The next generation of spies from on high continue to emerge, with two secretive unmanned planes making their public debuts this week.
Boeing Phantom Eye
Engadget calls it a “bowling pin with wings.” I’d say it’s more like a flying maraca.
The Phantom Eye, which Boeing unveiled this week, will take to the skies next year on the power of hydrogen. The unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) should be able to cruise at an altitude of 65,000 feet.
But the propeller-driven Phantom Eye is no muscle plane. It’ll have a pair of 150-horsepower, 2.3-liter, four-cylinder engines. Boeing says the UAV, with a 150-foot wingspan, will be able to cruise at about 150 knots [172 miles per hour] and carry a payload of up to 450 pounds [CNET].
The plane won’t need to carry much weight, though, because it’s intend to spy, not attack. Boeing says the Phantom Eye will be able to stay aloft for four consecutive days, executing “persistent intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance.” Its size and breezy pace mean it’s built for endurance and not stealth. But that might not be true for Boeing’s other UAV project, the menacing Phantom Ray that will make a test flight in December.
The U.K.’s Taranis
You can be even more brash when naming secretive military aircraft than when naming flashy new cars, and Britain’s new UAV bears the name of the Celtic god of thunder.
Taranis is the first step in the development of unmanned strike aircraft, capable of penetrating enemy territory. Unmanned aircraft carrying weapons are already used in service, such as the MQ-1 Predator which carries Hellfire missiles, although these are only suitable for use where the airspace is under allied control [BBC News].
Taranis is a tech demo that will likely be a testbed for developing future aircraft rather than flying into service itself. For the U.K., it’s a major step in going from manned to unmanned fighters.
It is accepted that the most vulnerable part of a plane is the pilot. While the airframe is capable of pulling multiple Gs – the gravitational force exerted on a body when standing on the Earth at sea level – the maximum safe level for a pilot, even when wearing a protective G-suit, is 8 or 9, above which they will lose consciousness [BBC News].
Don’t Sleep on the X-37B
Those UAVs will reach lofty heights, but not quite as high as the U.S. Air Force’s secret space plane, the X-37B. That unmanned craft was launched into orbit in April.
For a story in the upcoming September issue of DISCOVER hitting newsstands next month, Brian Weeden of the Secure World Foundation told me that what little we know about the plane suggests it’s probably for surveillance and not attack. Weeden also argued that there’s no one thing the X-37B does that we couldn’t do better or cheaper with existing technologies, like satellites. “But, it does a lot of things,” he says. “The X-37(B) is a milepost on the road, not the end of the road.”
Related Content:
Bad Astronomy: What Is the Air Force Doing with Space?
80beats: Air Force to Launch Secret Space Plane Tomorrow—But Don’t Ask What It’s For
80beats: DARPA Loses Contact with Mach-20 “Hypersonic Glider” During Test Flight
80beats: Amateur Sky-Watchers Track the Air Force’s Super-Secret Space Plane
Image: Boeing; UK Ministry of Defense; USAF
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Keith's 23 June note: Well folks, if you like the President's space policy - or hate it - here is a chance to let his Science and Technology advisors hear your thoughts. If you pass on the opportunity its your fault. OSTP has extended the invitation - don't pass on the opportunity. This event will be 
Note circulating in the Suborbital research community: "As you may know, Sen. Nelson's NASA authorization markup kills the CRuSR line item. Yesterday Senator Tom Udall of New Mexico introduced an amendment that would bolster this small but high-profile program, designed to allow students, small companies, and researchers to fly experiments on-board new commercial suborbital space vehicles such as Virgin Galactic or XCOR Aerospace. The amendment would ensure that this program, known as Commercial Reusable Suborbital Research (CRuSR), would be fully funded at $15 million per year and report directly to NASA's Chief Technology Office to give it high-profile status. Please call your Senators to support the Udall Amendment, call Sen. Nelson's office to support it, and ask colleagues to do the same. The Senate NASA authorizing bill full committee vote is tomorrow (Thu 15 Jul)-- please take time today on this important matter!"
Keith's note: Its really somewhat counterproductive for the Space Frontier Foundation to put out a legislative alert and then insult every possible member of Congress that they seek to have people contact to help their cause i.e. calling them "donkeys" and "elephants". Also, Instead of portraying this as a fight against pork (and indicting all of Congress in so doing) perhaps the proponents should be focusing on the virtues of commercialization instead.
