re dc x rollout report in article c v ftn cs cmu edu buenneke monty rand org richard buenneke writes mcdonnell douglas rolls out dc x ssto research remains cloudy the sdi organization which paid million for the dc x can t itself afford to fund full development of a follow on vehicle to get the necessary hundreds of millions required for this is a little peculiar way of putting it sdio s budget this year was what billion they could fund all of the dc development out of one years budget of course they do have other irons in the fire and launcher development is not their primary purpose but the dc development could as easily be paid for by diverting that money as by diverting the comparable sts ops budget oh and before the flames start i applaud the sdio for funding dc x devlopment and i hope it works and no launcher development is not nasas primary goal either imho they are supposed to provide the enabling technology research for others to do launcher development and secondarily operate such launchers as they require but that s just me steinn sigurdsson i saw two shooting stars last night lick observatory i wished on them but they were only satellites steinly lick ucsc edu is it wrong to wish on space hardware standard disclaimer i wish i wish i wish you d care b b
