Friendship 7's Flight 50 Years Ago

As a child, I remembered asking my parents to go outside into the backyard to see if I could look up in the sky to see the Mercury capsule that was supposely flying over Texas at the time.

I would have been 2-3 years old when that happened and this memory just came up while thinking about the true meaning of this post... 50 years ago, one John Glenn Jr. in his capsule, the Friendship 7; soared into history.

Glenn's flight also marked the first time that NASA used the Atlas rocket to launch a manned Mercury capsule.

Only three orbits were made.  A decision was made to end the flight sooner rather than later due to the heat shield issue.  Glenn survived the successful re-entry by keeping the thruster pack in place - thus hold the heat shield in place.  He became a hero at that point and there was no turning back.  Politics kept him on the ground after that flight.

Fifty years is a long time.  We still have the USAF B-52s and C-130s still flying (aircraft can always be upgraded).  As for space, the Atlas has grown into the Atlas V and it too (in a sense, is still flying).

United Launch Alliance is prepping the Atlas V to be able to take three different types of spacecraft up to the International Space Station. Boeing has the CST-100 spacecraft that they are building. Then there is Sierra Nevada Corp's Dream Chaser mini-shuttle that can be stuck on top of a Atlas V.

But, getting back to John Glenn now.  He denies it, but the movie and book title "The Right Stuff" is firmly attached to his name for the rest of eternity.

Quoting the NSS blog post:  “A true American hero, Glenn ushered in American orbital spaceflight 50 years ago and brought the U.S. into the space age in earnest,” said NSS Executive Director Paul E. Damphousse.  “His service to this nation reminds us of the bravery, determination, and excitement needed to achieve these ambitious goals – we hope his example will serve to further motivate our progress in space.” end quote.

Let's also not forget that SENATOR John Glenn also has the record for being the oldest person (so far) to have travel in space.  He flew on STS-95 (shuttle Discovery) at the ripe old age of 77 for a nine-day mission.

John Glenn Jr. is a member of the NSS Board of Governors and NSS Executive Director Paul E. Damphousse added this quote:  “We expect to build upon his legacy as we advance our goals in space over the next 50 years.”  end quote.



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Ref.
1. SpaceFrontier.org."Friendship 7’s legacy is safe with Commercial Crew" by Space Fontier Foundation.  February 20, 2012. ( http://spacefrontier.org/2012/02/20/friendship-7s-legacy/ ).
2. NSS Blog. "NSS Salutes John Glenn on 50th Anniversary of Friendship 7 Space Flight" February 20, 2012. (http://blog.nss.org/?p=3300).
3. image from nasa files of Atlas/Frendship 7 launch. (http://grin.hq.nasa.gov/IMAGES/SMALL/GPN-2000-000686.jpg).

Newt Gingrich's January 25, 2012 Space Policy Speech transcript.

The National Space Society posted on their blog the entire transcript of Newt Gingrich January 25 Space Policy Speech in Cocoa, Florida.

On my other blog (the Shanks Dimension), I focus mostly on Newt Gingrich's actions of saying he was a supporter of President Ronald Reagan.  But now, too many people are coming out of the woodwork that he was not THAT big a supporter of President Ronald Reagan after all.  The link to that article is in the Ref section below.



Transcript of Newt Gingrich January 25 Space Policy Speech
Newt Gingrich Town Hall Meeting on Space Policy, January 25, 2012, Cocoa, Florida.  Video of speech at http://www.c-spanvideo.org/program/SpacePolic


What I’d like to do is a little different than most of the gatherings like this that we’ve done, and I’d like to use this as an opportunity to talk in a serious way about space and about how we reorganize what we’re doing and what we think about what we’re doing.


Now, I have a deep passion about this because I’m old enough that I used to read Missiles and Rockets magazine back in the – a couple of you are old enough to know what I’m talking about here – I’m talking about late 1950s, right? – before it merged with Aviation Week. And I was right at the right point as a youngster to be totally fascinated with Sputnik and I had been reading science fiction and Isaac Asimov in particular and it helped shape my life, so I come at space from the standpoint of romantic belief that it really is part of our destiny, and it has been tragic to see what has happened to our space program over the last 30 years [applause].


I actually wrote a section of a book called Windows of Opportunity in 1984 talking about what we could have done. We’ve had Bob Walker, who was chairman of the Science and Technology Committee and later on headed up the Walker Commission on Aerospace – he was with me in the early 1980s and we interviewed young NASA scientists and so I wrote a chapter in Windows of Opportunity about what would have happened if we had sustained the momentum of Apollo, and by the 1980s we would have had a permanent base on the Moon and we would have been on Mars. Just go back and look at the extraordinary trajectory.


I want to start, and because I used to be a history teacher, I want to put this in context, and what I want to talk to you about today is going to be very, very bold, and it’s going to be very different, and it’s going to make, frankly, some of the NASA bureaucracy uncomfortable, and there are going to be people in Washington who are going to say “Oh, my gosh – what if we are going to be flying rather than studying?” What if you were actually just getting things done instead of just having planning meetings? It will be a frightening change in the current pattern.


But let me put it in context, and I want to use three examples, the third of which is obvious and that’s John F. Kennedy. The first, though, is Abraham Lincoln. Abraham Lincoln in 1859 stands on the banks of the Missouri River at Council Bluffs, Iowa, and says we should build a Transcontinental Railroad. Now at the time that he says this we do not have the steel-making capacity to build the rails to get to California, and we do not have an engine powerful enough to get across the Sierra Nevadas.


In 1869 the railroad is completed.


Lincoln, however, is a fascinating study in the American passion for technology and progress. In 1832, as a very young man of 23, he runs for the state legislature for the first time. Part of his platform is to build a railroad in Illinois. Now, what makes this amazing is that the first railroad, the Rocket, built by Stephenson in Great Britain, was in 1829. The first railroad engine to reach the United States was in 1831. Lincoln has never seen a train. But he has read about it and he has imagination and he knows the prairie is long and he knows that a train would be better than walking. And he is campaigning in 1832 on an idea, the idea of progress, and I want to give you a few Lincolnian visions on space in here.


Second, the Wright Brothers. This is my core critique of NASA, and frankly of all government science in its current form, with the possible exception of DARPA. In the late 19th Century people were sort of right at the edge of flight. They kind of almost knew how to do it, they almost had the right engines, they were all looking at birds, and there were two parallel American projects that are fascinating.


The Smithsonian, arguably at that time the greatest scientific institution in the country, had a $50,000 grant from Congress to learn how to fly. And the Smithsonian had very smart scientists and they had connections to the best scientists in Germany and the best technicians and the best metallurgists, so they could order a really cool engine.


