FYI,

"DC-X Honored for Its Contributions, Potential"
SPACE.com
http://news.yahoo.com/s/space/20080901/sc_space/dcxhonoredforitscontri
butionspotential

: Creating routine, aircraft-like, low-cost access to space is not
: only technologically challenging, it will require enormous tenacity
: to overcome the inevitable bureaucratic, political and funding
: hiccups. These are just a few of the lessons learned by veterans of
: the Delta Clipper-Experimental (DC-X) rocket ship program. Created
: by an entrepreneurial-like pact between industry and government
: from 1991-1997, the DC-X project showcased the technology and
: operational concepts for a single-stage-to-orbit vehicle capable of
: supporting an array of military and commercial applications,
: including public space travel.

: The DC-X was first managed by the Strategic Defense Initiative
: Organization, under a contract with the U.S. aerospace firm,
: McDonnell Douglas (now a part of Boeing). The initial goal was to
: rapidly prototype the spacecraft as a step toward a
: single-stage-to-orbit launch vehicle. The first vertical takeoff
: and landing demonstration vehicle flew Aug. 18, 1993, two years
: after receiving the funding go-ahead.

: At the neighboring White Sands Missile Range, the U.S. Air Force
: flew DC-X eight times between August 1993 and July 1995.
: Subsequently, NASA and the U.S. Air Force managed an advanced DC-X
: design that was flown four times in 1996. On its last flight,
: however, the vehicle tipped over and was destroyed in an accident
: caused by human error — not connecting hardware related to one of
: the craft's landing legs.

: DC-X engineers and program officials reviewed the venture during a
: 15th anniversary reunion, held here Aug. 17-19, but also assessed
: the status of space transportation for the 21st century. The event
: was hosted by the New Mexico Museum of Space History and was a
: kick-off for fundraising to develop a permanent DC-X/XA exhibit at
: the museum.

: Limited schedule and budget

: "The DC-X and XA showed that a small dedicated government and
: industry team with focused objectives could make significant
: advances within the boundaries of a limited schedule and budget,"
: said Bill Gaubatz, former director for Delta Clipper Programs at
: McDonnell Douglas.

: According to Gaubatz, the total amount of money spent on the
: DC-X/DC-XA efforts was less than $100 million, including range and
: lab costs.

: Gaubatz said the DC-X experience was made possible by a small,
: independent team of selected people. "We were, in effect, a little
: entrepreneurial team working within a big company," he told Space
: News, all committed to a "this-can-be-done" philosophy and a vision
: to drive launch costs below $100 a pound.

: "I'm convinced that if the DC-X program hadn't been terminated, we
: would have been in regular trips to orbit now. We may or may not
: have been a single-stage-to-orbit, but we would have been a totally
: reusable, safe, rapid-turnaround transportation system," Gaubatz
: added. "Cheap, unsafe access is not the way to go."

: Aircraft-like space access operations and experience with rapid
: prototyping development — as evidenced by DC-X — have a lot to
: offer the so-called "newspace" companies, Gaubatz suggested, adding
: that they might perhaps prod the "old" space companies to again get
: involved in the development of less-expensive space vehicles.

: Ambassador Henry Cooper, the first civilian Strategic Defense
: Initiative director in 1990 who provided funding for the DC-X
: effort, said he thought the step-by-step DC-X rocket program would
: pay for itself during its development by launching suborbital
: targets for missile defense interceptors. He bemoaned U.S.
: President Bill Clinton administration's action in 1993 to cut the
: agency's funding in order "to take the stars out of star wars."
: That deed canceled the DC-X program and turned off all innovative
: technological progress within the Strategic Defense Initiative era,
: Cooper said.

: "The regrettable part is that we knew how to do this job 15 years
: ago. It can be done better today. The technology has moved on in
: spite of the government not investing in it in some cases ... or
: not investing as much in it," Cooper said.

: That DC-X termination brought about two great losses, Gaubatz
: added: dispersal of the team that worked on it and the loss of
: time.

