a reply to:
crayzeed
It's common sense exactly as Silicone Synapse point's out, many of us do believe the US already does have military capability in Space, stealth
satellites waiting for activation and targeting signals invisible from the ground and waiting for orders to drop there kinetic dart's onto designated
targets from high orbit.
I would personally argue that even if it is no were near as advanced as some believe that even then the US does already have a sizable armada of
weaponized assets in orbit designed with advanced stealth capability to be undetectable from the ground and that there may be rather a lot more of
these assets than the rocket, military shuttle and other launches perhaps disguised as Civilian missions (there is no such thing) would account for
since I am one that believes the US has had in the past at least one advanced magnetic launching facility - think about it like a cross between a
rocket sled and a rail gun but designed to silently (there may have been boom sounds due to the far in excess of the sound barrier launching
velocity's) put payloads into orbit and later iterations were probably more like giant rail gun's since the old style rocket sled track would have
become a limiting factor - though they may very well have long since superseded it with more advanced technology (human's would require much larger
launching systems as we need to more slowly accelerate to the necessary velocity but for solid state payloads built to withstand high acceleration
G-force they may actually be fairly compact in size).
It is actually a VERY old idea, one that goes back to the birth of Rocketry though in it's original concept it was purely a rail or monorail system
that would be assisted by rocketry to increase the payload velocity before it would be released via a ramp, think about it like a super advanced steam
catapult launch system but built on or from very deep facility to surface launching door on land.
Why may they have and probably indeed did research and implement this technology, it is cheaper for repeat launch than a rocket system, no need for
multiple stage launch, no rocket creating thermal launch signatures at least until the object is at orbital velocity and need's to make a course
correction.
Once such a facility was built the turnaround for deployment to space of such asset's would be very high.
And it is the kind of facility and technology that if they had even an ounce of intelligence the private contract space company's would themselves be
looking at.
en.wikipedia.org...
en.wikipedia.org...
research.lifeboat.com...
Remember also there is the old saying about putting all your egg's in one basket, I am sure someone in the US government would have had the
intelligence to realize that there were alternatives to using rocket technology for orbital insertion of assets.
Also worthy of Note as the Chinese now also claim to have rail gun technology - probably copied from the US via hacking and other method's they may
also be investing in this technology for there own launch facility's but even then I suspect they would remain at the very least decades behind the US
black budget and clandestine operations I believe have already born fruit in the past.
It is dangerous though as it may force them to embark on a race to the top if they even suspect the US is so far ahead of them.
Now give that this would once implemented by cheaper than rocket's let's imagine a civilian facility sometime in the future, let's imagine a space
port that look's like a star from above with a central tower shaped a little like the natural formation called the Devil's Tower which is a volcanic
plug but some believe on the fringe is actually the stump of a huge petrified tree (I love those dip's into what if).
en.wikipedia.org...
Now this tower would be taller and more slender but it is not the launch facility it just the ramp stage, lain around it and running up it's side's
would be miles of acceleration track's at the far end of which would be the future equivalent of airport's and nearby huge landing air fields capable
of accepting the glide to land return vehicles for reuse.
In orbit we may have stations and even without them this would provide a viable alternative to other forms of hyper sonic flight in a ground launch
assisted take on that, you board your flight at one of the many terminal's after being brought there from the space port's main entrance area via more
terrestrial means' such as monorail and there you would board the launch vehicle sitting in an acceleration seat, the craft would then slowly
accelerate but while you felt yourself being pushed back by the G-force into your acceleration seat until it was exceeding hyper sonic speed's and
then you would slowly move upward as your chair tilted with a short term increase in angular G-force pushing you deeper into your seat before you the
G-force entirely eases as your craft moved up the ramped section then up the side of the tower at the center of the star like lay out of launch rail's
and then once free of the rail system your craft would be catapulted with minor rocket adjustment's into orbit were it may then remain or else come
down and land at a similar facility somewhere else on the planet half way around the world far faster than a plane journey would have taken just to
fly you from one major city to another.
As you can see the initial overlay cost would be huge (but the US black budget could soak it up hundreds perhaps thousands of time's over) but in
time it would pay for itself, reusable craft, less fuel use and the economic benefit's of such a high speed commercial/civilian application, it could
in theory even deliver payloads to the moon and from there to other destination's but each of this type of space port has a distinct disadvantage,
they would be huge facility's though you could build them underground to hide them from threatening observation.
edit on 19-12-2019 by LABTECH767 because: (no reason given)