Meanwhile, in Dayton, Ohio, there were two brothers who ran a bicycle shop. Now, bicycles in the 1890s were a high-end technology. They actually merited a discussion in the census report of 1890 on the fact that bicycles were widespread and were allowing teenagers to escape from their parents and there were many sociological side effects from this new revolution.


So the Wright Brothers are here and in their spare time they are fascinated with flight. They actually build a wind tunnel. These are not unsophisticated people. They build a wind tunnel, they study birds, they go to the U.S. Government for important weather information. Where is the most continuous updraft in the United States? Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. It comes off the ocean, comes up the hill.


So the Wright Brothers for several years go down to Kitty Hawk every summer, and they take a lot of wood. Now, the reason they take a lot of wood is they know something very profound: They don’t know how to fly! It may seem obvious, but trust me, most government planners don’t get this [laughter and applause].


So what do the Wright Brothers do? They get up in the morning, they have built a very light plane with a very weak engine, and it’s going to start at the top of the hill and it’s going to go downhill, it’s going to have an updraft, and it crashes. They average six or seven crashes a day. And they stop and they fix it and they think about it and they talk about it, have some more coffee, and they try it again. This would go on for several years.


Finally in December of 1903, they have the first powered flight in history. One brother runs alongside the plane to make sure it doesn’t flip over; it doesn’t fly fast enough to get ahead of him. The entire first flight is shorter than the wingspan of a Boeing 747, and it never gets high enough to get over the fuselage of a 747. Small article in AP, December 7, 1903.


In 1907, they made enough progress that they fly around the island of Manhattan and a million and a half people see an airplane for the first time. Four years. Because they figured out the core thing, which is how to fly.


Now, by contrast, the Smithsonian, being a large government establishment of great prestige, with too much money, orders from Germany a really cool engine. Now, there is a problem with a really cool engine. It’s heavy. And if you have a heavy engine you have to build a heavy plane. And if you have a heavy engine and a heavy plane and you’re a Washington bureaucrat, you don’t want to go to Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, which was nowhere. Kitty Hawk was so isolated that these guys were living in a tent.


And so, you say, “How am I going to get wind?” and you invest in something that we still use today – a catapult, on a boat – the precursor of the modern aircraft carrier. And you put it in the Potomac. You’re going to launch it off a boat because you’re smart and you have a theoretical study. And you invite the news media to come and watch your very first test [laughter] – you all probably know where this is going, right? – so, they get out there in the morning, the mist comes off the river, they launch the plane, and it goes straight into the water. Now, here’s the problem: When you have a plane land on ground it’s fairly easy to recover. When you have a plane that is heavier than water land in the Potomac River, it goes down, the current tears it up, and you have no idea what was wrong. It’s a one-time perfection problem.


Now the Smithsonian is deeply embarrassed because they look like fools, and then they get this Associated Press report that two bicycle mechanics have flown. The Smithsonian hostility to the Wright Brothers was so great that the Wright Brothers would not give them the original airplane for 37 years, because bureaucracies hate things that aren’t invented in the bureaucracy. There may be a lesson here for people in NASA and the Air Force.


Okay, I’m coming around here, bear with me. Third example. May 1961. And this is the model for what I am about to talk to you about.


May 1961. John F. Kennedy, representing a new generation, having taken power from Dwight David Eisenhower, launching a new sense of a new frontier, announces to the Congress we will go to the Moon before the end of the decade.


We did a movie called A City upon a Hill and we had Buzz Aldrin in the movie, and he is so convincing, and he said you have to realize the only person who had gone around the Earth at that point was Yuri Gagarin, a Russian, and the only American who had been in space had been on a suborbital flight. And here’s the President saying we will get to the Moon inside this decade. And you had to invent everything. Yeah, we had all the precursors and we had the V-2 and we had this and we had that, but the truth was if you listed every problem they solved by July of 1969, its one of the great periods of development in human history. And they just did it.


I’m giving this background for our friends in the news media because twice recently Governor Romney has made fun of me for having bold ideas in space and has suggested that the idea of having a permanent lunar colony – he actually didn’t catch the weirdest thing I’ve ever done and I’m going to tell you all because sooner or later his researchers will find it – at one point early in my career I introduced the Northwest Ordinance for Space, and I said when we get – I think the number was 13,000 – when we have 13,000 Americans living on the Moon they can petition to become a state [laughter and applause].


And here’s the difference between romantics and so-called practical people. I wanted every young American to say to themselves: I could be one of those 13,000. I could be a pioneer. I need to study science and math and engineering. I need to learn how to be a technician. I can be part of building a bigger, better future. I can actually go out and live the future looking at the solar system and being part of a generation of courageous people who do something big and bold and heroic.


And I will as President encourage the introduction for the Northwest Ordinance for Space to put a marker down that we want Americans to think boldly about the future and we want Americans to go out and study hard and work hard, and together we are going to unleash the American people to rebuild the country we love [applause].


So, I’m going to give you a set of goals and then I’m going to make a set of observations about how to achieve those goals.


By the end of my second term we will have the first permanent base on the Moon, and it will be American [applause].


[A time frame is all well and good.  But we have been given many different "time frames" before by the current administration and previous one.  If Newt does get into office, we are going to have to see how he can meet this goal and will Congress (and more importantly, the American people) back him up on it.]


We will have commercial near-Earth activities that include science, tourism, and manufacturing, and are designed to create a robust industry precisely on the model that was developed by the airlines in the 1930s, because it is in our interest to acquire so much experience in space that we clearly have a capacity that the Chinese and the Russians will never come anywhere close to matching [applause].


And by the end of 2020 we will have the first continuous propulsion system in space capable of getting to Mars in a remarkably short time, because I am sick of being told we have to be timid, and I’m sick of being told we have to be limited to technologies that are 50 years old [applause].


Candidly, if we truly inspire the entrepreneurial spirits of America, we may get some of this stuff a lot faster. Now, I’m going to make some modest observations and some big observations.


Modest Observation Number 1: We should be practical about using equipment. That is, for example, the Atlas 5 ought to be interchangeable and ought to be as usable for NASA projects as it is for Air Force projects. We should get in the habit of absorbing small units of space. You know, it’s very difficult right now to get the bureaucracy to think about the fact that somebody is about to launch a commercial launch and it actually has a little extra space for 40 pounds, but that doesn’t fit either the NASA or the military model. When we fly troops around we normally fly them on commercial airliners with other people. So we’re used to the idea that you can share space. You can send things that don’t have to be a military-only aircraft, or a NASA-only aircraft. I just suspect that even the NASA administrators actually fly on commercial planes with other people. So I want to know if we break down all the bureaucratic barriers and we go to what I want to call a common sense model:  If it’s cheaper, faster, and it works – do it! [applause].


