F-302s ARE REAL!!!!

[kymeric]

http://www.space.com/businesstechnol...estlaunch.html

Close enough, props to the military for getting done what politicans cant seem to fund at nasa.

[UniverseSizePlotHole]

As long as they build instead "Whacking a USAF sticker on it"!
I don't care - the sooner we can pew pew asteroids the better!

[morrismike]

This is going to play out just like the air force delta clipper did a while back.
1. air force perfects it
2. nasa lobbies congress and administration to turn project over to them
3. nasa sabatoges the project to protect the shuttle program

[kymeric]

Shuttle program is dead, it was never really that viable to begin with. Crew and cargo in one giant all or nothing expensive shot? Terrible idea.

[knowles2]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereport...aceplane.shtml

that is more like a 302s. Hopefully one day it will fly.

As to the shuttle concept it perfectly fine. It just needed a other 30-40 billion more spent on development to make it fully reusable. The senate skip the funding an they were left with the poor man version shuttle, which still have more capabilities in low earth orbit than there next generation craft design.

[morrismike]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereport...aceplane.shtml

that is more like a 302s. Hopefully one day it will fly.

As to the shuttle concept it perfectly fine. It just needed a other 30-40 billion more spent on development to make it fully reusable. The senate skip the funding an they were left with the poor man version shuttle, which still have more capabilities in low earth orbit than there next generation craft design.

What you're thinking of is called the delta clipper which NASA killed because it was too cheap to operate (i.e. budget cuts).

[Phantom6]

Shuttle program is dead, it was never really that viable to begin with. Crew and cargo in one giant all or nothing expensive shot? Terrible idea.

True, but that all or nothing one shot employs how many people?

Ground Crew, Maintenance, Shuttle Crew, hell the janitorial staff.

What you're thinking of is called the delta clipper which NASA killed because it was too cheap to operate (i.e. budget cuts).

Yeah what he said.

Too cheap and it will fail.

Too expensive and it will never start.

[morrismike]

True, but that all or nothing one shot employs how many people?

Ground Crew, Maintenance, Shuttle Crew, hell the janitorial staff.






Yeah what he said.

Too cheap and it will fail.

Too expensive and it will never start.

The cost for a delta clipper flight would have been a few thousand per launch. The thing could land in a field and you could pull a tanker truck up to it to refuel and up again in a few days. If NASA hadn't commendeered and sabatoged this air force project, the shuttle would have been irrelevant 20 years ago.