08/05/2006 07:54 pm »

can't they are classified

kevin-rf · « **Reply #36 on:** 08/05/2006 08:58 pm »

But for $41.95 you to could buy a term paper titled "Boron Composite Structures in Aviation" ... http://www.academon.com/lib/paper/5612.html

Sorry, this one was at the topof the google search... Boron Composites look quite common...

vt_hokie · « **Reply #37 on:** 08/05/2006 10:11 pm »

Quote

mlorrey - 5/8/2006 2:36 PM

Please name some military aircraft that commonly use boron composites... with cites.

I think I remember reading that the B-1 bomber does.

Dana · « **Reply #38 on:** 08/06/2006 12:40 am »

Quote

mlorrey - 5/8/2006 11:36 AM

Please name some military aircraft that commonly use boron composites... with cites.

Aircraft applique armor: http://www.ceradyne.com/Products/Armor_Aircraft.asp

Quote: "The first major military production use of boron fiber was for the horizontal stabilizers on the Navy's F-14 Tomcat interceptor." 35+ years ago, man! http://www.centennialofflight.gov/essay/Evolution_of_Technology/composites/Tech40.htm

Link with diagram of F-14 horizontal stabilizer materials: http://www.anft.net/f-14/f14-detail-horizstab.htm

The F-15 (rudder skins- see http://www.csd.uwo.ca/~pettypi/elevon/baugher_us/f015.html ) and Shuttle Orbiter (see http://science.ksc.nasa.gov/shuttle/technology/sts-newsref/sts_coord.html ) also use 'em. Also the F-16. (see http://www.tpub.com/content/aviation/14014/css/14014_343.htm ) Even with the Tomcat out of service, you can't get much more "common" in the western world than the F-15 and F-16. All of these vehicles were designed in the late 1960s/early 1970s and the use of boron in composite structures has proliferated since then, although other materials have eclipsed it in recent years. It's also used in composite structure repairs.

http://www.specmaterials.com/applications.htm

mlorrey · « **Reply #39 on:** 08/09/2006 04:35 am »

Quote

Dana - 5/8/2006 7:27 PM

Quote
mlorrey - 5/8/2006 11:36 AM

Please name some military aircraft that commonly use boron composites... with cites.

Aircraft applique armor: http://www.ceradyne.com/Products/Armor_Aircraft.asp

Quote: "The first major military production use of boron fiber was for the horizontal stabilizers on the Navy's F-14 Tomcat interceptor." 35+ years ago, man! http://www.centennialofflight.gov/essay/Evolution_of_Technology/composites/Tech40.htm

Link with diagram of F-14 horizontal stabilizer materials: http://www.anft.net/f-14/f14-detail-horizstab.htm

The F-15 (rudder skins- see http://www.csd.uwo.ca/~pettypi/elevon/baugher_us/f015.html ) and Shuttle Orbiter (see http://science.ksc.nasa.gov/shuttle/technology/sts-newsref/sts_coord.html ) also use 'em. Also the F-16. (see http://www.tpub.com/content/aviation/14014/css/14014_343.htm ) Even with the Tomcat out of service, you can't get much more "common" in the western world than the F-15 and F-16. All of these vehicles were designed in the late 1960s/early 1970s and the use of boron in composite structures has proliferated since then, although other materials have eclipsed it in recent years. It's also used in composite structure repairs.

http://www.specmaterials.com/applications.htm

Now, how many of these were manufactured or maintained at Groom Lake? None.

BTW: I worked on the F-15. The horizontal stabilizers weren't classified. There would be no reason to dispose of airframe materials on Groom Lake for this aircraft, nor, if boron composites of the same sort were used in a classified aircraft at Groom Lake, would they need to be disposed of there, because, as you say, their use is rather common in airframe structural materials, ergo there is no operational security or other reasons to classify the production and disposal of waste of that nature. Nor are those particular types of boron composites all that great at burning.

Dana · « **Reply #40 on:** 08/10/2006 09:31 pm »

Quote

mlorrey - 8/8/2006 9:22 PM

Quote
Dana - 5/8/2006 7:27 PM

Quote
mlorrey - 5/8/2006 11:36 AM

Please name some military aircraft that commonly use boron composites... with cites.

Aircraft applique armor: http://www.ceradyne.com/Products/Armor_Aircraft.asp

Quote: "The first major military production use of boron fiber was for the horizontal stabilizers on the Navy's F-14 Tomcat interceptor." 35+ years ago, man! http://www.centennialofflight.gov/essay/Evolution_of_Technology/composites/Tech40.htm

Link with diagram of F-14 horizontal stabilizer materials: http://www.anft.net/f-14/f14-detail-horizstab.htm

The F-15 (rudder skins- see http://www.csd.uwo.ca/~pettypi/elevon/baugher_us/f015.html ) and Shuttle Orbiter (see http://science.ksc.nasa.gov/shuttle/technology/sts-newsref/sts_coord.html ) also use 'em. Also the F-16. (see http://www.tpub.com/content/aviation/14014/css/14014_343.htm ) Even with the Tomcat out of service, you can't get much more "common" in the western world than the F-15 and F-16. All of these vehicles were designed in the late 1960s/early 1970s and the use of boron in composite structures has proliferated since then, although other materials have eclipsed it in recent years. It's also used in composite structure repairs.

http://www.specmaterials.com/applications.htm

Now, how many of these were manufactured or maintained at Groom Lake? None.

