Lockheed Martin To Demo Air Force Reusable Booster System

In article , bthorn64
@suddenlink.net says...

On Mon, 12 Dec 2011 11:08:23 -0500, Jeff Findley
wrote:


This is a cool idea, but the chance of it seeing the light of day from
our incompetent Air Force in the upcoming years of drastic budgets
cuts is about nil.

Apples and oranges. You're giving examples of programs which are
intended to become operational, but this project is clearly R&D along
the lines of X-37B. Too bad the budget for the X-37B is classified.

Okay, but if they can't pull off the high-profile programs, what makes
you think they'll pull off a relatively low-profile program?

Different management styles by different branches for different
purposes. X-37B seems to be doing quite well as an R&D program. Now,
if you were arguing that the Air Force can't base an "operational"
vehicle on X-37B technology, you'd have a better argument.

And they picked up X-37B from NASA, so they don't even really get
credit for *that*.

But NASA didn't actually fly it, did they? NASA's lack of actual flying
R&D programs is pathetic. The fact is that the politicians don't care.
They only care about "saving jobs", which really means billions of
dollars of pork for SLS.

Also, DC-X was a shining example of a successful non-NASA R&D program
which was done on a budget far less than NASA cost models predicted. It
proved several things that nay-sayers of the time said were not
possible, or would be too expensive to even try.

Anyway, I hope this bucks the trend.

I'm not sure I see "the trend", but I do hope this R&D program produces
useful results.

Jeff
--
" Ares 1 is a prime example of the fact that NASA just can't get it
up anymore... and when they can, it doesn't stay up long. "
- tinker

In article 8e0b27a0-316b-40e8-88bc-3baaf412fd53
@i6g2000vbe.googlegroups.com, says...

On Dec 12, 9:34*pm, Brian Thorn wrote:
On Mon, 12 Dec 2011 11:08:23 -0500, Jeff Findley

wrote:
This is a cool idea, but the chance of it seeing the light of day from
our incompetent Air Force in the upcoming years of drastic budgets
cuts is about nil.

Apples and oranges. *You're giving examples of programs which are
intended to become operational, but this project is clearly R&D along
the lines of X-37B. *Too bad the budget for the X-37B is classified.

Okay, but if they can't pull off the high-profile programs, what makes
you think they'll pull off a relatively low-profile program?

And they picked up X-37B from NASA, so they don't even really get
credit for *that*.

Anyway, I hope this bucks the trend.

air force knows big budgets are ending, this might give them the
incentive to do more affordable operations

The Air Force has always invested in small R&D programs. With the
failure of EELV's to provide lower cost timely access to space, it's no
surprise they're investing in programs like X-37B and reusable boosters.

Mate an X-37B follow-on to a reusable booster follow-on and you've got
yourself a fully reusable TSTO. How awesome would that be?

Jeff
--
" Ares 1 is a prime example of the fact that NASA just can't get it
up anymore... and when they can, it doesn't stay up long. "
- tinker