: Catching "the vision"

: Jess Sponable, U.S. Air Force program manager for the original
: Single Stage Rocket Technology program (now retired from the Air
: Force), said the DC-X focus was demonstrating a reusable rocket
: that operates with aircraft-like operability. "We learned a lot
: about what to do ... but we learned a lot about what not to do," he
: said.

: Sponable flagged the transportable elements of the DC-X, including
: a trailer-filled flight operations control center. "There's no
: reason we can't take a similar approach in the future for how we do
: launch systems," he explained, underscoring the cost per flight of
: the rocket that was roughly in the range of $200,000 to $300,000.

: "We were the last program to actually combine and accomplish
: faster, cheaper and better ... all at the same time," Sponable
: pointed out. "The seeds have been planted. The future is coming and
: it won't be stopped by bureaucratic setbacks. Low-cost space access
: is coming and it will happen."

: Several DC-X veterans at the meeting see a legacy from DC-X,
: spotlighting a proliferation of private groups that "caught the
: vision." Examples cited were Scaled Composites and its work on the
: WhiteKnightTwo flying launch pad to support, in part, suborbital,
: passenger-carrying spaceline operations, as well as efforts now
: under way at XCOR Aerospace, Armadillo Aerospace and Masten Space
: Systems, among others.

: Bolstered by the success evident in entrepreneurial start-up
: ventures is Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne, said Rick Bachtel, general
: manager of Huntsville, Ala., operations. "What I see in the future
: is not government funding as much as it is going to be commercial,"
: he said.

: To that end, Bachtel told Space News that his company has spun off
: a smaller group called Power Innovations to harness inventive and
: entrepreneurial ideas.

: Bachtel said the approach is to tap the firm's 3,000 to 4,000
: engineers and bring ideas into the smaller group to spin off
: innovative technologies.

: "We have to recognize that a venture might have a good business
: case, but may not go somewhere. But I might be able to combine it
: with a couple of other thoughts and come up with something
: different. That's usually how a lot of the breakthrough or
: disruptive types of things are," Bachtel suggested.

: Band of brothers

: Prior to taking his NASA administrator post, Mike Griffin was the
: former deputy for technology of the Strategic Defense Initiative
: Organization and a leader in getting the DC-X program started.

: Calling those who built and tested the DC-X a "band of brothers,"
: Griffin said: "It is people that make the hard work of aerospace
: engineering indistinguishable from magic," he told meeting
: attendees.

: "Today a small private team can accomplish suborbital human
: spaceflight, a feat that once took the resources of a government to
: achieve," Griffin said. "I'm personally convinced that manned
: orbital flight is within reach — just barely — of private
: enterprise today."

: Griffin said the United States has not followed up the DC-X with
: the kinds of technology investments that could revolutionize space
: transportation. "We need better propulsion, better materials...we
: need more investment into the technology of operations, which is at
: least half the cost," Griffin said. "We need to create new
: paradigms in thinking of how we operate, just the way DC-X did.
: That doesn't come for free. And right now, policy makers don't seem
: to be willing to allocate that kind of money," Griffin said.

: Gary Payton, deputy undersecretary of the Air Force for space
: programs, drew lines between the work 15 years ago on DC-X and
: today's quest for Operationally Responsive Space.

: Payton, a former shuttle astronaut, also worked in the Strategic
: Defense Initiative Organization as well as served as NASA's deputy
: associate administrator for space transportation technology where
: he initiated, planned and led the Reusable Launch Vehicle
: technology demonstration program, which included the DC-XA flight
: test project.

: "The military needs short notice, quick response, easy changes to
: the launch vehicle's ascent guidance," Payton said, in order to
: reconstitute lost space assets. "Sounds like it fits some of things
: we were doing in DC-X."

: Work started on DC-X in the early 1990s "is coming home to us
: through a variety of systems that could play a big role in our
: Operationally Responsive Space program," Payton said.

Mark Reiff