Did the Delta Clipper fail for POLITICAL reasons only? (WAS: DC-X)
Marcus Lindroos INF
Henry Spencer (he...@zoo.toronto.edu) wrote:
: In article <34CE32...@compuserve.com>,
: The Commentator <71154...@compuserve.com> wrote:
: >But where are all the wonderful SSTO designes that were supposed to
: >spring up only a few moneths or years after DC-X? Answer: The problem
: >is not as simple or cheap as the SSTO advocates claimed.
:
: Hopes of SSTO follow-ons to DC-X died not because they wouldn't work, but
: because too many people didn't want SDIO to find out. Some didn't like
: SDIO, some didn't like the possibility that they might have to make a
: politically-charged decision about space-based defences (which could be
: postponed indefinitely if launches stayed expensive), some didn't like
: cheap access to space, some didn't like a program that might make existing
: launchers obsolete, and some just didn't like a launcher program that they
: didn't run, but they all agreed that SDIO shouldn't be doing SSTO. They
: won. But it was a political victory, not a technological one.
Well, Henry's claims (and Ed Wright might just as well have written the paragraph above)
are correct in the sense McDonnell-Douglas undoubtedly would have built a follow-on
to DC-X had the government agreed to pay for it. Exactly _what_ "plans" Gaubatz & co.
had for an SSTO follow-on keeps eluding me, though. Most of the articles I have
on the subject suggest they favored doing a full-scale SSTO prototype of the Delta
Clipper as a logical next step. (some posters in s.p.p. have mentioned a "DC-X2"
which would have expanded the flight envelope to supersonic speed, though)
This "DC-Y" would have cost an estimated $1.3 billion,
to be paid for by the government. This figure was later revised to $2 billion.
That's a lot of money for a vehicle that (DC-X nonwithstanding) appeared to be
rather risky to develop, with no compelling short-term need as far as military
post-Cold War uses are concerned.
---
Henry's comments imply (to me at least) that he believes The Establishment
felt threatened by the Delta Clipper, for a number of reasons, so the key folks
in the decision-making process joined forces and cancelled the effort. Well,
my impression is that there was considerable positive interest in the idea
as well. Boeing
(which had no significant interest in ELVs at the time) saw the X-33/SSTO as
a possible way of taking over the space transportation business, and the
initial idea was to treat it "exactly as if it were a commercial aviation
project" according to Boeing/McDAC statements at the time. So they were
clearly intrigued by the claimed potential. Overseas, both the Future
European Space Transportation Investigation Programme (FESTIP) and Russia's
ORYOL program investigated VTVL SSTOs based _directly_ on the Delta Clipper-1
as interesting candidates for a future European/Russian RLVs.
---
*None* of these three efforts have identified the concept as particularly promising,
upon closer inspection, however. I believe _this_ (rather than Henry's alleged
"conspiracy") explains why the idea died. Boeing quickly lost interest due to
problems with aerodynamic stability and crossrange which increased the weight,
complexity and cost of their X-33/SSTO. Their final "DC-3" SSTO proposal would
have been almost totally dependent on government funding as neither Boeing nor
McDAC had much faith in the concept's commercial potential. ORYOL also rejected
their "V7" Delta Clipper clone last year, and the FESTIP analyses uncovered
the same stability/maneuvrability problems which become obvious if you study
the evolution of the DC-X33 (=V-tail and a flat underside had to be introduced,
which in turn causes all sorts of weight & TPS problems, so you'll need to up-rate
the engines, increase the size or reduce margins).
---
I think the bottom line is that DC-X mostly was a shrewd marketing move, since
it got a lot of influential folks interested in SSTOs. McDAC undoubtedly
expected to receive a juicy contract worth a billion or two to do a DC-Y
type of vehicle -- but their early Delta Clipper-1 plans were notoriously
vague and poorly defined. And most of the optimism just does not hold water
upon closer inspection...
: --
: Being the last man on the Moon | Henry Spencer
: is a very dubious honor. -- Gene Cernan | he...@zoo.toronto.edu
--
MARCU$
---------------------------------------
Marcus Lindroos
Skyttegatan 20A
98137 Kiruna,Sweden
Email:mlin...@aton.abo.fi
Fax:358-15-616667
WWW:http://www.abo.fi/~mlindroo
--------------------------------------
--
MARCU$
---------------------------------------
Marcus Lindroos
Skyttegatan 20A
98137 Kiruna,Sweden
Email:mlin...@aton.abo.fi
Fax:358-15-616667
WWW:http://www.abo.fi/~mlindroo
--------------------------------------
--
MARCU$
---------------------------------------
Marcus Lindroos
Skyttegatan 20A
98137 Kiruna,Sweden
Email:mlin...@aton.abo.fi
Fax:358-15-616667
WWW:http://www.abo.fi/~mlindroo
--------------------------------------
Filip De Vos
Marcus Lindroos INF (mlin...@news.abo.fi) wrote:
: Well, Henry's claims (and Ed Wright might just as well have written the paragraph above)
: are correct in the sense McDonnell-Douglas undoubtedly would have built a follow-on
: to DC-X had the government agreed to pay for it. Exactly _what_ "plans" Gaubatz & co.
