Why hasn’t the project been completed?

      An important question to ask is that of why the DC-X project wasn’t taken beyond the technology validation demonstrator that it was. There are a couple of answers to this question.

      Support, in the form of funding, from Congress is a large part of the reason we don’t see an operational Delta Clipper now. Initially there were many opponents to the idea of a single stage rocket. These people believed that the concept was fundamentally flawed and impossible to build. The opposition went so far as to distribute a pamphlet full of erroneous information in an attempt to kill the funding for the DC-X [3]. The success of the DC-X was enough to change the views at NASA and obtain funding for the DC-XA follow-on project, but not enough to take the project beyond that.

      NASA is also limited by its’ budget. With the Space Shuttle, International Space Station, and all the explorative missions being performed the agency has little left to entertain more than one new shuttle replacement concept at a time. Sadly, due to many factors, not all of which are known to the authors, NASA has over the years overlooked the DC-X project as a possible new launch platform. Instead it has concentrated on the now cancelled X-33 project and the new Space Launch Initiative (SLI). It should be noted that the SLI consists mostly of technology studies designed to produce new technologies believed to be crucial to a replacement for the aging Shuttle fleet. A full-scale DC-X would require little new technology to be developed.

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