Magickman
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John, care to comment? | Quote: | Secret Space Shuttles
When you’re 200 miles up, it’s easy to hide what you’re up to.
By Michael Cassutt
Air & Space Magazine, August 01, 2009
The mission of STS-27 had been to deploy the first in a series of new spy satellites that used radar to observe ground targets, in any kind of weather, day or night. But shortly after the astronauts released the spacecraft, called ONYX, from the shuttle’s cargo bay, on December 2, 1988, one of its antenna dishes had failed to open. Without intervention by the crew, the billion-dollar satellite would become a hunk of space junk. As it turned out, they succeeded in grabbing, fixing, and re-releasing ONYX, for which they later received a medal from the U.S. intelligence community.
and.....
Between 1982 and 1992, NASA launched 11 shuttle flights with classified payloads, honoring a deal that dated to 1969, when the National Reconnaissance Office—an organization so secret its name could not be published at the time—requested certain changes to the design of NASA’s new space transportation system. The NRO built and operated large, expensive reconnaissance satellites, and it wanted a bigger shuttle cargo bay than NASA had planned. The spysat agency also wanted the option to fly “once around” polar missions, which demanded more flexibility to maneuver for a landing that could be on either side of the vehicle’s ground track.
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(More story at provided link)
Source:http://www.airspacemag.com/space-exploration/50779477.html
You have mentioned the secret astronaut program...what do you think they are building up there, above our sight and knowledge? You have to have at the least a theory, and I would like to hear it!
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