Quote:
Originally Posted by scon10
Isn't that one of the re-usable first stage rockets? They seem to have gone out of business, it is now all Space-X
|
Yeah, DC-X, also called the "Delta Clipper", started out as a low cost, high flight rate vehicle for the Strategic Defense ("Star Wars" project) which would require simple, low cost, fast-turnaround vehicle for servicing space-borne weapons platforms at a frequency much higher and at much lower cost than the shuttle. It was envisioned that the program would start with the DC-X (experimental) vehicle of about 1/3 scale of the final orbital-capable vehicle. DC-X would not be capable of achieving orbital altitudes or velocities, but instead would be used to demonstrate the concept of vertical tail-first landing and rapid turnaround (low ground servicing requirements between flights) and to develop experience and demonstrate the concepts required to support this type of operating regime.
When the Strategic Defense Initiative fizzled out, after the Delta Clipper had already had considerable success in early flights and in a MUCH shorter period of time and at MUCH lower cost than typical NASA efforts, the project was transferred to NASA as the SDIO was phased out. NASA took the project on, grudgingly, though it much preferred it's own similar project to develop a single-stage-to-orbit vehicle, the X-33 "Venturestar", a reusable lifting-body type vehicle that would land like the shuttle after gliding down to a runway. The program languished under the burdensome NASA requirements and the "Not Invented Here" syndrome that usually handicaps projects transferred into and out of NASA, and suffered a landing problem with a failed landing leg deployment that caused the vehicle to topple onto its side after landing, causing "irreparable damage" to the prototype and causing the program to be canceled in favor of the X-33, which continued for some time, until it too was canceled after "unsolvable problems" with it's lobe-shaped composite hydrogen tanks occurred during development.
DC-X was one among an entire pantheon of canceled NASA development projects that were dumped about the time they were showing promise in favor of new projects or new paradigms that, in their turn, were also canceled... NASA then returned to its roots "back to Apollo" with the CEV design for a shuttle replacement and back to expendable rocket vehicles instead of pursuing more advanced reusable designs, which they have left to commercial interests like SpaceX and Blue Origin, among others.
Later! OL J R
