/sci/ - Science & Math

>>12186562
I would be more happy to see X-33/Venture Star reborn as an USSF vehicle or something like the Air Force has the X-37B and they won't give that to the Space Force despite their requests so...

>Each time the Air Force made requests to take the X-33 project as their own, they found the opportunity denied at the highest level of US government.

>Even when armed with Lacefield’s final comments on the X-33, comments which gave full support to the Al-Li, added to by support from NASA Stennis on the engines, the Air Force – now trying to have their own VentureStar flying by 2012 – found the door of the White House firmly closed shut on any possibility of resurrecting the project.

>Rumors of a final attempt by the Air Force came just last year, only to for them to hear the same answer, likely ending their interest in the vehicle and also the last remaining monument to the X-33 – the state-of-the-art launch facility at the Phillips Test Range, Edwards Air Force Base. Again, it was the White House that vetoed any new evaluations of the X-33.

Imagine if Bekey hadn't been so short-sighted, we would have had the perfect Space Shuttle replacement (Venture Star) halfway completed by the time Columbia happened and sealed the fate of the Shuttle. There would have been no 9 year spaceflight gap.