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c h a p t e r 1 0 The Clipper Graham The transfer of the SSRT program and the DC-X to a civilian agency following the end of the cold war raised a critical question: what would happen to Max Hunter’s vision of a single-stage-to-orbit vehicle with aircraft-like operations built and tested in a “faster, cheaper, smaller” program? Although Access to Space had made NASA more receptive to instituting its own single-stageto -orbit program, the agency might not run it in the same “faster, smaller, cheaper” way as the BMDO. Even though Administrator Goldin espoused “faster, better, cheaper,” NASA still had the shuttle and a long cultural history of large-scale, long-term, expensive projects. The agency might slight aircraft -like operations in favor of technology development. In fact, technology development was how the agency viewed the opportunity to work on a reusable single-stage-to-orbit vehicle. Access to Space had spawned just such a technology development program. Flight tests would take place on an experimental vehicle, the X-2000, while ground-based investigations would research various technologies. Ultimately, NASA hoped to build a single-stage-to-orbit replacement for the shuttle, that is, the vehicle preferred by the Option 3 team. Meanwhile, President Clinton had not yet issued any launcher or space policy, although a statement was due in 1994. NASA took advantage of the lack of direction to formulate plans for a single-stage-to-orbit shuttle replacement and courted the Pentagon as a partner . It was in the midst of this policy disorder that NASA and the fate of the DC-X, mothballed in September 1993 for a lack of funds, came together. A Plan for Technology Development Out of Access to Space came a concrete plan for achieving a full-scale, reusable single-stage-to-orbit rocket to fulfill the launcher needs of NASA, the military, and commerce. Both the July 1993 and the January 1994 Option 3 reports spelled out that plan, which incorporated existing launchers. The vehicle would service the space station and put into orbit NASA, Defense Depart- ment, and commercial payloads weighing up to 20,000 or even 25,000 pounds. Until that single-stage-to-orbit shuttle replacement became available , the government would upgrade existing Delta, Atlas, and Titan launchers between 2000 and 2008 in an “interim expendable launch vehicle program .” Both throwaway rockets and the shuttle would “have to be operated for at least another 10 to 15 years before new launch vehicles can be available.” Later, the single-stage-to-orbit transport would capture “Delta, Atlas, and Shuttle missions at approximately 15% of the current combined annual operating costs of these systems.”1 It was a politically cautious plan that avoided attacking NASP or the NLS so that the program would not threaten any existing NASA or Defense Department project. Indeed, the January 1994 Summary Report also recommended maintaining the NASP technology program .2 The major argument in favor of the single-stage-to-orbit project was that it would lower launch costs more than any “number of beneficial improvements to the Shuttle system.” Design, development, test, and evaluation costs were smaller, although not in the near term, for the improved throwaway rockets. The same costs for the single-stage-to-orbit architectures were larger, but would be delayed four to five years as a result of the need to research and develop the required technologies. The operational single-stage-to-orbit vehicle would feature reduced annual costs and lower total “life-cycle” costs (the sum of all costs from design to finished craft). Developing single-stage-to-orbit technologies also promised spin-offs “with dual-use in industry (such as composite vehicle structures for cars and airplanes).” The single-stage-to-orbit craft itself “would place the U.S. in an extremely advantageous position with respect to international competition, and would leapfrog the U.S. into a next-generation launch capability.”3 The Option 3 reports also laid out a game plan for developing the single -stage-to-orbit transport. Rather than immediately select and develop a particular architecture, NASA would initiate “comprehensive vehicle design trade studies” concurrent with “an associated technology maturation program . . . utiliz[ing] a fast-track management approach that would involve the development of flight experiments and experimental, or ‘X’, vehicles.”4 Here was a NASA version of the SSX vision: a single-stage-to-orbit craft developed with an “X” vehicle in...

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