Monkey see - monkey do - China & Russia building space plane too!

Russians and China said to be working on their own X37 type craft.
30 January 2011
By gary

Shenlong
A report published by China Aviation Journal, China has successfully launched its own space plane prototype, the news came out shortly after the US Air Force announced the successful test of their advanced X37B space plane, which is widely regarded as a next-generation super weapon that is even more dangerous than atomic bomb. This story has now been deleted.

Last year the X37 B was lost and found not once but twice by a South African amateur astronomer.

The Ming Pao and the Zhongguo Pinglun (China Review), a news website in Hong Kong, posted an article headlined “China succeeds in spacecraft test flight in tandem with U.S. X-37B” until early Tuesday, but no mainland Chinese media websites mentioned anything about it.

China’s “Hermes” Space Plane: A December 16 photo shows a model of the Shenlong and a new model of the Chinese “Hermes” space plane. China has made significant progress toward the development of an unmanned trans-atmospheric vehicle and a Space Plane. Beijing’s technological advancement has obvious commercial and scientific uses, however the military significance of the plane cannot be denied.

Hong Kong’s Ming Pao daily on Tuesday said Shaanxi TV last Saturday quoted acting provincial governor Zhao Zhengyong as saying China has “succeeded in the test flight of a prototype aircraft that can fly through the atmospheric layer.” Zhao was visiting a state-run aircraft corporation at Xi’an high-tech industrial development zone.

Chinese officials say that their rocket powered space plane program may be a reaction to U.S. ambitions to dominate space and develop space planes, hypersonic transports and bombers.

The involvement of fighter aircraft design institutes, plus previous statements of Chinese spacecraft design officials and related military-engineering literature, suggest that China wants its space planes to perform military, even attack, missions. The Chinese Daily said Beijing’s development of the aircraft was leaked to the press like recent stories about its new stealth fighter dubbed the J-20, but authorities were “deleting all Internet posts about the space fighter.”

The Chinese channel showed images of a prototype space fighter being assembled whose outward appearance was almost identical to a U.S. pilotless upper-atmosphere military spaceship, the X-37B, the daily said. The U.S.’ pilotless upper-atmosphere military spaceship, the X-37B /Courtesy of the U.S. Air Force.

Chinese military analysts clarify that a Space plane will definitely form the basis for a space combat platform. This space combat platform will be intended to attack targets on Earth or it could carry out counter-space combat missions. China is aggressively pursuing air-breathing hypersonic propulsion technologies, which will provide additional avenues to develop very rapid long-range “deep strike” weapons.

There are news stories about “People’s Liberation Army Air craft carrier space program in 2000″ which claim that China is also building a Spacecraft Carrier.

Russian researchers seem to be playing catch up, they are developing an unmanned spaceflight vehicle, something similar to the Boeing X-37 Orbital Test Vehicle, but its final use remains still unknown.

Oleg Ostapenko, Space Troops chief , revealed it also declaring that: “Something has been done along these lines, but as to whether we will use it, only time will tell”.

China slips Top Gun clip into combat propaganda

China Central Television (CCTV) reported in its Network News Broadcast that the Chinese Air Force has acquired combat capabilities for distant waters. A video clip of a J-10 Fighter in a live combat exercise was shown. Sharp-eyed netizens quickly noticed a less than two second long clip of an aircraft exploding in midair that was taken from the 1986 U.S. movie hit Top Gun. A frame-by-frame comparison of the CCTV news video and the footage from Top Gun has widely spread on the Internet.

CCTV’s Network News Broadcast is a 30-minute news program that has been aired every night at 7 p.m. since 1976.

A Jan. 27 report by Yunnan Information News said the video in question was aired on Jan. 23. An Internet user by the name of “Liu Yi” pointed out that the exploded target was a U.S. F-5 jet fighter, and that the video was from the movie Top Gun, where Tom Cruise piloted an F-14 shooting at the F-5.

This discovery was first posted on Jan. 26 at 14:48 on a Sina microblog by someone calling himself “X-rated”. A frame-by-frame comparison of the two videos shows that the two footages are identical, including such details as the moving direction of fragments from the explosion and the shape of the smoke.

The video clip was aired by CCTV with the following narration: “The J-10 Fighter is a new acquisition to this division and made by our country … [it] won the first battle against a brother division by 13 to 1. All 18 targets were hit in its first live target combat practice.”

“X-rated” sectioned the CCTV video into 3 frames and compared them side by side to footage from Top Gun, saying, “How come they look the same to me?”

“Liu Yi” responded, “Just saw the frames. The target is confirmed to be an F-5.”

He then posted in his microblog another picture from the CCTV video showing clearly an F-5. The same footage in Top Gun was found at 96' to 98' where a few scenes show an F-14 fighter destroying an F-5.