: had for an SSTO follow-on keeps eluding me, though. Most of the articles I have
I point to at least two (if memory is correct) stoppages in the
programme, due to funding hang-ups. Difficult to plan for the future of
SSTO when your little X-vehicle is sitting on gypsum because dollars for
engineers' wages, hydrogen, are held up in the bowels of the Pentagon.
: on the subject suggest they favored doing a full-scale SSTO prototype of the Delta
: Clipper as a logical next step. (some posters in s.p.p. have mentioned a "DC-X2"
: which would have expanded the flight envelope to supersonic speed, though)
: This "DC-Y" would have cost an estimated $1.3 billion,
: to be paid for by the government. This figure was later revised to $2 billion.
: That's a lot of money for a vehicle that (DC-X nonwithstanding) appeared to be
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Just to put the numbers in perspective, the low figure is about 4 to 5
Titan-launches worth, the higher one about four Shuttle launches-worth.
Not a bad price to pay to validate launch-on-demand, high-capacity
(meaning in the number of launches possible per year), surge capacity, or
even the cost per launch or per pound on orbit.
Of course, a whole bunch of bureaucracy may have to be altered to actually
make use of the dammned thing...
Coming back to price-tags, just how much do present day X-34, etc programs
cost?
: rather risky to develop, with no compelling short-term need as far as military
: post-Cold War uses are concerned.
: ---
[snip]
: ---
: *None* of these three efforts have identified the concept as particularly promising,
: upon closer inspection, however. I believe _this_ (rather than Henry's alleged
: "conspiracy") explains why the idea died. Boeing quickly lost interest due to
: problems with aerodynamic stability and crossrange which increased the weight,
Why this emphasis on crossrange? The solution to a lack of crossrange is
to stay in orbit until a better landing opportunity occurs.
Dunno about aerodynamic stability. Possible solution: active control, just
like any rocket on ascent.
: complexity and cost of their X-33/SSTO. Their final "DC-3" SSTO proposal would
: have been almost totally dependent on government funding as neither Boeing nor
: McDAC had much faith in the concept's commercial potential. ORYOL also rejected
: their "V7" Delta Clipper clone last year, and the FESTIP analyses uncovered
: the same stability/maneuvrability problems which become obvious if you study
: the evolution of the DC-X33 (=V-tail and a flat underside had to be introduced,
: which in turn causes all sorts of weight & TPS problems, so you'll need to up-rate
: the engines, increase the size or reduce margins).
: ---
: I think the bottom line is that DC-X mostly was a shrewd marketing move, since
: it got a lot of influential folks interested in SSTOs. McDAC undoubtedly
: expected to receive a juicy contract worth a billion or two to do a DC-Y
: type of vehicle -- but their early Delta Clipper-1 plans were notoriously
: vague and poorly defined. And most of the optimism just does not hold water
: upon closer inspection...
Which part of the optimism do you mean?
--
Filip De Vos FilipP...@rug.ac.be
There are plenty of ways to empty a solar system.
-- John S. Lewis --
Jacob McGuire
Excerpts from netnews.sci.space.policy: 31-Jan-98 Re: Did the Delta
Clipper f.. by Filip De V...@eduserv1.ru
>: to be paid for by the government. This figure was later revised to $2
>: billion. That's a lot of money for a vehicle that (DC-X nonwithstanding)
>: appeared
>
>Titan-launches worth, the higher one about four Shuttle launches-worth.
>Not a bad price to pay to validate launch-on-demand, high-capacity
>(meaning in the number of launches possible per year), surge capacity, or
>even the cost per launch or per pound on orbit.
>
>cost?
X-33 is about $1 billion for one vehicle and around ten flights.
X-34 is about $70 million for two vehicles and around fifty flights.
I'd personally have been more in favor of a DC-X2 (Mach 8) instead of
a DC-Y (Mach 25), both due to doubts about the likelyhood of
successfully building DC-Y, and on general principle that trying to take
huge steps in less frequently successful than taking many small steps.