Second: We need to learn how to do five or eight launches a day, not one. We need to get in the habit of saying: You know, this is going to be like an airport. We are going to be so busy – you know, if we are going to be getting to the Moon permanently and be starting to get to Mars and build this near-Earth capability, and do it all within eight years, we better start thinking more like airports than like space systems.


And we better start figuring out – so how are we going to manage this many things? It’s not that we can’t do it, it’s just that we just don’t push ourselves, we don’t think about it, we don’t design the systems for it. But I want constant activity. There’s a reason. The World War II generation built tons of airplanes, so the designers that came out of World War II made lots of mistakes. And they learned from them. If you are a military aircraft designer today, you are lucky if you work on more than one airplane in your lifetime. That’s how slow and cumbersome and bureaucratic we’ve become. You don’t have any learning curve.


[This part is very important I think.  There is no risk, but no inspiration either with current defense aerospace projects that take decades to produce a fighter jet that is out of date by the time the prototype takes flight.  i.e. the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter project.  Maybe an even better illustration is the USAF tanker replacement boondoggle.]


I want us to have so much constant energetic, excited activities that people are learning again. And that we’re drawing the best talent in the country back to the Space Coast because it’s exciting and it’s dynamic and who knows what next week is going to be like. And does that mean I’m a visionary? You betcha! [applause].


You know, I was attacked the other night for being grandiose. I just want you to know: Lincoln standing at Council Bluffs was grandiose. The Wright Brothers going down to Kitty Hawk was grandiose. John F. Kennedy standing there saying we’ll get to the Moon in eight years was grandiose. I accept the charge that I am an American and Americans are instinctively grandiose because they believe in a bigger future [applause].


Now just a couple more core observations. I want you to understand where I’m coming from. I very much believe in a project you can Google called Strong America Now, which is an effort to develop “Lean Six Sigma” for the Federal Government. I believe we’ve got to become agile, lean, competent, constantly evolving, and that means replacing the civil service laws that are 130 years old with a totally new practical management system that comes much closer to the way Boeing is doing the Dreamliner. Callista and I went down to Boeing outside of Charleston and they were walking us through – I don’t know how many of you know this, but this is just an example – The Dreamliner is built in Italy, Wichita, Japan, and Korea, and it’s flown in in units that are then brought together at Charleston. And they are walking around and they said this particular work area currently takes sixteen days – our goal is to get it down to six with the same number of people.


And I looked at that and I thought to myself – Department of Housing and Urban Development [laughter]. But let’s be honest, I could have said Air Force Space Command, I could have said NASA. I mean we want to become lean and aggressive, and here’s my bias: They told me in the Corps of Engineers that in order to improve the Port of Charleston so they could receive ships that are starting to come through the Panama Canal in 2014 when they finish widening it, that to do the study of the project takes eight years. Not the project – the study! And I said to them: you know we fought the 2nd World War in three years and eight months, so we beat Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy, and Imperial Japan, in 44 months.


[This kinda goes inline with what I said above as far as the F-35/USAF tanker project goes.  We can fight a world war in four plus years, but to dredge a harbor for bigger ships, the study alone takes EIGHT YEARS?  Whiskey Tango Foxtrot to that I say!]


Now I want to imprint this on you because if I become your President…you will have a 365 day a year relentless pressure to be faster, quicker, leaner, more innovative, more thoughtful, more daring, more visionary.


So let’s go back to how to do it. I would want 10% of the NASA budget set aside for prize money. Lindberg flies to Paris for $25,000. You set up prizes – for example, I forget what the Bush administration estimate was, but it was something like $450 billion to get to Mars with a manned mission. So let’s put up $10 billion. And if somebody figures it out, we save $440 billion. If they don’t figure it out, it didn’t cost us anything.


But you’ll have for $10 billion – and I’d make it tax free because Americans love things tax free so much. It’s not the monetary value, it’s the psychic thrill that Uncle doesn’t get any of it. And this is why you are going to have to learn to have a lot more launches every day because if we put up the right prizes – and Bob Walker and I, shortly before I left Congress, actually hosted a two-day National Academy of Engineering Workshop on prizes, which is online, as it was published, and we were talking about the historic use of prizes going back to the 17th Century. You put up a bunch of interesting prizes, you are going to have so many people showing up who want to fly, it’s going to be unbelievable.


So the model I want us to build is largely the model of the 20s and 30s, when the government was actively encouraging development, but the government wasn’t doing it. The government was paying a reward, it was subsidizing the airmail, it was doing a variety of things. There were prizes – you know, Jimmy Doolittle got famous winning prize money before World War II, then he got famous for bombing Tokyo; I mean, he had a life that was very interesting.


We had enormous breakthroughs in aviation in the 20s and 30s at very little cost to the government because lots of smart people did it. This is my closing bias – I just want to share it with you. I want people cutting metal, or nowadays I guess you would say creating various synthetics; I mean the Dreamliner is a composite aircraft, so I want people pouring composite. Is that a more accurate way to think of it now? Actually, they wrap it. It comes in a – it’s very strange – for a guy my age, I’m going to fly in it? – although it is apparently stronger than aluminum, and more durable.


But here’s the point: We’d be better off to do 1% of the current studies and ten times the number of experiments just flying. If it doesn’t work we’ll walk off saying, well, that was kind of interesting. There is a great story of Bernie Shriver, who had been the great leader of Air Force ICBM development, calling his successor, and his said: “You know, you’ve had 17 successful launches,” and the guy said – he was very proud – “You’re right.” And he [Bernie] said: “You’re not trying, because if you had been trying you would have inevitably made mistakes. You’re only doing stuff that’s safe, what you already know how to do.”


So I came here today to ask you, because you’re here, and you know people all over the country who believe in space, you know how exciting it can be at its best, you know what a total mess, what an embarrassment our current situation is. How can we build a bureaucracy this big and get into a period when we rely on the Russians, while we watch the Chinese plan to surpass us, and we sit around bureaucratically twiddling our thumbs with no real reform? [applause].


I want you to help me both in Florida and across the country so that you can someday say you were here the day it was announced that of course we’d have commercial space in near-space, that of course we’d have a manned colony on the Moon that flew an American flag, and of course we’d be moving towards Mars by the end of the next decade. After all, we are Americans and you were there at the beginning of the second great launch of the adventure that John F. Kennedy started.


