X-33????

if the x-33 has ben cancelled...
when will the rotting piece of interstellar crap known as the space shuttle will be replaced???!!!!!

It's been almost 2 years now since the X-33 was very much cancelled (along with the X-34; but a mere 1.2 billion -who cares?) although there was a little face-saving mumbling about extension as a military programme.
They'll cancel NASA one day.

It always was going to be four, and then a fifth was built to replace Challenger; but it's been refits and upgrades for a long time now.
One has had the impression for a decade or more that manned space flight has stopped being sexy: budget-allocation-wise.

i know but they are clunky, old and not very reliable.
Cmon, it takes FIVE MONTHS For the Shuttle to be ready again!
FOR THE X-33 IT TAKES 48 HOURS!!!!!!!
the improvement is immense...
but because of CA$H it has been thrown away...
i hate nasa

I just read the other day where NASA was already testing the replacement for the shuttle........... If I recall it wasn't going to be long before they were ready to start using it?!?!?! I wish I had more time to find that article..... it was on-line somewhere.... maybe new scientist.com?!?!

The space shuttle is very reliable.

There may be more to this than meets the eye.



The X-33 was supposed to replace the aging space shuttle. The Space Shuttle costs somewhere around $600 million dollars per launch, which is 30 times more than costs which are associated with the comparatively safer Russian Soyuz rocket that took Dennis Tito and a crew of two other cosmonauts to the lone remaining international space station back in April of 2001.

Peculiarities emerged from how NASA handled the X-33 program, such as its controversially having awarded the entire contract to one lone provider (Lockheed Martin) back in 1996, here in a country where competition usually is the chosen path.

The X-33 also involved a lot of unproven, "high risk" technologies that predictably did not yield worthwhile dividends.

It was almost as if decision-makers did not want the X-33 to succeed as it would bring down the cost of launching, from the current ($10,000 per pound) that taxpayers pay to launch people on the Space Shuttle.


Coincidentally, perhaps, Lockheed also operates the Space Shuttle (through its United Space Alliance joint venture with Boeing).




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www.spaceprojects.com...

..use shuttle missions to place fuel and supplies in space for emergency use,or to extend missions beyond just a short way out,maybe even a re-entry vehicle to replace the shuttle if it is damaged so the next time it is damaged it will not disintegrate on re-entry.
Maybe a spare shuttle in orbit for a problem situation,with a cargo bay full of fuel.
How about a shuttle mission to drop a large ion engine into orbit that could be bolted on the shuttle to go a really long way out?,since aerodynamic drag is not an issue in space.
To be truthful,I don't think that money is so much of an issue,I think they claim this and that while they are actually going full bore with a space program,i think there are some who have an interest in for other than scientific study,I think there are some people here who think they are so important that they have to have a way off of this rock if something happens.
I think way too much.

Who Knows? The X-33 was cancelled because Lockheed Martin could not get the Damn thing to work! At the current rate of progress, our Astronauts will be flying on duct tape and a prayer. Right Now NASA's Grounded the shuttle fleet and doesn't have a scheduled date to resume flying, as far as I know.

Tim

[Edited on 17-9-2003 by ghost]

Supposedly the Air Force is hanging onto the X-33 or a variant of it to launch "pop-up" attacks and the like. I doubt it, though. They're probably going with a hypersonic mothership launching a mini-orbiter.

way off topic...
Just curious how the date stamps on this thread went from yesterday to tomorrow then back to tuesday and back up through to today.

Kinda strange