BTW: I worked on the F-15. The horizontal stabilizers weren't classified. There would be no reason to dispose of airframe materials on Groom Lake for this aircraft, nor, if boron composites of the same sort were used in a classified aircraft at Groom Lake, would they need to be disposed of there, because, as you say, their use is rather common in airframe structural materials, ergo there is no operational security or other reasons to classify the production and disposal of waste of that nature. Nor are those particular types of boron composites all that great at burning.

Let's say a classified aircraft was built at, oh, Plant 42 or something, and moved to Groom Lake. The design of said aircraft incorporated certain amounts of boron-composite elements. The aircraft is tested at Groom Lake for a while. Spares are manufactured, including the boron parts. Then it crashes. The design is still classified. What to do with the wreckage? When the HAVE BLUE stealth demonstrator crashed, they buried the remains somewhere on the Groom Lake site and either buried or burned the few spares. IIRC there are one or two crashed early F-117s buried around there as well, along with a number of other prototypes and UAV designs. If an aircraft is still classified and something like that happens, do you expect them to truck it out of Groom Lake and dump it in a Las Vegas landfill or something for all to see? If boron-composite materials were part of the aircraft's design and spares package (and in aircraft of that era, the 1970s-80s, it most likely would be) I can certainly see them being disposed of on-site in that manner.

Also: F-15s and F-16s would be as common a sight around Groom as they would be at any other AFB. They would be there to function as chase planes, to evaluate against captured (or "otherwise obtained") foreign aircraft (another common operation at Groom Lake over the decades alongside the "black projects"), participate in classified electronics research that was also carried out at Groom Lake, and numerous other tasks. So there have most likely been significant numbers of F-15s and F-16s operated and maintained at Groom Lake over the past 30 years, either on a permanent or detatchment basis.

vt_hokie · « **Reply #41 on:** 08/11/2006 07:30 am »

It seems that projects are remaining classified a lot longer now than they were back in the days of Kelly Johnson. Aircraft such as the Blackbird were revealed only a few years after the programs began. Nowadays, it seems like it'll take decades to learn where our tax dollars are going. It's a shame that the best of aerospace technology is hidden from the world and therefore cannot really benefit humanity as a whole.

I'm all for national security, don't get me wrong. But in the post Cold War era, I fear we are still clinging to a Cold War mentality. Will keeping a space plane secret help to prevent insane/brainwashed fanatics from sneaking explosives onto an airliner or blowing up subways? If the answer is yes, then great, keep it in the "black" world. But I have to wonder if the Av Week article was a precursor to de-classification of the program.

I was just re-reading the Blackstar article published by Aviation Week, and it is rather intriguing. If it is even partially true, to me it is the most exciting development in aerospace in a very long time.

Strato · « **Reply #42 on:** 09/20/2006 07:00 am »

Quote

mlorrey - 4/8/2006 2:36 PM

Please name some military aircraft that commonly use boron composites... with cites.

I can name you one:

Lockheed FDL-5 A unmanned hypersonic test aircraft, 35 feet long, (made of Tantalum and Lockalloy (beryllium-aluminum) among others), the heat shield leading edge skirt was made of a di-boride coating.

Stephane Cochin.
Stratosphere Models.
website: Picturetrail.com/stratospheremodels

Strato · « **Reply #43 on:** 09/20/2006 07:05 am »

Quote

Dana - 4/8/2006 8:27 PM

Quote
mlorrey - 5/8/2006 11:36 AM

Please name some military aircraft that commonly use boron composites... with cites.

Aircraft applique armor: http://www.ceradyne.com/Products/Armor_Aircraft.asp

Quote: "The first major military production use of boron fiber was for the horizontal stabilizers on the Navy's F-14 Tomcat interceptor." 35+ years ago, man! http://www.centennialofflight.gov/essay/Evolution_of_Technology/composites/Tech40.htm

That also went way back to test rudder and horizontal stabilizer items on the F-4 Phantom and the A-4.

Stephane.
Stratosphere Models.
Picturetrail.com/stratospheremodels

Strato · « **Reply #44 on:** 09/20/2006 07:08 am »

Quote

mlorrey - 8/8/2006 12:22 AM

Quote
Dana - 5/8/2006 7:27 PM

Quote
mlorrey - 5/8/2006 11:36 AM

Please name some military aircraft that commonly use boron composites... with cites.

