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From: larry@omews10.intel.com (Larry Smith)
Newsgroups: sci.aeronautics,sci.space,sci.space.shuttle
Subject: Space Station Strangles NASP
Message-ID: <4983@omepd.UUCP>
Date: 27 Sep 89 18:50:17 GMT
Sender: news@omepd.UUCP
Reply-To: larry@omews10.intel.com (Larry Smith)
Distribution: usa
Organization: Intel Corp., Hillsboro, Oregon
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Quoting SPACE NEWS Sept. 18, 1989 (the preview issue of the new
publication of DEFENSE WEEK to appear in Jan. 90), "The 1990 budget
account for NASA's space station was increased substantially by a
key Senate committee last week, but all funding for the national
aerospace plane was deleted from the agency's spending plan".

This is absurd. Just like the Ford Model-T enabled people for the
first time to AFFORDABLY travel hundreds of miles from their homes,
and the DC-3 to AFFORDABLY travel thousands of miles, the national 
aerospace plane derived vehicle (NASPDV) holds the promise of AFFORDABLE
transportation to low earth orbit. If you really want the federal and
commercial space development business to bloom, provide an AFFORDABLE 
way to get people and light cargoes to LEO (NASPDV), and reduce by 10X
the cost of heavy payloads (ALS or Jarvis). Don't provide a great facility
(space station) with a very expensive, and therefore ultimately unaffordable,
way to get there (Shuttle). Put another way, if you had to travel from LA
to NY to help a client with a technical problem, or to investigate new
techniques/markets, would you want to go through the overhead and delay
of getting yourself on a system like the space shuttle, or would you like
to buy a ticket with a credit card, and go to your local large airport and 
catch a ride ?

True, NASP/X-30 has technical hurdles, but these hurdles are not impossible
ones. The past several years of technology development have proven that.
Also, for the people on the net that say that U.S. aerospace companies
never contribute their own funds to development any more, the NASP/X-30 
technology development effort to date, has been funded at the 50% level
by the 5  U.S. aerospace firms that are taking part, and a vehicle is not
even being built! . Surely, they wouldn't do this if they didn't see the
potential, as mentioned above. Quoting them, in 1 year they will be at the
point where they will be ready to develop hardware! They have said that any
further delay is excessive! X-30 is NOT a 21st century concept. It IS a mid
1990's concept !! Look at it yet another way ... X-30 would cost the same
as about 4 B-2s. Which gives a better return ?

The orbital X-15 program was killed by Apollo. Is NASP/X-30 about to be killed
by the space station?

Larry Smith