While the X-37, a product of Boeing's "Phantom Works" at Lambert Field, in St Louis, does not carry people, it is a reusable space vehicle, which should cut down on costs. Also, not being man rated it should be even cheaper.
Here is an item on an early drop test from the (Scaled Composites of Mojave, California) White Knight. The actual launch into space will be via an Atlas:
Tucked inside the shroud of an Atlas V Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle (EELV), the winged craft will be boosted out of Cape Canaveral, Florida, orbit the Earth and then make an auto-pilot landing in California.We land UAVs every day in a remote fashion and the Soviet Union landed a Space Shuttle size vehicle on auto-pilot after boosting it into space. This should work out fine.
Regards — Cliff
I received a phone call from one of my Brothers, the other one being in Hawaii this week. He called to say that (1) the Gov't doesn't allow him to post comments from work, (2) it is too hard over his Crackberry and (3) I should have mentioned that we could have done this closed to 50 years ago if we hadn't cancelled the X-20. And he is correct.
ReplyDeleteThe Air Force WS 464L project, known as Dyna-Soar (Dynamic Soaring) would have given us this capability a long time ago.
I made an error in the original post. While the Boeing "Phantom Works" is out of St Louis, the work on the X-37 was out of the California branch of the "Phantom Works."
Maybe over the weekend this Brother will post what he knows about this whole lashup.
Regards — Cliff