Valkyrie final flight
Join Date: Apr 2008
Location: The Whyte House
Age: 95
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Yes, the Valkyrie is in the fourth building, along with the Air Force One collection and a number of research aircraft such as the X-3 and X-24.
Perhaps some of the same reasons that expendables still have a place in transonic and space flight. Remember the Space Shuttle was originally envisioned as a space truck that could be rapidly reused and re-launched cheaply and easily, but as we saw it did not replace expendable boosters, was never cheap, and was replaced by Titan derivatives for heavy payloads. Only now are we seeing some truly reusable launch methods, but even these are only partially reusable, and they work....sometimes.....
IF an Aurora or XB-70 type aircraft was developed as a mother ship for a reusable orbiter, that would have been two very complex airframe systems with exotic materials, fuels, maintenance and security requirements. Not cheap or easy.
Crewed vehicles also have the highest safety requirements.
IF an Aurora or XB-70 type aircraft was developed as a mother ship for a reusable orbiter, that would have been two very complex airframe systems with exotic materials, fuels, maintenance and security requirements. Not cheap or easy.
Crewed vehicles also have the highest safety requirements.
Former Location
R&D Trio by Mark Carlisle, on Flickr
Original:
North American XB-70A Valkyrie 62-0001 by Mark Carlisle, on Flickr
R&D Trio by Mark Carlisle, on FlickrOriginal:
North American XB-70A Valkyrie 62-0001 by Mark Carlisle, on FlickrSo the XB-70 retirement, on grounds of being too expensive, too complex and obsolete, was actually a cover story for top-secret Aurora. However the reason Aurora has never reached the public domain, despite being replaced by a system that regularly features in USAF press releases, is that it was retired, on grounds of being too expensive, too complex and obsolete. Have I got that right?
Developing something that big and complex could never be done in secret these days or in the 90s.
Ecce Homo! Loquitur...
This has all entered the tinfoil hat territory methinks.
Developing something that big and complex could never be done in secret these days or in the 90s.
Developing something that big and complex could never be done in secret these days or in the 90s.
https://thespacereview.com/article/576/1
Six blind men in a zoo: Aviation Week’s mythical Blackstar
https://www.tmcnet.com/usubmit/2006/03/20/1472209.htm
Blackstar A False Messiah From Groom Lake
Of course there were projects ISINGLASS, Rheinberry and QUARTZ….
It is perhaps worth mentioning that while the airframes were smaller than something XB-70 sized, OXCART, Have Blue, Bird Of Prey, Tacit Blue, Senior Trend, various MiG's, various helos, some very large and complex space based sensors, and now a 6th gen fighter jet were all flown in secrecy by the USA and some of these were large and complex programs. OXCART was over 100,000 pounds, quite complex and 15 were built. Not a small program.
It is perhaps worth mentioning that while the airframes were smaller than something XB-70 sized, OXCART, Have Blue, Bird Of Prey, Tacit Blue, Senior Trend, various MiG's, various helos, some very large and complex space based sensors, and now a 6th gen fighter jet were all flown in secrecy by the USA and some of these were large and complex programs. OXCART was over 100,000 pounds, quite complex and 15 were built. Not a small program.
In that context, why would another program from the same era, that was also retired due to cost/obsolescence, and who's successor is very much in the public domain, still be under wraps?
For the answer to that question have a look at the two links posted by ORAC, the first of which is a particularly good read.
As for some programs being declassified and in museums and others not, there can be a whole variety of reasons for that. I do not believe we know all about every past program, whether they were successful or not, nor should we.
A number of nations have very well-documented transonic and suborbital strike capabilities, though the preference for the latter is generally to launch from a submarine. As pointed out in the first of those articles, using this capability for reconnaissance is a really bad idea because your adversary has no way of knowing what's attached to the missile until it's too late.
An interesting side effect of the emergence of multi thousand satellite constellations is that nuclear strikes from orbit become much easier to set up and a lot less easy to detect.beforehand. When satellites numbered in the hundreds, putting up a bunch of orbital bombs was pretty conspicuous.. Now, who can tell among the many thousands whizzing around in low orbits?