--
Jake McGuire mcgu...@andrew.cmu.edu
Small towns in western Germany are usually about ten kilotons apart
MattWriter
I've heard that McD did approach Air Force Space Command with a proposal for a
DC-X2. Space Command was interested, but the requested funding was $126M, and
the Air Force flat-out didn't have it.
Matt Bille
(MattW...@AOL.com)
OPINIONS IN ALL POSTS ARE SOLELY THOSE OF THE AUTHOR
Samuel Coniglio
Marcus Lindroos INF wrote:
>
> Henry Spencer (he...@zoo.toronto.edu) wrote:
> : In article <34CE32...@compuserve.com>,
> : The Commentator <71154...@compuserve.com> wrote:
> : >But where are all the wonderful SSTO designes that were supposed to
> : >spring up only a few moneths or years after DC-X? Answer: The problem
> : >is not as simple or cheap as the SSTO advocates claimed.
> :
> : Hopes of SSTO follow-ons to DC-X died not because they wouldn't work, but
> : because too many people didn't want SDIO to find out. Some didn't like
> : SDIO, some didn't like the possibility that they might have to make a
> : politically-charged decision about space-based defences (which could be
> : postponed indefinitely if launches stayed expensive), some didn't like
> : cheap access to space, some didn't like a program that might make existing
> : launchers obsolete, and some just didn't like a launcher program that they
> : didn't run, but they all agreed that SDIO shouldn't be doing SSTO. They
> : won. But it was a political victory, not a technological one.
>
> are correct in the sense McDonnell-Douglas undoubtedly would have built a follow-on
> to DC-X had the government agreed to pay for it. Exactly _what_ "plans" Gaubatz & co.
> had for an SSTO follow-on keeps eluding me, though. Most of the articles I have
> Clipper as a logical next step. (some posters in s.p.p. have mentioned a "DC-X2"
> which would have expanded the flight envelope to supersonic speed, though)
> to be paid for by the government. This figure was later revised to $2 billion.
> rather risky to develop, with no compelling short-term need as far as military
> post-Cold War uses are concerned.
The reality of the DC-X saga comes down to funding, funding, funding.
The Space Access Society's and the Space Frontier Foundation's constant
barrage on Capital Hill kept the DC-X alive until the project could find
a new home. Henry Vanderbilt can give you all the gory details. Many
status-quo groups in Congress fought us tooth and nail for years.
The original plan (from the original MacDac proposal) was to use DC-X as
a test bed from 1991-1993 to prove the viability of an SSTO. If that
worked, then SDIO would fund the DC-Y to do sub-orbital and orbital
tests, and maybe even launch a few test payloads. The DC-1 was to be
the operational version of the DC-Y, with all the bugs out. The DC-Y was
to be operational by 1997. The original plan was written of course, in
late 1990. Two years later, SDIO became BDMO, and no longer had a
mandate for unusual projects such as DC-X and Clementine.
The DC-X2 was another name McDonnell Douglas gave to the DC-Y so that
Congress wouldn't be confused. Then SDIO called the DC-X2 the SX-2 just
to confuse everyone. It was hard to lobby for a program when they keep
changing the name of it. :-)
> ---
> Henry's comments imply (to me at least) that he believes The Establishment
> felt threatened by the Delta Clipper, for a number of reasons, so the key folks
> in the decision-making process joined forces and cancelled the effort. Well,
> my impression is that there was considerable positive interest in the idea
> as well. Boeing
> (which had no significant interest in ELVs at the time) saw the X-33/SSTO as
> a possible way of taking over the space transportation business, and the
> initial idea was to treat it "exactly as if it were a commercial aviation
> project" according to Boeing/McDAC statements at the time. So they were
> clearly intrigued by the claimed potential. Overseas, both the Future
Boeing thought it would be a good idea to team up with the most
experienced player to get a foot in the door.
> European Space Transportation Investigation Programme (FESTIP) and Russia's
> ORYOL program investigated VTVL SSTOs based _directly_ on the Delta Clipper-1
> as interesting candidates for a future European/Russian RLVs.
> ---
> *None* of these three efforts have identified the concept as particularly promising,
I am familiar with FESTIP, but not ORYOL. If there is a web site where
I can get more details, please send it to me.
> upon closer inspection, however. I believe _this_ (rather than Henry's alleged
> "conspiracy") explains why the idea died. Boeing quickly lost interest due to
> problems with aerodynamic stability and crossrange which increased the weight,
> complexity and cost of their X-33/SSTO. Their final "DC-3" SSTO proposal would
> have been almost totally dependent on government funding as neither Boeing nor
> McDAC had much faith in the concept's commercial potential. ORYOL also
MACDAC corporate had no interest in X-33, much less DC-X. It was simply
another government project to them. It did not give the company much
profit, unlike the C-17 cargo plane project, so it was of little
importance to corporate. You would not believe how hard it was to
convince even the MacDac managers at Kennedy (my former employers) to
take DC-X seriously.