Thank you.  end transcript of Newt Gingrich.

For the most part, this blogger likes what he has seen in this transcript.  Getting funding for "5 to 8" rocket launches a day I just don't see happening in our current finicial hard times.  Prize money to get civilian/commercial operators to go in stages until eventually, there is a functional moon base on the moon is what alot of true believers have been thinking about for the past several years.

Personally, I think the number of people living in a lunar colony before it becomes a "state" should be higher than 13,000 people.  I'm thinking maybe 30 to 40,000 people before it can happen.  Plus, Newt didn't cover this in his speech, but eventually we should look at huge O'Neill class space colonies.  Could each one of those with populations of 100-200,000 eventually become individual states themselves?

Letting the civilian sector come up with the technology to get us to the moon and Mars quicker than what we could do back in "Apollo" times is a great idea.

My concern is what the other politicians (namely Governor Mitt Romney) have for their space policy.  I for one think that they will fall short of Newt Gingrich's version.





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Ref.
1.  National space Society Blog. "Transcript of Newt Gingrich January 25 Space Policy Speech Newt Gingrich Town Hall Meeting on Space Policy, January 25, 2012, Cocoa, Florida" January 26, 2012. ( http://blog.nss.org/?p=3242 ). Transcript of 25-minute speech, courtesy of National Space Society [PDF version].
2. The Shanks Dimension blog. "Reagan and Gingrich – Newt Not The Supporter He Claims to be of Reagan!" by Don W. Shanks. January 25, 2012. (http://www.theshanksdimension.com/2012/01/reagan-and-gingrich-newt-not-the-supporter-he-claims-to-be-of-reagan/).

The End of the Shuttle Era!

A perfect landing to end an era with going by what was reported by the Daily Mail of the United Kingdom. The 135th mission of the shuttle fleet.

Main gear touchdown was at 5:57am with wheels stop about a minute later.

Shuttle sommander Christopher Ferguson radio back to Mission Control in Houston, Texas "Mission complete, Houston." "Job well done, America" was the reply.

Being the type of rascal that I am, Mission Control had to have been reading from a script. They should have just said "Job well done, Atlantis" and be done with it that way.

I have to question those in Washington DC who speak with fork tongue. Out of one side of their mounth, the fools say they are for further space exploration. Then out of the other side, they starve NASA of the funds to keep Manned Spaceflight operational.

There should have been someone to stand up against the current and told President George Bush that we should keep flying the shuttle until its replacement is DECLARED OPERATIONAL!

Maybe in another timeline that happened - but not in ours. Boeing, Space X, and the others will eventualy come online while in the meantime, Russia soaks the United States for every penny it can get out of us to haul a astronaut up to the International Space Station.

This state of affairs is just plain wrong in my opionion.

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Ref.

1. Daily Mail. "Home at last: Atlantis makes historic final landing as Nasa's 30-year shuttle programme comes to a glorious end" July 21, 2011. ( http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2017122/Atlantis-landing-Nasas-30-year-space-shuttle-programme-comes-end.html ). images from same news article.

Boeing Tanker Won over EADS's Tanker

Well, I am surprise by this announcement. I thought for sure that enough lobbyists from both sides had enough congressmen and senators paid off that the final decision would be a split purchase between the two companies.

And going by what one article said, that may still be in the works for a future purchase after these first 176 KC-46As are purchased. Price tag is $30 billion plus. EADS version of its Airbus A330 plane to be converted over to a tanker would have been called the KC-45A.

Problems with the F-35 keep on taking place along with the price tag keeps on going up. The USAF is rapidly retiring many of its legacy fighter aircraft such as the F-15 and F-16. Just to try and keep the wonder plane (i.e F-35) on track.

As a smaller aircraft, the KC-46A is expected to burn less fuel in absolute terms than the KC-45 over a 30 year lifespan for the airframe.

Boeing has to deliver the first 18 KC-46As within six years of the contract award date. The production spans over 13 years for building all 179 aircraft. And Boeing has confirmed that first flight for the KC-46A is scheduled for 2015. So, we should see a KC-46A flying by February 2015. I won't hold my breath. Something ALWAYS happens to screw up the production schedule. Then Boeing has to go to Congress to get more funds, etc., etc.

Now its a race against time. The USAF has 400 really old KC-135 Stratotankers that have to be replaced. Many of them are 50+ years old.

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Ref.

1. ELP Defens(c)e Blog. "Boeing KC-46A air-refueling tanker for the USAF. Now what? #military" by Eric Palmer. February 24, 2011. (http://ericpalmer.wordpress.com/2011/02/25/boeing-kc-46a-air-refueling-tanker-for-the-usaf-now-what-military/).

2. Flight Global.com. "USAF selects Boeing for KC-X contract" by Stephen Trimble. (http://www.flightglobal.com/articles/2011/02/24/353642/updated-usaf-selects-boeing-for-kc-x-contract.html).

Two Shuttles Might Stick Around Through 2017!

Found this little bit of news on the nsmbc.mns.com website.

NASA is consider keeping shuttles Endeavour and Atlantis in flight-ready condition after Endeavour's last scheduled mission instead of turning it into a museum piece. Endeavour was the replacement shuttle for the space shuttle Challenger that was lost in a lift-off explosion 25 years ago this year.

Thanks to the proposal from Commercial Space Transportation Service, or CSTS. They would use Endeavour as well as a sister shuttle, Atlantis, to fly two missions a year from 2013 to 2017 at an annual cost of $1.5 billion.

The contractor that currently manages the shuttle program on NASA’s behalf, United Space Alliance; has offered this proposal for the second round of funding from the space agency’s Commercial Crew Development initiative, also known as CCDev 2. United Space Alliance is the only company that proposes keeping the shuttles operational.

Other companies like Boeing and Sierra Nevada Corp, SpaceX, etc. plan on their own replacement vehicles to the shuttle. SpaceX has just successfully flown their Dragon capsule that they propose to make it human-rated.

For more information, check out the link below.

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Ref.

1. msnbc.msn.com. "NASA weighs plan to keep space shuttle until 2017" by Rob Coppinger. February 3, 2011. (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/41397955/ns/technology_and_science-space/).

2. Picture of a space shuttle on launch pad.

Boeing's NGAD Jet Fighter Concept

The DEW Line got a exclusive it seems from Boeing in being allowed to use images of Boeing's NGAD (Next Generation Air Dominance) fighter concept. Boeing showed off their new proposal of a tailess 1/16th scale model and poster at the Navy League event recently.

