Why would the American government put an unmanned military space plane in a constant orbit around our planet without a public mission plan?

Article by Jeff Parsons

Experts have suggested the United States Air Force’s orbiting X-37B space plane could function as an astronaut ambulance in case of a medical emergency aboard the International Space Station.

At present, astronauts have to rely on a Russian Soyuz rocket to taxi them to the space station and back. Each rocket is launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, and relies on a parachute-aided descent to the same location.

“If somebody needs to come home soon from space, coming back on the Soyuz is going to be a pretty challenging ride – at least 4.5 Gs, fairly violent landing, and then you might not be very close to the medical care you need out in Kazakhstan,” said former astronaut Stephen Robinson.

Robinson flew four shuttle missions and currently chairs the mechanical and aerospace engineering department at the University of California.

He made the remarks last month during a presentation with NASA’s Future In-Space Operations (FISO) working group.

Etan Halberg, one of Robinson’s graduate students at the University of California-Davis, suggested that a space plane would fare better than a capsule.