X-37C: plans for a crewed version of the X-37

[Namechange User]

Ever hear of an Air War College paper called Wild Ride?

Link....(PDF)

Sure.  But here is the problem with that.

What possible need is so great that we must launch and send some Marines through space to get them to the other side of the planet that quickly and in that way?

What happens to extract the Team after their objective is complete?  What about the vehicle?  Do we leave it?  Do we blow it up?

Look at the Bin Laden experience and see what happens there.  Clearly we have a stealth helicopter that we had to destroy and look what happened with the Chinese, etc. 

Are we prepared to surrender space plane technology to foreign interests at every operational use?

[Patchouli]

Ever hear of an Air War College paper called Wild Ride?

Link....(PDF)

Sure.  But here is the problem with that.

What possible need is so great that we must launch and send some Marines through space to get them to the other side of the planet that quickly and in that way?

What happens to extract the Team after their objective is complete?  What about the vehicle?  Do we leave it?  Do we blow it up?

Look at the Bin Laden experience and see what happens there.  Clearly we have a stealth helicopter that we had to destroy and look what happened with the Chinese, etc. 

Are we prepared to surrender space plane technology to foreign interests at every operational use?

I always wondered the same thing.

Landing probably would not be a big deal for a small space plane as it probably could land at almost any airport or even a highway but getting it back would be a pain.

You'd have to send a Chinook to get the landing vehicle and crew and it probably would be very close to the max payload.

Maybe if it also had air breathing engines and could be flown back like a normal jet at sub to low super sonic speeds but you'd still need a good spot to land and take off.

The range would probably would not be very good either as hyper sonic shapes generally do not make good sub sonic shapes.

[docmordrid]

As far as forward insertion goes I refer you to Operation Overlord where we dropped disposable gliders in behind lines for special ops, and the fact that such troops have been HALO jumping to do the same for decades. This would allow the same hotzone maneuver worldwide within hours.

Nothing says the transport has to be returnable or reusable. Just enough to make the trip and landing is enough. Extraction is often different than insertion, nothing new there, and some missions only return if their own advancing forces overtake them. Some missions don't. Welcome to USSOCOM.

[Namechange User]

I always wondered the same thing you'd have to send a Chinook to get the vehicle and it probably would be very close to the max payload.

Right, if you don't plan on destroying it.  And if you need to send a team into a hostile zone to recover your people AND spaceship then operationally speaking it is more efficient and safer to just send in the equipment to extract the Team (assuming they did not come in on something and it is not loitering, etc for them)

Besides, we pretty much reach across the world right now with current capabilities and nothing says, "Hey, I'm coming" like a hypersonic vehicle from space descending into your country. 

[Patchouli]

I always wondered the same thing you'd have to send a Chinook to get the vehicle and it probably would be very close to the max payload.

Right, if you don't plan on destroying it.  And if you need to send a team into a hostile zone to recover your people AND spaceship then operationally speaking it is more efficient and safer to just send in the equipment to extract the Team (assuming they did not come in on something and it is not loitering, etc for them)

Besides, we pretty much reach across the world right now with current capabilities and nothing says, "Hey, I'm coming" like a hypersonic vehicle from space descending into your country. 

Dangerous as heck but I wonder if a VTOL like DCY would be better as it can land anywhere.

Just make sure you have enough fuel to hop back to somewhere friendly.

More useful would be to employ your space plane as a glide skip bomber.

[docmordrid]

But what reaction time would they have to a fast incoming doing a precision landing? A lot shorter than to an airdrop I'd bet, and those are done all the time.

[Patchouli]

The craziest concept for fast intercontinental troop delivery I ever seen was Ithacus.
http://www.astronautix.com/craft/ithacus.htm

[Namechange User]

But what reaction time would they have to a fast incoming doing a precision landing? A lot shorter than to an airdrop I'd bet, and those are done all the time.

Well no.  You have sonic booms, etc.  Where does one do a "precision landing" in hostile territory that meets the requirements to actually land but remote enough that no one will be there or is not a target on the ground.  What if that landing area is nowhere near the reason the Team is going in the first place?  How do you get them out afterward?

[Prober]

This could be Boeing playing mind games with SNC…

Or it could be the Boeing X-37 team playing mind games with the Boeing CST-100 team.

