[narby]

I think I'm on record around here saying that if I were going to build a crew transport orbiter, this is how I would do it. A two stage vehicle with XB-70 first stage.

Looks like it's been done. Now the question is why did they shut it down?

[narby]

You've got to see this.

[orionblamblam]

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1590674/posts


Yay! I get to be the net-Nazi!

[Spruce]

Now the question is why did they shut it down?

Perhaps they didn't?

[Robe]

Posted here...
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1590823/posts

[SteveMcKing]

I see no advantage in having a crew.

There is nothing they can do that couldn't be done remotely, and the environmental/life-support systems would only add weight and take up valuable space.

[airborne]

THE SPACEPLANE'S SMALL CARGO or "Q-bay" also could be configured to deliver specialized microsatellites to low Earth orbit or, perhaps, be fitted with no-warhead hypervelocity weapons--what military visionaries have called "rods from god." Launched from the fringes of space, these high-Mach weapons could destroy deeply buried bunkers and weapons facilities

Something we could use on Iran, maybe?

[Echo Talon]

White Knight in ascent with SpaceShipOne

[Yo-Yo]

Aerospace ping

[dljordan]

"Now the question is why did they shut it down?"

Because they've got something better. Either that or it's dis-info to make people THINK they're not using it anymore.

[LS]

"Two people could pick them up; they were very light"

I'll vouch for this: when I worked on the X-30 National Aerospace Plane from 1988-1996, I went to General Dynamics and was given a 6-inch section of the Shuttle leading edge of the wing. It was so heavy, I could barely hold it with one hand. Then the manager there gave me a section, same size, of the new carbon-carbon composites, and it was light as a feather.

[PAR35]

Now the question is why did they shut it down?

Because it uses 20 to 40 year old technology. They likely have something better now that will appear in the press in another 20 years.

[narby]

The image here is labeled XB-70 and X-15, but I think that it is rather the DynaSoar launching from underneath the XB-70. It must have been an old concept image from before this thing went black.

Note the scramjet looking ramp on the bottom. That's not the X-15. Vertical tail is wrong too.

Remember that one of the last X-15 flights was a test of a scramjet engine, so this stuff has been under development for a long time.

With 20/20 hindsight, was the XB-70 ever supposed to be a "bomber" at all, but instead a first stage of an orbital system.

[Robert A Cook PE]

Why did they stop?

May not have worked as well as as they wanted.

[hattend]

Bttt