Re: Here We Go Again!

On Thu, 07 Jun 2007 10:02:18 -0700, in a place far, far away, surfduke
<surfduke2001@xxxxxxxxx> made the phosphor on my monitor glow in such
a way as to indicate that:

What I was getting at is:

The Shuttle design, & construction got all criss-crossed, when the Air
Force started helping with funding.

The Air Force never helped with funding the Shuttle.

That is when the escape rockets,
(and burn cord), got thrown out, (as well as many other items that got
in the way of the lbs. to orbit target)).

No, that happened when the requirements (some of which were driven by
the Air Force) grew to exceed the available development funding.

It turned the shuttle into a bastardized truck. I know NASA should be
following a SSTO program, instead of the rehash program they are
pushing,

Why do you "know" that? It's certainly debatable. I think that such
a course would be another disaster, as X-33 was. NASA should not be
in the business of developing launch vehicles at all.

(That is crystal clear to all watching it evolve). I just
don't want to see Andrews, or Space X, get side tracked into a long R
& D waste of time.

Unless they can raise private funds to build a vehicle on their own,
they have to accept Air Force money, since that's the only entity
currently supporting advanced launch system research. It's not
getting "side tracked." It's supporting mutual research objectives.

With the on the shelf research, I think they are
the real hope for no gap between shuttle, and first CEV flights.

Nothing in that article has anything to do with the gap, or Shuttle,
or CEV.

You are very confused, and not very knowledgable about the history of
the Shuttle.
.