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DARPA Launches Military Spaceplane Project
RocketAcademy writes "The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency has launched a new program to develop a reusable first-stage launch vehicle. Experimental Spaceplane 1 (XS-1) would be capable of flying 10 times in 10 days, with a small ground crew, reaching speeds of Mach 10, and deploying a small upper stage to place a 3,000-pound satellite into orbit. The XS-1 program is complementary to the Air Force's Boeing X-37, which is a reusable upper stage. The X-37 is currently launched by an expendable Atlas rocket but could be launched by a vehicle derived from XS-1 in the future. Military planners have dreamed of a two-stage, fully reusable Military Spaceplane for several years, but funding has not materialized up to now."
The US Space Shuttle and USSR Buran proved conclusively that resusable spaceplanes are hugely wasteful. The only way the X-37B (the current "shuttle") could be considered successful is that it spends more time in the air than on the ground, since it's up for about 6-18 months at a time.
Spaceplane mass is wasted mass that can't be used for payload mass. Launch electronics are cheap these days, I am honestly very curious what good a reusable spaceplane provides over existing expendable rockets. As Tsotha mentioned the Falcon 9 will be fully reusable in 4-5 years if everything goes according to plan. Spaceplanes are hugely wasteful, even if they aren't manned.
moox. for a new generation.
The US Space Shuttle and USSR Buran proved conclusively that resusable spaceplanes are hugely wasteful.
Not really, since neither of them was really reusable, more vaguely refurbishable, and both were prototypes with no development path.
Science is all about firing a drunk pig out of a cannon just to see what happens.