Primary designed to be a carrier airplane, the fighter is a 40,000 pound design. If the U.S. Air Force went for this design, it would have to be almost 50% larger in size to replace the 60,000 pound F-22 type fighters. The larger engines will allow the aircraft to go into supercruise, and be low observable that has internal weapons bays and extreme agility. This will be a 9g-rated airframe and take on the old air-to-air performance once performed by the now retired F-14. Avionics between the USAF and the USN version will no doubt be the same.

Boeing really wants to get back into the fighter market. Lockheed Martin has taken a hit over the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program. What is interesting is that its the same airframe, but will come in two versions - if you go by the image. The aircraft banking towards you is a unmanned vehicle and the aircraft still flying level is manned.

NGAD is planned to be a replacement for the F-22/F-35 and be operational by 2025-2030.

For the entire article, please visit the link below.

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Ref. DEW Line. May 7, 2010. "Boeing plots return to next-generation fighter market" by Stephen Trimble.(http://www.flightglobal.com/blogs/the-dewline/2010/05/boeing-plots-return-to-next-ge.html). Image is from that website/Boeing.

As the KC-X soap opera turns...

Until recently, American bad boy Boeing thought they had finally gotten rid of their opposite number in Northrup Grumman/EADS while going after the fair USAF KC-X tanker bid contract. Northrup said enough of this BS and pulled out on March 8th.

But, from across the north pole on the opposite side of the world. From the land of Vladimir Putin, current Russian Prime Minister; has toss his hat (and shirt to expose his manly chest) into the KC-X Tanker contest.

Speaking with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on a recent trip to Russia, the offer was pitched about greater access to the US economy and vice versa.

Reportly, Putin told Clinton, "As far as our economic cooperation is concerned, certainly our major companies are very much interested in such a cooperation and they're expecting us to support them. A message should be sent that they (the Russian companies) are welcome both in the economy of the United States and of Russia."

The Russian-American joint venture known as United Aircraft Corporation would be based in Los Angeles, but the aircraft could be built anywhere in the country.

Secretary of State Clinton respond favoribly to the idea saying, "We would very much like to get into specifics about how to remove barriers and open opportunities."

The Russian/United Aircraft Corporation(UAC) offering would be based upon the Russian Ilyushin II-96, a four-engine commercial airliner.

Well now, hearing that Russia might get into the act somehow EADS, minus its Northrup partner, has asked the Department of Defense to extend the proposal deadline by 90 days. DoD is thinking about doing just that.

Thus concludes this epsiode of the KC-X Tanker soap opera as it turns. Stay tuned for more hijinks to follow.

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Ref. CNN.com, March 19, 2010. By Mike Mount.(http://www.cnn.com/2010/US/03/19/us.russia.refueling.tanker/index.html?eref=rss_latest&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+rss/cnn_latest+(RSS:+Most+Recent))

The Ongoing Saga of the Charlie-Foxtrot Tanker Deal

Well, I think after reading this article (see link below in ref section), the Great US Air Tanker saga is going to end up with a split buy between Boeing and Northrop Grumman.

Its (really) no longer about getting what the Air Force really needs. It's about politics and keep voters supplied with jobs in key states. That means both Boeing and Northrop Grumman will both win the KC-X tanker project.

The KC-135s are REALLY long in the tooth now and needs to be replaced quickly as possible. Neither company is in favor of the dual build contract. Boeing and Northrop Grumman want a winner take all approach. The USAF supply chain would prefer just a single type of aircraft to support for this mission instead of two.

By doing the split buy, the Air Force gets new tankers in the air quicker. Current projections mean that at least 15 new tankers can be built a year. It will take decades to replace ALL of the KC-135.

Image is of the Boeing offering based upon the Boeing 767 airframe.

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Ref. (http://www.nwfdailynews.com/news/split-25582-aerospace-tanker.html)

Al Qaeda / Drug Cartel own Rogue Aviation Network

It is real easy to make fun of Homeland Security and the TSA are airports. But information recently uncovered by Reuter's reporters Tim Gaynor and Tiemoko Diallo is scary. But if one were to think like the enemy, then its a logical course of action for them to take.

Quote: The document warned that a growing fleet of rogue jet aircraft was regularly crisscrossing the Atlantic Ocean. On one end of the air route, it said, are cocaine-producing areas in the Andes controlled by the leftist Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia. On the other are some of West Africa's most unstable countries. The clandestine fleet has grown to include twin-engine turboprops, executive jets and retired Boeing 727s that are flying multi-ton loads of cocaine and possibly weapons to an area in Africa where factions of al Qaeda are believed to be facilitating the smuggling of drugs to Europe, the officials say.

Alexandre Schmidt, regional representative for West and Central Africa for the UN Office on Drugs and Crime, cautioned in Dakar this week that the aviation network has expanded in the past 12 months and now likely includes several Boeing 727 aircraft.

"When you have this high capacity for transporting drugs into West Africa, this means that you have the capacity to transport as well other goods, so it is definitely a threat to security anywhere in the world," said Schmidt.

Used Boeing 727 jetliners can haul up to 10 tons of cargo. Drugs, weapons, people. Venezuela is the key. Airplanes collect cargo all over Central and South America. Stop off in Venezuela for fuel. Fly off to Africa and then they return from Africa back to Venezuela.

And other aircarft are a part of this network. One of the pictures with original article show a Gulfstream jet grounded by authorities in July 2008. It was involved in a plot to transport more than 600 kilos of cocaine from Venezuela. Seen here at Guinea Bissau international airport January 10, 2010.

I found this to be very interesting. Quote: A number of aircraft have been retrofitted with additional fuel tanks to allow in-flight refueling -- a technique innovated by Mexico's drug smugglers. (Cartel pilots there have been known to stretch an aircraft's flight range by putting a water mattress filled with aviation fuel in the cabin, then stacking cargoes of marijuana bundles on top to act as an improvised fuel pump).

And the discovery last year of that Boeing 727 in Tuareg, Mali, lead intelligence people to the fact that other 727s have been used this way. In particular, this Boeing 727 landed on an improvised runway. But for some reason, it was unable to take-off again where upon it was burned to try and hide the evidence of what was taking place.

And I will ask the reader to remember that the drug cartels are very inventive when trying to transport product into the United States. They are into building their own semi-submarines to transport drugs. Remember those stories of several years ago?

Anyway, for additional information, please use the link below to read the entire article.

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Ref. Reuters.com. January 13, 2010. Tim Gaynor and Tiemoko Diallo. Timbuktu, Mali (http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE60C3E820100113).

