Thanks James.
I do believe that Nasa has alot of convincing to do with how to achieve the goal of finally going beyound LEO.
I do feel that abandoning our partners, the ISS, and yes the shuttle right now is a bad thing to do. I do feel that the shuttle should slow down the number of flights and to fly them over a longer period of years. That Lockheed and Boeing also need to step up to the plate and deliver a capsule or plane for use with crew transportation needs for the ISS without contracts to design either vehicle. Nasa will purchase as many as it needs if they are available. This is only a start down the road to just getting us flying again on a regular bassis which is much needed at this point in time.
Please do not let my words be the only ones seen.

If you think that any contractor will "step up to the plate" and develop a new vehicle on their own dollar you are living in a dream world. When have they ever done this? Until there is a market for commercial space filght, or a radical restructuring of of government procurement, this will never happen. Even the F-35 "fly off" was mostly payed for by the DoD. You are confused about how this business works.

I remember seeing (I think it was on Space.com) that it would only have cost $400 million to complete the Venture Star prototype. If they can't find $400 million to get hold of a reusable spaceship, what hope or incentive is there for Boeing or Lockheed to stump up the billions required for developing a new manned ship? Especially when you figure in how often they have been burned by NASA on the inumerable X-plane fiascos of the past decade.

The reason or at least one of them was the composite fuel tanks for this x-33 unit lockheed could not do at that time. I believe that they have over come that proble just a few months ago.

resource pages

http://www.spacedaily.com/news/rlv-99w.html

http://skybusters.home.insightbb.com/venture_star.htm

http://observe.arc.nasa.gov/nasa/ootw/1997/ootw_971001/vstar.html

I read Mr. Peterson's earlier comments on NASAWatch, and I only wish that he would quit beating himself up over the design of the OV-100 Series orbiters. I haven't seen John DeLorean wringing his hands over designing the Chevy Vega, and he should know that the world knows that they did the best they could with what they had. You can not anticipate everything.

Harold -- the problem with the X33 composite hydrogen tanks was not that it couldn't be done at that time. LM had an earlier composite test tank of a different design, which worked like a champ in numerous tests...it just wasn't the design that was chosen for the flight hardware, unfortunately.

See http://osat-ext.grc.nasa.gov/gso/manual/chapter_01a_haexample.pdf for a general description of the test article.

I thought that I remembered seeing something about tank rupturing for the ones by lockheed at the time. I was not aware of a competitors substitute that fit the application.

This is from that time period about the tank about structural defects not a complete rupture as I had remembered.

X-33 Hydrogen Tank Damaged

Huntsville - November 8, 1999 - Damage was discovered Wednesday evening to one wall of the X-33's composite liquid hydrogen tank currently undergoing cryogenic and structural loads testing at NASA Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala.
http://www.spacedaily.com/news/rlv-99za.html

That was one of the two flight-article tanks. The test tank to which I referred was a half-scale prototype using a different approach. The principal failure that destroyed the flight tank could not, by its nature, have happened to a tank based on the test tank's design approach.

Though the project has been canceled due to the new presidential vision on space exploration. I know that as of late last year that lockheed finally did get a tank to complete testing.
Personally I hate the fact that so much money has been spent on replacement vehicles from the early 90's up until recently only to be cancelled. Especially when the project does start to show promise.

http://www.spacedaily.com/news/rlv-03p.html

New Composite Hydrogen Fuel Tank For RLVs Successfully Tested

Huntsville - Dec 22, 2025

A team of engineers from Northrop Grumman and NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, Ala. Have demonstrated that a new, specially designed fuel tank made from composite materials can safely hold and contain liquid hydrogen under simulated launch conditions.

Hooray for NG. But, LM did all of that and more five years ago.

Then I guess since I am not in the know. Why did LM not proceed with the x-33 design if a working full scale tank was made? I too believe that Nasa purposely has caused many projects to fail over the years though cancellation.