Russia-America space alliance

No argument from me on X-33. NASA dumped the very successful DC-X program
for the more glamorous X-33. X programs are supposed to be risk-reducers,
but the failure of the X-33 program did not reduce risk (to put it
lightly!). They should have built a replacement for DC-X and continued
along that evolutionary path.

Ron Menich

Ian Woollard
ssi_list@...
06/18/01 06:19
PM
Please respond
to ssi_list

...
> Many said in hindsight that it
> would have been cheaper to build the hardware that Russia ultimately
> provided within the U.S. instead. Based on this poor track record, I
> would hope that our U.S. Congress will look very suspiciously on any
> dependence on Russian hardware for any future endeavors.

It might be said that the people who said this might
have been in a position to gain from any such change to the program.
Looking at the X33 program, twice over budget and not delivering anyway
it is easy to see that a lot of programs get delayed. The Russians
delivered hardware that mostly worked.
...