Mary Shafer writes:
The X-33 RFP called for an _innovative_ vehicle, but the MDAC bid the
DC-Y and RI bid what was essentially a modernized Orbiter. Nothing
new in either of them. At least Lockheed-Martin bid something
innovative, with the aerospike engine on a lifting body. It deserved
to win and the other two didn't.

If your only metric is innovation. Unfortunately, when you have a
fixed budget (which X-33 essentially had), there is an inverse
relationship between innovation and successfully completing a flight
test program. In other words, the entire program was shut down before
all of the bugs could be worked out in the innovative areas.

When NASA (or any other government agency) wants a specific company or
specific proposal to win the competitive bid process, it writes the
RFP to be sure that happens. It doesn't specify "innovative" for a
warmed-over SDIO concept or an Orbiter retread.

Innovative gets specified when there is more of a desire to play in a
technological sandbox than there is to do real work towards lowering
the costs of access to space.

In the end, NASA's official position is that X-33 failed because we do
not yet have the technology to produce a workable SSTO. In the end,
this program did more harm than good, especially when NASA refuses to
admit any guilt as it relates to the program's failure.

If DC-Y wasn't innovative, I'd like to know if you think DC-X was
innovative.

Jeff
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