Does Lockheed-Martin have a future? F-35 in Doubt?

Defense Secretary Robert Gates said he wanted to accelerate the purchase of F-35s through 2015. In the Market Watch article I read, that figure was from 513 F-35 fighters through 2015 and up to a fleet of 2,443 F-35s eventually. But in latest report from the Pentagon, planned purchases for fiscal year 2011 will be about 391 - a reduction of 122 fighters through the same year.

This cutback for Lockhed-Martin which was trying to increase its production rate of the aircraft to one a day in the next 5-6 years. Higher production rates mean a lower cost for each individual airplane. Plus Lockheed will be relying heavily on automated and assembly-line production methods to meet its target goals.

While the United States is the primary customer, other countries are wanting some of the action as well. Such as the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Canada, Norway, Denmark, Australia, and Turkey. Sales of the F-35 expect to top out over $16 billion by 2016. Reporter Christopher Hinton in his article stated that this is 25% of Lockheed-Martin's total revenue. This is information provided for by Bernstein Research. Each F-35 costs about $83 million right now and costs per plane by 2014 is expecting to go down to $80 million per airplane.

The title for my post is more tongue in cheek than any actual threats to production. But I have been thinking lately that these big companies in the US Industrial/Military complex are pricing themselves out of business with their biggest customer - the United States of America.

Not being an insider, I wonder if smaller companies - say Cessna, Piper, Air Tractor, etc., be given funding to produce flying prototypes of next generation fighter aircraft. Look at the problems the USAF is having trying to get a replacement for the air tanker role. It is so bogged down with politics now. Boeing or Northrup/Grumman(EADS). There is a article on James Hasik blog you ought to take a look at. See the ref section for the link. I mean, we are at the point that we might as well split the purchase of those tankers between the two companies.

These other companies should be able to come up with fresh ideas that do not cost in the billions the same old way that Lockheed and Boeing keep on doing for the past 50 years. We keep finding ourselves in COIN operations and not World War Three. While I realize that we need to have equipment that can operate in WW3, those same fighters do not have the abilities that aircraft set up for COIN operations need to have.

And I guess the main thrust of my post here is that we seem to be stuck in a groove. We want fighters for World War Three - go to Lockheed-Martin. Want a fighter for the Navy-go to Northrup/Grumman. Need a bomber or tanker-Boeing or Airbus now.

Maybe in 2010, things will settle down as far as how new equipment for our military will be planned for and purchased.

Bloomberg also had a new article on military programs January 8, 2010 by Tony Capaccio (see link below). It delt more with Def. Secretary Robert Gates restoring funding to several programs including the C-130 upgrade program.

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Ref. Market Watch, Christopher Hinton, January 7, 2010. (http://www.marketwatch.com/story/pentagon-may-cut-production-for-lockheeds-f-35-2010-01-07?siteid=rss&rss=1).

James Shasik, January 3, 2010 (http://www.jameshasik.com/weblog/2010/01/four-issues-with-the-usafs-tanker-rfp-and-an-analysis-of-the-split-buy-concept-part-one.html).

Bloomberg, Tony Capaccio, January 8, 2010. (http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601103&sid=a..NOafAKjFw)

B-17G Liberty Belle Star of Film

My love for the Boeing B-17 knows no boundaries. Plus the fact that I got to fly on the Liberty Belle and one can now understand why I post this short video about her flying "Down Under" to take part in filming a new World War Two film.

Plus I got to fly on her back in 2007 and she was the leading post on this blog. Any news about her that I come across will be posted.

UPDATE: Here is the link to my original posting about this B-17 (http://aerospacedreams.blogspot.com/2008/07/warbirds.html)

The Return of the OV-10! What about the F-7F Tigercat instead?

From a posting made on Springbored's Springboard, there was an article from Inside Defense breaking the news(to me anyway) that Boeing is offering to start up production of the OV-10 again for Counter-Insurgency Operations (COIN). Quote "While the twin-engine plane would maintain much of its 1960s-vintage rugged external design, the 21st Century edition would feature a computerized cockpit, intelligence sensors and smart-bomb-dropping capabilities, according to an OV-10(X) product card obtained by ITAF.

The Chicago defense-giant has quietly been circulating plans at military-sponsored events across the country that detail how the company could rebuild and modernize the Bronco, according to Pentagon and industry officials." And SS offered the following observation of his own, "That's a sweet plane, capable of serving in low-threat areas....and it can land on an amphibious flattop. Just don't go too crazy goldplating it. And build 'em fast."

Come on, the OV-10? Hows about restarting the production line on the A-10! The A-10 Warthog is the best gun platform ever in my personal opinion for attacking targets on the ground and killing them.

Then I thought about it a bit more and remembered that I had read an article in the U.S. Naval Proceedings sometime between 1994 and 2004 from a Marine officer who proposed that there be a OV-10 replacement and that the service should look at the World War Two design - the Grumman F-7F Tigercat.

The Tigercat was generally more armored than the Bronco. It could survive combat better than the OV-10. What this Marine officer was proposing was to replace the twin radial engines with twin turbo-props or twin turbo-fan engines. Have a internal bomb bay be designed for modern weapons. It would of course have the latest in electronics to survive in the modern combat environment.

Here are the specifications of the Tigercat. Two 2,100hp Pratt & Whitney R-2800-34W Double Wasp 18-cylinder radial piston engines. Max take-off weight of 25,720 pounds. Wingspan of 51 feet, 6 inches. Fuselage length is 45 feet, 4.5 inches. Height of 16 feet, 7 inches. Max speed at 22,200 feet is 435 mph. Cruise at 5,000 feet of 222 mph. It had a ceiling of 40,700 feet and a range of 1,200 miles. Armament was (4) 20mm cannon in the wing roots. Four .50 cal machine guns in the nose. One torpedo slung under the fuselage or 2,000 pounds of bombs (1,000 under each wing).

These are the specifications for the OV-10D. Twin Garrett T76-G-420/421 series turboprops delivering 1,040 horsepower each engine. Top speed of 288 miles-per-hour, a range of 1,382 miles and a service ceiling of up to 30,000 feet. The OV-10 last saw action in Desert Storm. The following is a quote from the military factory webpage on the type that saw action in that conflict:

"Nevertheless, the USMC sent their Broncos into Saudi Arabia making up USMC VMO-1 and VMO-2. In the conflict, the first aircraft lost to enemy fire was an OV-10A from VMO-2. Since this aircraft was an A-model lacking the infrared suppressors on its exhaust stacks, it made relatively easy pickings for shoulder-launched heat-seeking missiles. These shoulder-launched mobile missile platforms were not yet a technological threat in the Vietnam conflict so it was a new threat to original Broncos in the Persian Gulf.