NASA could put a stop to this really quick by telling Boeing Corporate that NASA will only fund one or the other.

The CCDev-2 rules were clear on that point. You are only allowed to have one proposal where you are the main participant. Boeing needs to make a choice. However, you are also allowed to participate in other proposals as long as you remain a minority participant.

If I was in their position I'd combine the two programs.

Since the X-37 has flight experience and aircraft work is not difficult for Boeing I'd go with the X-37C as the combined program.

A capsule is not necessarily safer then a space plane that is a complete fallacy in fact  flight history of past vehicles shows the opposite.

Though ITAR is going to be a far better decider here then anything technical but I feel the X-37C would have both lower reoccurring costs and would be safer then the CST-100.

Maybe things are alot closer then we think. 

Jim let the poor guy return, he must be getting hungry...hhhehhe

[Jim]

A capsule is not necessarily safer then a space plane that is a complete fallacy in fact  flight history of past vehicles shows the opposite.

Wrong as usual.

[BrightLight]

A capsule is not necessarily safer then a space plane that is a complete fallacy in fact  flight history of past vehicles shows the opposite.

Wrong as usual.

This comes up periodically on the forum -  Is there a reference on the safety and reliability of winged RV, lifting bodies and capsules.  Someone must have done an analysis at some point. 

[yg1968]

The CCDev-2 rules were clear on that point. You are only allowed to have one proposal where you are the main participant. Boeing needs to make a choice.

Boeing doesn't need to make a choice. X-37 is not a CCDev contestant. It is a USAF project only. Boeing has many other projects it is also working on and none of them are CCDev contestants either. Boeing has only one CCDev project underway: CST-100.

Yes I know. I meant that Boeing cannot ask NASA to fund the X-37C for CCDev-3 unless it drops the CST-100 or if it transfers the project to Bigelow. I am not expecting that to happen because I expect Boeing to continue with the CST-100 for CCDev-3 and 4.

[Jorge]

This X-37C proposal is best seen in light of the many Apollo Application proposals that came out in the late 60s/ early 70s. They were efforts by the contractors to come up with new uses for their product (Apollo) that would allow continued consumption of the product. Some of these were god ideas, some were kind of crazy. But mostly they were out there to get more work for the company.

The X-37b folk can see the brick wall at the end of the gravy train. So they're floating ideas to keep moving forward.

It reminds me of the flurry of MDAC Gemini variants as well.

[Prober]

Anyone seen/read the X37C paper AIAA-2011-7315 ?

[Patchouli]

A capsule is not necessarily safer then a space plane that is a complete fallacy in fact  flight history of past vehicles shows the opposite.

Wrong as usual.

This comes up periodically on the forum -  Is there a reference on the safety and reliability of winged RV, lifting bodies and capsules.  Someone must have done an analysis at some point. 

On paper a capsule seems safer but in practice the Shuttle and X-15 programs have demonstrated that landing as a glider generally is much safer then then using parachutes and splashing down.

The plane side of things is often is argued as a failure mode but this is probably the safest part of the system as the avionics and control systems are similar to those on airliners and are very robust systems.
The LV and spacecraft end of things are far more likely to cause an LOC event.
The  biggest advantage a capsule has is the main TPS is covered by a service module or in Dragon's case a trunk.

But other risks like separation events could overshadow this and on orbit repair and redundant TPS could reduce it's risk.
Though some space planes have separation events such as Kliper and Hermes.
Slash downs are risky esp considering the recovery team also is at risk vs just the crew in the descent vehicle.
The weather needs to be perfect if possible.
One reason why Spacex wants to land on land.

[Jim]

On paper a capsule seems safer but in practice the Shuttle and X-15 programs have demonstrated that landing as a glider generally is much safer then then using parachutes and splashing down.

Wrong again. Shuttle and X-15 have demonstrated the opposite.  How many landing accidents were in the X-15?  How many pilots were lost in X-15? Columbia?  Soyuz 1 is the only strike against capsules.  All other issues with capsules show their robustness. 

[BrightLight]

A capsule is not necessarily safer then a space plane that is a complete fallacy in fact  flight history of past vehicles shows the opposite.

Wrong as usual.

This comes up periodically on the forum -  Is there a reference on the safety and reliability of winged RV, lifting bodies and capsules.  Someone must have done an analysis at some point. 