> I think the bottom line is that DC-X mostly was a shrewd marketing move, since
> it got a lot of influential folks interested in SSTOs. McDAC undoubtedly
> expected to receive a juicy contract worth a billion or two to do a DC-Y
> type of vehicle -- but their early Delta Clipper-1 plans were notoriously
> vague and poorly defined. And most of the optimism just does not hold water
> upon closer inspection...
Nope. MacDac wouldn't know how to market itself out of a paper bag. It
couldn't deal with the post-cold war world. It could not and would not
deal with commercial business (they were losing market share with
commercial jets for years). A lot of my MacDac friends still working at
Kennedy said "Halleluiah" when Boeing bought McDonnell Douglas.
DC-X was a fluke. And a miracle. G. Harry Stine's book "Halfway to
Anywhere" gives a nice overview of the DC-X saga.
Sam Coniglio
--
______________________________________________________________________
S a m C o n i g l i o -- Technical Communicator & Jack of All
Trades
Home Email: sam...@magicnet.net -- Work Email: scon...@bellsouth.net
Home Page: http://www.magicnet.net/~sam123/index.html
Sam's Space Site: http://www.magicnet.net/~sam123/space.html
Space Future Home Page: http://www.spacefuture.com
______________________________________________________________________
PBlase
> Exactly _what_ "plans" Gaubatz & co. had for an SSTO follow-on keeps eluding
me, though. Most of the articles I have on the subject suggest they favored
doing a full-scale SSTO prototype of the Delta Clipper as a logical next step.
(some posters in s.p.p. have mentioned a "DC-X2" which would have expanded the
flight envelope to supersonic speed, though)
Yes, that was the logical next step. As was pointed out, the DC-X was never
designed to go anywhere near space or reentry speeds. I might point out that
the version that crashed was actually the DC-XA, which contained several
further refinements designed to test things like applications of advanced
composite materials.
>This "DC-Y" would have cost an estimated $1.3 billion,
to be paid for by the government. This figure was later revised to $2 billion.
That's a lot of money for a vehicle that (DC-X nonwithstanding) appeared to be
rather risky to develop, with no compelling short-term need as far as military
post-Cold War uses are concerned.
No, the DC-Y would have been the model after that. As pointed out previously, a
"Y" designation indicates a pre-production prototype. In this case, the DC-Y
would have been a full-up SSTO. And of course it's risky to develop, most new
aerospacecraft designs are! That's why the companies want the U.S. Gov to
assist with the process!
As for military post-Cold War uses, all I can say is that the Air Force and
SDIO appear to disagree with you. There was a rather interesting article in the
Wash Post today which discussed the new generation of recon satellites. Little
is of course known about them, but from what is known, they utilize stealth
technology, are much smaller than the current Keyhole satellites (which are the
size of the Hubble), and the government intends to build them for much less
than the Keyhole satellites and launch many more of them. Considering the new
concern with tactical ballistic missiles and bio-chem warfare, SDIO and the Air
Force have a considerable interestest in being able to launch small recon and
relay satellites quickly and inexpensively.
And of course the military implications are not the only reasons for which the
government would support such a project. There is also the obvious interest in
maintaining U.S. preemminence in the aerospace community. A very large chunk of
our foreign export earnings are through Boeing and other aircraft
manufacturers. Keeping control of the launch market seems a logical way to keep
this superiority going.
Jacob McGuire
Excerpts from netnews.sci.space.policy: 2-Feb-98 Re: Did the Delta
Clipper f.. by PBl...@aol.com
>SDIO appear to disagree with you. There was a rather interesting article in
>the Wash Post today which discussed the new generation of recon satellites.
>Little is of course known about them, but from what is known, they utilize
>stealth technology, are much smaller than the current Keyhole satellites
>(which are the size of the Hubble), and the government intends to build them
>for much less than the Keyhole satellites and launch many more of them.
>Considering the new concern with tactical ballistic missiles and bio-chem
>warfare, SDIO and the Air Force have a considerable interestest in being
>able to launch small recon and relay satellites quickly and inexpensively.
While this is a potential use for rapid-turnaround launch, it isn't on
the same scale as the SDI plans which prompted SDIO's interest in SSTO.
This type of requirement can be satisfied by Taurus-class LV's, for
instance (depending on the size of the satellites in question). In
fact, Taurus was designed to meet military rapid-response
requirements... launch from an unimproved concrete pad in 6 days or
something like that...