I love reading this kind of stuff. I love being reminded of how complicated reality is, given my own high levels assumptions. You think "change orbit, that's easy" or "take space pictures" but the nitty gritty filled reality is so much more amazingly complex, it's mind boggling and impressive.
I'm amused that geeks, to the extent hey notice this at all, think that the space program is science masquerading as military. Are people under the impression that Lockheed Martin makes microscopes and centrifuges when they're not building shuttle components? Or that it is coincidental that outgrowths of the billions spent on the space program include Tang, Velcro, and the ability to turn Moscow into glass?
Good point. Makes me wonder how much further spaceflight would have progressed if SDI had got off the ground. On one hand weaponizing space is bad, but on the other it could push better space technology forward. A faustian bargain.
In at least two articles about the X-37B, I've read about it changing orbit. But isn't that an energetically expensive operation? In a previous article (http://www.csmonitor.com/Science/2010/0824/Secret-Air-Force-...) the change seemed to be one of altitude/elevation (sorry if I'm using the wrong orbital mechanics terms ), rather than a plane change. But isn't that still relatively expensive, even with a Hohmann transfer or something? I can't imagine the X-37B can do very many orbit changes - can anyone provide more information on the physics behind this?
Trivia: this was the first spot googling "energy cost change orbital plane". I almost didn't click the link "Standard Orbit, Mr Sulu!" but was very glad I did. Bing had Wikipedia as the first spot, not nearly as engaging.
At large observatories (in the US anyway), the military will actually require that the telescope avoid observing certain regions of the sky at certain times so that enterprising astronomers can't figure out the orbits of their spy satellites. Of course, most of the "forbidden zones" are randomly chosen patches of sky so that you can't figure out the satellite's orbits based on the positions of the forbidden zones alone.
It's hardly a secret craft - if amateur astronomers can find it, you can bet most of the world's intelligence agencies know quite a bit about it - and now that the West has total air control over all of Libya a space plane that'll pass over the area only once every couple orbits would be a pretty stupid way to do recon.
Fly a few dozen Predators or use the existing air assets already patrolling over Libya and you'll get better data.