On paper a capsule seems safer but in practice the Shuttle and X-15 programs have demonstrated that landing as a glider generally is much safer then then using parachutes and splashing down.

The plane side of things is often is argued as a failure mode but this is probably the safest part of the system as the avionics and control systems are similar to those on airliners and are very robust systems.

The  biggest advantage a capsule has is the main TPS is covered by a service module.

But other risks like separation events could overshadow this and on orbit repair and redundant TPS could reduce it's risk.

I have looked at cost analysis of various RV's and I think it will boil down to the number of people used to maintain the craft between flights.  There might be a break point of something like 7:1 for flight engineers to support.  However, I can't find a model that can simulate the safety/reliability of RV's, so for example the higher temperature a lifting body will encounter on reentry as compared to a blunt body might be offset by not having to use parachutes (and there failure modes).  I am sure that there are many trades and I suspect not simple ones at that.

[BrightLight]

On paper a capsule seems safer but in practice the Shuttle and X-15 programs have demonstrated that landing as a glider generally is much safer then then using parachutes and splashing down.

Wrong again. Shuttle and X-15 have demonstrated the opposite.  How many landing accidents were in the X-15?  How many pilots were lost in X-15? Columbia?  Soyuz 1 is the only strike against capsules.  All other issues with capsules show their robustness. 

How many RV's - manned and unmanned using the capsule design have failed? It is the design that is in question.  The manned capsule systems - thank goodness - have performed well, although the Russian systems periodically land in the wrong place, as have American systems i.e. Mercury.  Does cross range affect safety and reliability, I think so.

[Patchouli]

On paper a capsule seems safer but in practice the Shuttle and X-15 programs have demonstrated that landing as a glider generally is much safer then then using parachutes and splashing down.

Wrong again. Shuttle and X-15 have demonstrated the opposite.  How many landing accidents were in the X-15?  How many pilots were lost in X-15? Columbia?  Soyuz 1 is the only strike against capsules.  All other issues with capsules show their robustness. 

There was only one landing fatality with the X-15 and that was due to pilot disorientation.
Columbia was not directly due to it being a space plane but just as much as it riding the side of the LV stack.
The X-37C would not be subject to LV debris.

It should be noted Liberty Bell 7,Soyuz 23, and ASTP were close LOC events partly related to the descent and landing mode.
The two cosmonauts surviving Soyuz 18a was sheer luck vs anything else.
There also has been a few instances of hard landings on Soyuz resulting in injury.

Engineering and QM along with paying attention to weather probably completely over shadow any inherent safety or danger of a landing mode.

I'd still prefer a capsule for long BEO mission return because the TPS is covered and for mass savings but for LEO a space plane seems better suited.

[BrightLight]

On paper a capsule seems safer but in practice the Shuttle and X-15 programs have demonstrated that landing as a glider generally is much safer then then using parachutes and splashing down.

Wrong again. Shuttle and X-15 have demonstrated the opposite.  How many landing accidents were in the X-15?  How many pilots were lost in X-15? Columbia?  Soyuz 1 is the only strike against capsules.  All other issues with capsules show their robustness. 

There was only one landing fatality with the X-15 and that was due to pilot disorientation.
Columbia was not directly due to it being a space plane but just as much as it riding the side of the LV stack.
The X-37C would not be subject to LV debris.

It should be noted Liberty Bell 7,Soyuz 23, and ASTP were close LOC events partly related to the descent and landing mode.
The two cosmonauts surviving Soyuz 18a was sheer luck vs anything else.
There also has been a few instances of hard landings on Soyuz resulting in injury.

Over all they're probably equal if anything and there likely is no simple yes no answer which is why all the private vehicle are each going for very different entry and landing modes.

I'd still prefer a capsule for long BEO mission return because the TPS is covered and for mass savings but for LEO a space plane seems better.

Aside from the Shuttle, lifting bodies made almost 150 landings from altitude with 1 fatality early in the lifting body program (M2F2 I believe)
One of the main reasons why intel systems stopped using film return was the issue of capsule RV reliability.  Both the US and the Russians have a lot of experience using both capsule and lifting body RV's and it should be possible to determine the utility of both systems quantitatively, I just don't know how at this point.