Aircraft applique armor: http://www.ceradyne.com/Products/Armor_Aircraft.asp

Quote: "The first major military production use of boron fiber was for the horizontal stabilizers on the Navy's F-14 Tomcat interceptor." 35+ years ago, man! http://www.centennialofflight.gov/essay/Evolution_of_Technology/composites/Tech40.htm

Link with diagram of F-14 horizontal stabilizer materials: http://www.anft.net/f-14/f14-detail-horizstab.htm

The F-15 (rudder skins- see http://www.csd.uwo.ca/~pettypi/elevon/baugher_us/f015.html ) and Shuttle Orbiter (see http://science.ksc.nasa.gov/shuttle/technology/sts-newsref/sts_coord.html ) also use 'em. Also the F-16. (see http://www.tpub.com/content/aviation/14014/css/14014_343.htm ) Even with the Tomcat out of service, you can't get much more "common" in the western world than the F-15 and F-16. All of these vehicles were designed in the late 1960s/early 1970s and the use of boron in composite structures has proliferated since then, although other materials have eclipsed it in recent years. It's also used in composite structure repairs.

http://www.specmaterials.com/applications.htm

Now, how many of these were manufactured or maintained at Groom Lake? None.

BTW: I worked on the F-15. The horizontal stabilizers weren't classified. There would be no reason to dispose of airframe materials on Groom Lake for this aircraft, nor, if boron composites of the same sort were used in a classified aircraft at Groom Lake, would they need to be disposed of there, because, as you say, their use is rather common in airframe structural materials, ergo there is no operational security or other reasons to classify the production and disposal of waste of that nature. Nor are those particular types of boron composites all that great at burning.

Hi MLorrey,

actually what was burned off in the trenches at Groom Lake and which got the workers sick were left over drums of the older type of RAM composite material used to coat the F-117s.

Stephane.
Stratosphere Models.
Picturetrail.com/stratospheremodels

publiusr · « **Reply #45 on:** 11/03/2006 07:01 pm »

Were there any kinds of (major) spills there?

Whisper-stream · « **Reply #46 on:** 12/04/2006 04:35 pm »

Since this thread drifted into the subject of "Area 51," I will add a few comments:

In the wake of the lawsuits, the burn/burial trenches (located on the site of the original crash training pit) have been subject to environmental remediation. A new landfill was established at the southern extremity of the base (south of the engine test cells). Waste is no longer burned at the site. Other potentially contaminated sites on base (parking ramps with spilled fuel, older buildings with asbestos, fuel storage sites, etc.) have also been cleaned up.

The Groom Lake facility has had many names:
Paradise Ranch (1955)
Watertown (1956-1958, possibly the legal name)
Area 51 (1958-1978)
Det. 3, AFFTC (1979-present)

DREAMLAND is the radio callsign.

For the ultimate secret of Area 51 check out: http://www.dreamlandresort.com/pete/no_secret.html

publiusr · « **Reply #47 on:** 01/05/2007 06:11 pm »

I would imagine that they may have a few zip-propellants over there.

My guess is that there are some anti-rocket USAF engineers there that have read "The Right Stuff" too many times--hate big, simple rockets--and eschew cryogenics. The Jet engine equivalent of some NSACAR greese monkeys rediscovering that flights to extreme altitudes are very difficult.

They want wings on everything and experiment with Boran fuels (i don't know about the gel).

I wouldn't be surprised if they had problems with pentaborane.

It has always been my opinion that the Air Force has had it in for large LV growth and the establishment of a separate space force just because the fighter-jocks that run the place don't want to share funds outside of the fighter (sorry, need to stop here for a second and just say that I have to use stupid words to get my point across. I know that means I must have a weak argument, but that's why I use bad words)..

Vahe231991 · « **Reply #48 on:** 08/21/2023 12:52 am »

Sorry to resurrect this thread, but I should add that although the declassified RAND Corporation report stated that all three projects test flew, but that two were failures, and the third one was considered a "partial success", the paper by Ramon Chase titled "The Formulation of a Near Term Stepping Stone to a Low Cost Earth-to-Orbit Transportation System Based on Legacy Technology" and presented at the AIAA 2004 conference says this about the results of structural tests of the three airframe cross sections built by Boeing, Lockheed, and McDonnell Douglas as part of Have Region:

Quote

Of three test articles built only one was validated. The validated structural test article was a hot structure concept. The test article contained over 90% of the parts that would have gone into the flight article.

In other words, the Boeing structural test article for its RASV concept passed structural tests, but testing of the airframe cross sections built by Lockheed and McDonnell Douglas for their proposed ZEL-TAV and GRM-29A designs respectively in simulated transatmospheric conditions was only partially successful. The Copper Coast program began in the late 1970s and is still active although it had nothing to do with SSTO spaceplane development whatsoever.

Given that Have Key was the Pentagon codename for the design effort by General Dynamics which was part of design work that led to the A-12 Avenger II (which was canceled in early 1991 due to cost overruns and other problems before any of the prototypes under construction could be completed), I'm speculating that the report about the supposed Blackstar TSTO system was only speculating about money supposedly earmarked for a TSTO program being used to fund the A-12 Avenger II program just to coax the A-12 contractors and US Supreme Court to reach a settlement regarding legal disputes over the manner in which the A-12 program was canceled.