Despite both pilots ejecting safely, they were captured an tortured as Iraqi POWs till the end of the war. Typical Bronco weapon loadouts in the conflict included a single AIM-9 Sidewinder to counter enemy aircraft threats as well as rocket armament and their standard machine gun arrangements to counter ground elements. Broncos also spent their time assisting A-6 Intruders and AV-8B Harriers along with marking targets via white phosphorous rockets as well as spotting for naval-based artillery guns. "

For me as a amateur, or "armchair historian" - I kinda like the idea of something old find a new lease on life. But the OV-10 as oppose to what I remembered reading in the Naval Proceedings just doesn't seem right. Also, there are those who would prefer that the OV-1 Mohawk rather than the Bronco would be the perfect candidate to relaunch. But the Mohawk (and the Tigercat) are Grumman products - not Boeings'. And Boeing is tyring to some up with programs to keeps its workforce employeed.

And in closing, as an example, please read the following article by David Axe entitled "Old is the New New again."

With the V-22 Osprey ready to enter operational service, the Marines are looking at new toys to take advantage of the tilt-rotor craft's range and versatility. One of these is a new 120-mm rifled mortar. But mortars need vehicles to haul them -- and guess what? The V-22's cabin is too small to fit a Humvee. So the Marines are seriously considering buying a new version of the old M-151 Jeep to move the mortar. Imagine that: the old Jeep back in production, 20 years after it got bumped off the battlefield by the Humvee. It's not the only case where the military is looking to old machines -- some decades out of service -- to meet its current and future needs.

The costs of new weapons are spiraling at an alarming rate. That goes double for adventurous new programs like Future Combat Systems, which are proving largely technologically impossible. But with a war going on, the Defense Department needs gear that's going to work -- now. It's no surprise, then, that the Pentagon is turning to equipment that proved its worth back when Rummy was Gerald Ford's SecDef.

Consider the Vietnam-era Light Anti-tank Weapon, or LAW. Finding modern rockets like Javelin too complicated and expensive for urban warfare, the Marines have begun issuing LAWs to units in Iraq. On the aviation side, the Marines have ordered the first UH-1Y Hueys, new-production updates of the 30-year-old UH-1N. The AH-1 Cobra fleet is getting a similar makeover, albeit in a rebuild program for old airframes. Both helos are coming in on time, on budget and with the capabilities the Marines need. Meanwhile, the CH-53 is about to go back into production in a new version to replace choppers worn out in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Across the aisle, the Army is reissuing old M-14 rifles. And soon the UH-60 fleet will be replaced with -- you guessed it -- the UH-60, in an updated model.

In the Navy camp, skeptical old vets are leading a campaign to put two mothballed battleships back into service as alternatives to the Navy's $3-billion-per-copy DD(X) destroyer, which is being touted as a fire-support platform but, according to the Naval Fire Support Association, will provide only a fraction of the firepower of the old BBs at far greater cost, and much later.

My friend Jim Doner, a retired Marine warrant officer who flew forward air control missions over Vietnam, is not at all surprised at this development. He says the best weapons are the old proven ones ... paired with an experienced, courageous operator. In particular, he laments the premature retirement of the OV-10 Bronco, a rugged, slow, cheap little airplane that excelled at getting airborne controllers over the battlefield where they could direct artillery and bombs more accurately than even today's controllers with their whiz-bang targeting pods. Doner says the OV-10 went away (in 1995) in favor of hi-tech multi-role jets that aren't always good at the simple, dirty and dangerous missions that are important in low-intensity wars.

-end of David Axe's article-

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Ref. (http://warisboring.com/?p=1600)

(http://springboarder.blogspot.com/2009/01/ultimate-coin-ov-10-bronco-comin-back.html)

(http://www.noahshachtman.com/archives/001957.html)

picture reference: F-7f from (http://www.livingwarbirds.com/images/f7f-pics/f7f-3p_tigercat.jpg)

USAF X-37 Project to Fly Next Year

The joint U.S. Air Force and Boeing project known as the X-37B - the unpiloted military space plane, is gearing up for its first flight in January 2010.

It will be launched on top of a Atlas V Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle (EELV) from Cape Canaveral, Florida.  Orbit the Earth, then make a auto-pilot landing in California.

The X-37B had its beginings in July 1999 with the Boeing Phantom Works.  In 2002, NASA awarded Boeing a $301 million doalr contract to develope the X-37 flight vehicle. It is a 27.5 feet long and 15 foot wingspan, and weighs five tons. 

The RE-USABLE space plane is a testbed for dozens of technologies in airframe, propulsion, and operation.

Quoting from that article, "Potential new commercial and military reusable space vehicle market applications for these technologies range from on-orbit satellite repair to the next-generation of totally resuable launch vehciles" source is past Boeing-issued briefing material.

My question to the reading public is this... Why not scale this up for manned space operations?  Used the Jupiter Booster design or even the Aries V as the primary booster?

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Ref. Space.com June 02, 2009, "U.S. Air Force Aims to Launch Space Plane Next Year" by Leonard David. (http://www.space.com/news/090602-x-37b-space-plane.html)

U.S. Navy "6th Generation" Combat Fighter by Boeing?

It must be the new Spring fashion lineup that the defense industry is rolling out for previews this month.  We are taking a look at the 6th Generation Fighter.

At the Navy League's Sea-Air-Space show at Washington D.C.'s National Harbor on May 5th, there was a interesting rpesentation by Boeing on their proposal for the U.S. Navy's replacement aircraft for the F/A-18 E/F.  A twin engine escapee from the movie "Stealth."  

Nevertheless, its very kickass looking the sweptwing wing, tailess aircraft.  The Northrop-Grumman N-UCAS is also of a similar tailess design.  

This aircraft is described as "6th Generation" combat fighter design.  Article on Aviation Week.com website by Graham Warwick (05/05/2009) link listed below. Boeing artworkincluded with original article.

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Ref.Aviationweek.com ( http://www.aviationweek.com/aw/blogs/defense/index.jsp?plckController=Blog&plckScript=blogScript&plckElementId=blogDest&plckBlogPage=BlogViewPost&plckPostId=Blog:27ec4a53-dcc8-42d0-bd3a-01329aef79a7Post:0b718474-965c-46b6-802d-4e6c642d4f0e). 

