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Comment by rdl | Hacker News Reader

Launching a (classifies) satellite into a useful-for-spying orbit is one level of secret, although clearly something which could be done with unmanned rockets (as was done later).

One of the super secret missions they used to sell the shuttle program was capture (and theft, or tampering and replacement?) of foreign in-orbit satellites. There isn’t any solid evidence this was ever done, but it was a unique capability of something like the shuttle.

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>> One of the super secret missions they used to sell the shuttle program was capture

No. That is the easier-to-swallow purpose. The logistics of capturing an enemy sat, one that might defend itself by changing orbit, are ridiculous.

What shuttle could do was bring friendly sats back. Why? Well it would have to be something that you couldn't let burn up in the atmosphere but neverthless needed to come home. Shuttle could have serviced space-based nuclear weaponry, the one type of friendly sat that couldn't be destroyed in the atmosphere or sent into a disposal orbit.

A fleet of nuclear-tipped reentry vehicles in orbit would have required constant up-and-down servicing. Russia saw the US biulding a vehicle capable of servicing such a fleet. Fearing a capability gap, Russia developed Buran. But when various treaties and understandings mooted space-nuke concepts, Buran lost its purpose and was parked. Shuttle continued.

Other aspects of shuttle also came from never-flew military missions. Those giant wings were to permit a polar-orbit overflight of russia with return to the launch center, a cross-range capability. It didn't need such massive wings.

This is probably the most coherent reason for Shuttle existence. Thank you!

Not just nukes. There were some tentative plans to use the shuttle with recon satellites. Either for on-orbit replacement of consumables (putting in more film), or returning a satellite to earth for reservicing and eventual reuse (which could also make getting the film back to earth much simpler)

True. Shuttle was begun long before digital imaging and asymmetric encryption did away with film. Of course shuttle could also be used as a recon platform itself, one that could alter orbit radically as needed to conduct surprise overflights. The MOL/Almaz programs, manned spying stations, were still in the back of people's minds.

Pre-digital, the film from spy satellites was parachuted to earth and captured mid-air by recovery aircraft.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mid-air_retrieval

>A fleet of nuclear-tipped reentry vehicles in orbit would have required constant up-and-down servicing.

Nukes in orbit was long out of question by the treaties. The Star Wars was all the rage (SDI). It is those satellites and their components which were going to be huge and be nuclear powered and thus couldn't be just burned in the atmosphere.

> Launching a (classifies) satellite into a useful-for-spying orbit is one level of secret, although clearly something which could be done with unmanned rockets (as was done later).

(As was done before, during and after the space shuttle program.)

In this case the story says the satellite required ad hoc human intervention in order to become operational which does support the idea that the STS was needed.

However given the amount of propaganda around both the STS program itself and of course the NRO and other intelligence agencies it's difficult to know what to believe, and I pretty much agree with the opinion (yours too I believe) that the STS was a significant drag on the US space program.

(What's the chance that purpose built "satellite retrievers" might already have been constructed? The current crop of micro satellites would be seemingly easier to retrieve and return to earth using a "corona-style" mechanism (drop and collect in air via aircraft) -- something impossible with the older refrigerator- or bus-sized ones.

> What's the chance that purpose built "satellite retrievers" might already have been constructed?

If you google "inspector satellite" you'll see that in current events, people are questioning whether they've been deployed.

Isn't that exactly what people think the X-37 is up to?

https://www.airspacemag.com/space/spaceplane-x-37-180957777/

I think the only thing that we know it's doing up there is what the Air Force does best, burning money.

> One of the super secret missions they used to sell the shuttle program was capture

That would work once. After you successfully capture one satellite your adversary would add a special explosive payload to a subsequent satellite and then "leak" a salacious detail about said satellite to make you attempt to capture it. One shuttle braking up in orbit later and you'd never use it for that purpose again.

Hmm.. if only you had a tiny unmanned shuttle...

I'm pretty certain any such mission would have leaked by now. At least the fact of it, if not the details.

On-orbit servicing of friendly recon sats was considered pretty seriously, though: http://www.thespacereview.com/article/3390/1

You’d think the victims would have complained if it had ever happened, too. You can’t hide something like the Shuttle in orbit, so it’ll be clear to anyone who cares to observe.

Soviets would not cry that someone took one of their reconnaissance satellites. That would just underscore how far behind they are in space race/star wars.

I don't think the soviets were behind, and in fact they were far ahead in some capabilities (e.g. heavy launch). The program has suffered from neglect since the end of communism though, while the US has made some progress.

And it isn't like the US program hasn't suffered from neglect either. The best thing for US space efforts, both orbital and not, has been the end of STS.

Not to mention that being ahead or behind has nothing to do with whether someone could steal one of your satellites. Avoiding it is pretty easy: put a small bomb on your satellite, rigged to go off if it detects tampering. A couple of pounds would be plenty, spacecraft are fragile. I don't think anyone ever did this, since this wasn't a serious threat.

Why even bother going to the great expense and danger of capturing someone else's satellite? Surely it's relatively easy to determine its capabilities by looking at the data being transmitted?

Might be hard to intercept those data. They are likely encrypted. Plus you may want to learn about their technical capabilities.

If they are putting your sat in an enclosed area, you don’t even need to do that, just vent your hypergolic fuel, 1 part out each side of the sat.

You then claim that they must have damaged a fuel line when they touched the satellite.

Also, "accidental" damage is far easier to explain than putting munitions in orbit coughOuter Space Treatycough

I can't believe I'm about to defend the Russians here but... Not only were they first to pretty much everything space-related, they're the only country still flying manned missions. How are you defining "behind", exactly?

From what I understand the Soviet's Buran shuttle was far ahead of our own.

Are you being sarcastic? It completed one unmanned flight in 1988, that's all.

It was pretty sophisticated. The fact that it was able to make an unmanned flight is an example of something that was superior to the Shuttle. It just didn’t get the resources needed to keep flying, which is a separate issue.

Not to argue that the Buran was "far ahead" of the Space Shuttle, but reasons for not continuing to use the Buran include many others beyond it not being advanced enough. Whether or not it was useful or economical to continue using it are also legitimate (and probably more likely) reasons for it to have been discontinued regardless of its technological achievements. One could imagine the Soviet Union wanting to continue flights even if it weren't more advanced if it were otherwise reasonable to do so. (And that also ignores internal politics.)

The sophistication was in realizing the entire design is pointless and abandoning it early.

It wasn't ahead, but on the contrary it was behind.

They didn't managed to add engines to their copy and US launcher had reusable parts, but "Energiya" was strictly for single-time use.

Don't forget the Chinese program.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shenzhou_program#Missions_laun...

>I'm pretty certain any such mission would have leaked by now. At least the fact of it, if not the details.

How do you know it hasn't? For example, it would seem to be within the capbilities of the rumored Blackstar:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackstar_(spacecraft)

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