ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Monday, July 1, 1996 TAG: 9607010110
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-6 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: CAPE CANAVERAL, FLA.
SOURCE: Associated Press
Imagine spaceships taking off with almost as much ease as airliners and ferrying people and cargo quickly - and cheaply - into orbit and back. It's the longtime dream of rocketeers, and something NASA's shuttle has failed to do.
Enter the X-33, a test vehicle expected to lead to completely reusable rocket ships to replace the finicky, expensive and aging space shuttle fleet.
Tuesday, Vice President Gore will announce the winner of a yearlong X-33 competition held by NASA. One of three designs submitted by California aerospace companies will be chosen.
Will it be Lockheed Martin Corp.'s wedge-shaped wonder? The familiar-looking Rockwell International Corp. shuttlelike ship? Or the only one to launch and land vertically, McDonnell Douglas Corp.'s flying nose cone?
It's been nearly a quarter-century since NASA took a major step toward a new space transportation system - the shuttle was announced by President Nixon in 1972 and first flew in 1981. Columbia is now circling Earth on shuttle flight No. 78.
``We're sitting at the starting line with the engines revving real fast, cutting the motor and waiting for the green flag,'' said Paul Klevatt, X-33 program manager for McDonnell Douglas. ``It's like being in the Indy 500 and you know you're going to win the race.''
That's what the others say, too.
The winner will receive about $900 million from NASA to develop an X-33 rocket and, in 1999, conduct a dozen or so unmanned, suborbital test flights up to Mach 15, or 15 times the speed of sound.
Then it will be up to the company and investors to determine whether it's economically feasible to proceed with a twice-as-large, operational RLV, or reusable launch vehicle. The companies estimate it will cost between $4 billion and $8 billion to develop and build an RLV system.
It's anyone's guess whether there will be enough investors and customers to make the enterprise pay off. The U.S. share of the world launch market has dwindled to 30 percent.
``There's a little, `Build it, they may come,' and `Build it, we hope they come,''' ``They're hoping it will create new markets as well as serve the existing market,'' said John Logsdon, director of the space policy institute at George Washington University.
NASA envisions itself as just one of many users of this next-generation reusable launch vehicle, intended to fly with or without crews and lift satellites or space station supplies. The future international space station would be a major destination once the RLV became operational about 2006 or 2007 and gradually began replacing the shuttle, said Gary Payton, director of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's RLV program.
The goal is to reduce the U.S. cost of launching a pound of payload into orbit from $10,000 to $1,000 or less. The RLV would be expected to fly 40 to 50 times a year and launch on demand, with just a few days' notice.
``The cost of getting into orbit is a terrible constraint on the total space program, government and commercial,'' Payton said. ``There's no reason to tolerate it any longer than we have to, especially with the budgets going down in the future.''
The X-33 contenders insist launch costs can be reduced and flights increased with better engines, lighter fuel tanks and improved thermal insulation, among other things.
McDonnell Douglas' experimental Clipper Graham rocket, smaller and less sophisticated than its proposed X-33, already has demonstrated fast turnarounds between flights. It flew on two consecutive days last month in New Mexico.
Compare that to the shuttle, which takes four months to turn around. NASA's four-shuttle fleet flies just seven or eight times a year, yet has an annual budget of $3 billion.
Both the X-33 and RLV would be single-stage vehicles with no throwaway parts, another money saver. Every time a shuttle soars, the external fuel tank is ditched. The two solid-fuel rocket boosters also are jettisoned during ascent but are recovered in the Atlantic Ocean and used again - after costly refurbishment.
``What we're doing different this time is, we're proving the technologies with dedicated flight test vehicles before we design the operational bird,'' Payton said. ``The shuttle didn't have that luxury.''
LENGTH: Medium: 82 linesby CNB