VentureStar & modigression

John Frazer wrote:
> The thing (X33) was never more than a money maker
> for Lock-Mart and a far-out technology R&D program under the guise
> of carrying on the search for SSTO technology started (much more
> effectively & realistically) by McDonnel-Douglas & the BMDO (DC-X).

Actually, SSTO research was undertaken much earlier by NASA's aerospace
plane project, which did not produce a flying vehicle.

Also, Lock-Mart spent $300 million of internal R&D money on X33. They
got about $1 billion from NASA. Assuming the cost-plus contract had
10-15% profit they made $100-200 million from NASA leaving them about
$100 million in the hole. Of course, the project did cover some
overhead. All-in-all it's unlikely Lock-Mart made any money in X33, and
its quite likely that they lost a bundle.

DC-X was a great project, but also remember that it was a sub-SONIC
rocket powered aircraft. It was much less ambitious than X33 or
aerospace plane, which is probably why they got to flight.

--
Al Globus
aglobus@..., (650) 604-4404
http://www.nas.nasa.gov/~globus/home.html

The dinosaurs weren't spacefaring. We are. I don't think that's an
accident.
Maybe we are life's taxi to the stars.

I think we should:

1. Devote half of NASA's budget ($7 billion) to reaching NASA's 2020
goal of
reducing launch costs to Low-Earth-Orbit to $220/kg with a 0.01% failure
rate.
This should enable space tourism. The resulting orbital hotels will need
to
develop efficient orbital life support and other necessary technologies.

2. Build orbital space colonies. The materials in the largest asteroid
are
sufficient for orbital colonies with a combined surface area about 500
times
greater than Earth's. Eros alone could make over ten thousand space
colonies,
each with about about 10 square kilometers of 1g living area.

3. After a few generations of orbital living, people won't need their
colony
to be near Sol. Then small groups of colonies with populations in the
tens-of-thousands can set out on multi-decade journeys to nearby stars.

Except the launch goals, none of this is even a little bit official.