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I wonder how long it will take them to figure out that the OSP is a step
backwards and that without a specific plan to put all cargo on a) ELV's or b) a new shuttle derived cargo vehicle will put the safety of Shuttle pilots even more at risk (NASA engineers are already complaining that they aren't getting enough hands-on experience to maintain proficiency) whilst actually INCREASING the costs for maintaining a manned U.S. presence in space. I was wondering: when will they figure out that SSTO is the only way forward and that they need to revive the X-33 program, or start a new program based on experience gained there. IMHO almost any TSTO is going to be almost just as expensive to run as the Shuttle, if you take all costs into account ($100+ million per flight), so there's very little point in replacing the Shuttle with OSP+ELV. Safety should be somewhat better, but only slightly (they will still be using cryogenic, liquid fuelled engines and have a similar reentry compared to the Shuttle). Were there fundemantal flaws in the X-33 program which doomed it? If I remember correctly the composite fuel tank problem was virtually resolved when the program was scrapped. Also, I heard some rumours about instabillity of the airframe during various flights stages (reentry). |
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