"Ultimate Buu" wrote in message
...

The definition of success shouldn't be judged by whether it flew or not.

Umm, yes it should. The fact that it never flew its original test plan and
never even flew its reduced test plan and was going way over budget makes it
a failure.


The
DC-X and Roton were prototypes which had very limited capabillities (the
DC-X couldn't even rise above the clouds and the Roton was barely a
mockup).

But they both flew and met their budgets.


The X-33 was supposed to go (sub) orbital on its maiden flight and perform
in a way similar to the Shuttle, but without any booster rockets or
external
fuel tanks. That's pretty impressive!


No, the amount of paperwork and jobs generated was impressive.

If SSTO is beyond our current technological capabilities then we shouldn't
attempt it and go with TSTO instead. But I'm still not clear on why the
X-33
failed (besides it being over budget, but that's not too important if its
goals could have been met).

It was increasingly clear its goals couldn't be met. They had already
revamped the test flight program to meet reduced goals. And even with exta
billions they couldn't meet that


If it wasn't technologically feasible then why
did they start it in the first place?

As a jobs program


And were the problems encountered
solveable or were they beyond what was feasible?

Among them, the tanks. It was the bleeding edge of design all-around.
There were two other craft in the original competition that didn't push
technology nearly so much