This column is late, and for that we apologize. One of the authors (Tim Kyger) ended up in the hospital the evening of 19 October, for what turned out to be a 9 day stay, and this has ended up causing a myriad of schedule problems.
Of course, the column this time _could_ be about the political tsunami that hit Washington with the Republican takeover of Congress. Alas, it is too soon to be able to determine what will happen. What _has_ happened is a revolution, pure and simple -- but it has only begun. Imagine it's 1789 and the Bastille has fallen. Would you be able to predict Napoleon?
Naturally, we _will_ report, soon, on any consequences to the pioneering of the space frontier that results from the election, as soon as it becomes obvious what those changes are.
Previous to the election, however, fundamental events occurred with respect to SSTO. First, the Clinton Administration Space Policy was finally issued (in August). It calls for NASA to conduct an "X-vehicle" test approach to demonstrating SSTO. Next, NASA has set up an "Office of Space Access and Technology " ("Code X"), headed by former Senate Armed Services Committee staffer Dr. Jack Mansfield. Dr. Mansfield is both technically and politically savvy, but more important, he (1) listens; (2) learns; and (3) _wants_ to do the right thing. He is convinced that NASA must do SSTO -- and that SSTO should best be first demonstrated _via_ an X-vehicle program. In fact, Dr. Mansfield is responsible for the NASA SSTO program actually having an X-vehicle designation -- X-33.
What the X-33 will look like, and what it will be capable of doing, are still to be defined in detail. This is deliberate. The X-33 will probably be a souped-up "SX-2" in parametric terms, but much is being left up to the contractors who are bidding to build the vehicle to define.
On October 19th, 1994, a conference was held by NASA at the Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, Alabama, to distribute _draft_ copies of the "Cooperative Agreement Notice" ("CAN" -- a TLA) for the X-33 program. Prospective bidders were in attendance, were briefed, and given an opportunity to ask questions of Dr. Mansfield and the NASA team at Marshall that will be involved in the conduct of the X-33 program. Tim Kyger was also in attendance, due to the good offices of the National Space Society (Tim was to give a talk to the local NSS Chapter that afternoon, and NSS graciously paid his way to and from Huntsville. Thanks, Lori and David!). Unfortunately, this was also when and where Tim started to have his attack of acute pancreatitis...
The CAN was issued as a draft document, and comments welcomed and encouraged. The comment period is now over, but most of the comments received have been integrated into the CAN. Think about this for a second --- when was the last time NASA welcomed comment about how a program or an RFP for a program (which the CAN is, in effect) should be structured? This is _not_ business as usual. Dr. Mansfield is committed to trying to change the way that NASA does business, as are the X-33 folks at Marshall.
The X-33 plan is this (subject to change, remember): Very soon (we don't have an exact date; it will be only a few weeks) the final version of the X-33 CAN will be issued, calling for bids from contractors. Sometime in January or February (again, exact date is unknown at this moment) several contractors will be selected to conduct a detailed design activity leading to a downselect near the end of 1995 (and perhaps a bit sooner). At the time of the downselect a single contractor will probably be chosen, and that contractor will then go on to build the X-33 vehicles (probably two -- one to fly and crash, and one to fly and then put in the Smithsonian (-: ). Depending upon funds, there is a possibility that _two_ contractors might be chosen; one to build the X-33 and then one to build a competing concept (perhaps) -- which would have to then be designated "X-35."
There _is_ an X-32, incidentally; but we're not sure what it is (the number was reserved, but no one is saying for what). Ditto X-34 --- and we'll talk about the X-34 in a future column.
While this is going on, NASA will be working on the DC-XA vehicle (the DC-X1 modified by NASA), and near the end of 1996, DC-XA will take to the sky, helping to give NASA some VTVL and SSTO program experience. Before this happens, however, we still hope to see the remainder of the DC-X1 flight test program flown, and we hope to have hard news on this point next time around.
In other words, we think that it can now be safely said that during this decade -- probably during calendar year 1998 -- that an honest-to-God SSTO X-vehicle demonstrator should be flying. And we think it can now be safely said that by the end of this decade that SSTO will have been demonstrated.
And _that_, surely, will prove to be as big a tsunami as this month's election.
Not much to say yet since things are still up in the air. Besides, Congress isn't in session anyway.
However, the new Congress will be putting space advocates in higher levels of the Congress. Newt Gingrich, for example, is a big space supporter and has even attended an International Space Development Conference.