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NASA's Shuttle Plans

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the men-go-on-top dept.

Gerhardius noted a NYT article (you know the obnoxious deal) about new "shuttle" designs coming out of NASA. The payloads are riding up top to avoid debris.

1 of 549 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Delta Clipper by InfoVore · · Score: 4, Informative

    Here you go:

    Delta Clipper Experiment
    Wikipedia

    If you want to see what happened here's the video

    IMHO, I don't think the strut failure was due to malice. I think it was simply a mistake/stupidity.

    I got to watch several DC-X flights. I got to see it hover, move laterally, land, and the infamous 'dip & swoop' manuever.

    I'm still dumbfounded that DC-X lost NASA's Reusable Launch Vehicle competition to the VentureStar design. Lockheed had an obviously bogus blue-sky design. McD had a working 1/3 scale proof-of-principle prototype.

    A lot more design and testing would have been required to get to the full Delta Clipper orbital vehicle, but it still remains one of the better SSTO design ideas out there.

    At least I got to see a rocket dance once. It was simply Incredible.

    -I.V.

    --
    "These laws they're passing won't even compile anymore, let alone execute." - anon