Other people noticed that the color of the clip in question is lighter than the rest of the video. The conversion from NTSC used in the U.S. to PAL used in China might be the reason.

Some netizens suggested that Top Gun should ask CCTV for copyright damages.

READ THE FULL STORY HERE

New photos of RQ-170 UAV "Beast" surface.

Originally posted HERE!


Click to enlarge:





LINK HERE

China denies it copied U.S. stealth ...

Chinese military experts say that China didn't steal U.S. technology to build the J-20, country's first stealth plane.

"China is completely capable of making its own stealth fighter jet," Li Daguang, a professor at the country's National Defense University, told the Wall Street Journal. "I think we developed the J-20 largely on our own research, but at the same time learning from existing foreign models. Many countries have already possessed stealth-jet technology… stealth materials are not considered highly sophisticated or confidential at all."


Previous reports on China's plane said that the country used technology gleaned from a U.S. F-117 Nighthawk fighter plane that was gunned down over Serbia in 1999.
The fallen F-117 left huge debris scattered throughout farmland in Serbia. Some people collected these parts as souvenirs and later sold them to Chinese agents who were in the region at the time.

"We believe the Chinese used those materials to gain an insight into secret stealth technologies… and to reverse-engineer them," Adm. Davor Domazet-Loso, Croatia's military chief of staff during the Kosovo war, told the AP.


READ THE FULL STORY HERE

Breaking: Moscow airport rocked by terror bomb - 35 dead.

Moscow (CNN) -- Terrorists detonated a bomb at Moscow's busiest airport on Monday, killing 35 people and wounding another 152, Russian authorities said.
President Dmitry Medvedev, who called the bombing a terrorist attack, ordered additional security at Moscow's other airports and transportation hubs, and Moscow police went on high alert in case of additional bombs.

The explosion occurred about 4:30 p.m. at the entrance of the international arrivals section of Domodedovo Airport, Itar-Tass said, citing a spokeswoman for the Russian Investigative Committee, Tatyana Morozova.
State TV aired video of the smoke-filled terminal, including what appeared to be bodies and luggage on the ground.

The Russian National Anti-Terrorist Committee said 35 people were dead and 152 had been wounded in the explosion.
State TV, citing Russian authorities, said the bombing was the act of a suicide bomber who stuffed a homemade bomb with small metal objects to make it more deadly, then activated it in a crowded area where many people were either preparing for flights or waiting for arriving passengers. CNN could not independently verify those claims.

A heavy police presence remained outside of the airport nearly four hours after the explosion, and more than 10 ambulances with lights flashing and sirens screeching left the airport.


Incoming flights scheduled to land at Domodedovo were being diverted to Moscow's other airports, Sheremetyevo and Vnukovo, Russian TV said.
However, airport spokeswoman Yelena Galanova told Russian state TV that the airport was "operating as usual."

"There have been no departure delays. We were shut for only about 20 minutes after the explosion," she told state TV.
An airport employee, Andrei Surkov, told CNN that while the international arrivals area is still closed, international passengers were being routed through the domestic terminal located on the other end of the airport.


Lufthansa spokeswoman Claudia Lange said the airline has suspended all flights to Domodedovo until further notice.

Elina Bakhtina told state TV she was at the airport cafe she owns when the explosion occurred.

"The blast must have been very strong, because our cafe is about 100 meters from the arrivals area. When we heard the blast, glass just started falling from the ceiling," she said.

Tatyana Papova, who was waiting at passport control when the explosion occurred, told state TV that escalators stopped working at the baggage claim area and airport employees started breaking down walls to help clear people from the area.
Domodedovo is 22 kilometers (14 miles) southeast of Moscow. According to the airport's website, it is the largest of Moscow's three airports, as well as the busiest in terms of passenger traffic.

U.S. President Barack Obama called the bombing a "premeditated attack against innocent civilians."

NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen condemned the attack and urged greater cooperation in the fight against terrorism.
British Foreign Secretary William Hague said British officials are "in urgent contact with Russian authorities to establish the facts and to provide consular support to any British nationals who may have been affected."

Will Geddes, terrorism expert and managing director of International Corporate Protection Group, called the bombing a "very significant terror strike."
"To strike in the airport -- which is fundamentally believed and understood by many to be one of the most secure types of installations in a city or in a country -- to have such a devastating an attack with such a tragic result, means that they had planned this considerably well and gone ahead in achieving their aims," he said.

Russia has a long history of dealing with terror attacks.
Most recently, female suicide bombers struck the Moscow metro during rush hour in March, setting off two explosions that killed at least 38 people and wounded more than 60 others. Chechen rebels claimed responsibility for that attack.
In November 2009, an explosive device derailed an express train, killing at least 26 people.