DC-X What the Future SHOULD Have Been

Recently, I was checking out Space.com and found a article by Leonard David entitled, “DC-X Honored for Its Contributions, Potential.” Dated September 1, 2008. I want to quote the opening of that article here. “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.” The program ran from 1991 to 1997. A unlikely (in today's climate) of government, industry, and that special group of humans called entrepreneurs. The DC-X was a technology demonstrator designed to test out concepts for a single-stage-to-orbit spacecraft that took off and landed vertically. A vehicle that had potential in both civilian and military space travel.

I personally was in my 30s, taking a airframe and power-plant mechanic course to get my license in 1990-1991. And back then, I had a subscription to Aviation Week & Space Technology which I have maintained more or less since I was in college. There were a few years where I had to do without that subscription. But getting back to the DC-X story – I just ate it up whenever something new came out about that vehicle. My personal view on the subject matter as to why DC-X failed and Lockheed/Martin's Venture Star won the Clinton's administration's decision was due to politics and campaign funding. And we all know what happened to Venture Star now don't we....

But, getting back to Leonard David's article that is paraphrased below:

Before Boeing bought out McDonnell Douglas, they were in partnership with what was known as the Strategic Defense Initiative Organization. The DC-X first flew on August 18, 1993 two years after receiving the funding go-ahead. Tests were conducted at White Sands Missile Range. The DC-X flew 8 times between August 1993 and July 1995. Then there was an advanced DC-X that flew four times in 1996 until on its last flight, the vehicle tipped over and was destroyed. The accident was due to human error dealing with one of the craft's four landing legs.

Mr. Leonard David covered their 15th anniversary reunion held on August 17-19, 2008 that was hosted by the New Mexico Museum of Space History that was the start for fund raising in order to develop a permanent DC-X/XA exhibit at that museum. David interviewed Bill Gaubatz, the former director for the Delta Clipper programs at McDonnell Douglas. He (Gaubatz) stated: “The DC-X and XA showed that a small dedicated government and industry team with focused objectives could make significant advances with the boundaries of a limited schedule and budget.” Gaubatz also added that the total amount of money spent of the DC-X/XA program was less than $100 million, including range and lab costs. We were in effect, a little entrepreneurial team working within a big company, that was working for a this-can-be-done philosophy and a vision to drive launch costs below $100.00 a pound.

Additionally, Mr. Gaubatz said, “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 totally reusable, safe, rapid-turnaround transportation system. Cheap, unsafe access is not the way to go.”

The DC-X promised aircraft like access to space operations. Rapid prototyping as shown by the DC-X program would have goaded other “older” space companies to get involved in their own development of less-expensive space vehicles.

The first civilian director of the SDI was Ambassador Henry Cooper who helped provided the funding needed to get the program started back in 1990. Mr. Cooper said “That 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. (Note: President Bill Clinton's administration cut funding in 1993 in order “to take the stars out of star wars.” That decision that resulted in the cancellation of the DC-X program and turned off all innovative technological progress within the Strategic Defense Initiative). Ambassador Cooper added, “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 as in it.” Bill Gaubatz provided some additional thoughts, “That DC-X termination brought about two great losses, dispersal of the team that worked on it and the loss of time.”

Jess Sponable, U.S. Air Force (retired) was the USAF program manager for the SSTO (Single-Stage-To-Orbit) technology program. He stated that 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.” Sponable offered up the concept of the transportable elements of the DC-X, including the 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.” This underscored that the cost per flight was generally in the $200,000 to $300,000 range. “We were the last program to actually combine and accomplish faster, cheaper, and better... all at the same time. 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.” Jess Sponable told Mr. David.

Several attendees pointed to Scaled Composites and its work on the White Knight Two – the flying launch pad to support, in part, suborbital, passenger-carrying space liner operations, as well as efforts now under way at XCOR Aerospace, Armadillo Aerospace, and Masten Space Systems among others.

Rick Bachtel, general manager of operations for Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne of Huntsville, Ala. Said, “What I see in the future is not government funding as much as it is going to be commercial.” Bachtel told reporter Mr. David, that his company has spun off a smaller group called Power Innovations to harness inventive and entrepreneurial ideas. 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.

Leonard David goes on with his article by speaking with NASA administrator Mike Griffin, the former deputy for the SDI organization and a leader in the DC-X program. Taking the title from a popular book and HBO series about a group of soldiers, Mike Griffin referred to those who worked on the DC-X as a “Band of Brothers.” It is people that make the hard work of aerospace engineering indistinguishable from magic.” Griffin told attendees to this event. “Today a small private team can accomplish suborbital human spaceflight, a feat that once took the resources of a government to achieve. I'm personally convinced that manned orbital flight is within reach just barely of private enterprise today.” He went on referring that the United States has not followed up the DC-X with the kinds of technology 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. 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.”

Former SDI and shuttle astronaut Gary Payton, now deputy undersecretary of the Air Force for space programs compared DC-X to what is now know as Operationally Responsive Space. Payton was also NASA's deputy associate administrator for space transportation technology where he initiated, planned and lead the Reusable Launch Vehicle technology demonstration program which included the DC-XA flight test project. “The military needs short noticed, quick response, easy changes to the launch vehicle's ascent guidance in order to reconstitute lost space assets – sounds like it fits some of the things we were doing in DC-X.” Parts of the DC-X program are finding their way into the Operationally Responsive Space.

Well, that's Mr. David's article pretty much. Too much information to actually try to summarize although I probably could have if I really tried. I pretty much quoted the entire article because I really believed in the whole concept behind DC-X. In fact, when speaking with friends, I would refer to this vehicle as the “First Dropship.” For those of you who have ever played the game Battletech, you will know what that means. Those of you who have not – Battletech is a game set in the 31st century and the Inner Sphere is always at war with one another. Jumpships travel between start systems. They carry Dropships. A Dropship is a huge vessel capable of transporting several military vehicles known as BattleMechs, giant, robot like in appearance; they each have as much or more firepower than a 20th century tank platoon.

But, getting back to the DC-X. The U.S. Government is now stuck with Orion. They got their blinders on and cannot think of something else to do. Not that Congress would provide the funding anyway. It is going to take some future Virign Galactic/Scale Composites or some other company partnership to get Boeing off it's rear end and create the DC-X2 – the second generation.

Finally, I don't know if anybody else thought of this but, the DC-X could form the core element for a future Mars Lander. Maybe I can live long enough to witness the DC-X Phoenix class dropships traveling to Mars. I hope that it could be true.


(Ref. Space.com. September 1, 2008 “DC-X Honored for Its Contributions, Potential.” by Leonard David, Special Correspondent for Space.com. Dateline was Alamogordo, NM.).