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Originally Posted by ShadoWarrior
Good grief no! The USAF only seems "more ordered" because as a non-civilian agency they are better at hiding their screw-ups. The USAF is much less efficient, hard as that may be to believe, than NASA at managing budgets. And it's been USAF involvement (meddling) with the shuttle program that has been a major contributor to the STS being the mess that it's been, right from the beginning.
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When I stated USAF control would lead to a more ordered civil space programe, I meant it would lead to less showmanship and less bureaucracy and more sense. Also the USAF is a bit more multi-dimensional than NASA in regard to not just having to focus on orbital and space related activities. Is there a comparable air force which does a better job than the USAF?
Quote:
Originally Posted by ShadoWarrior
The original NASA designs were much more practical and elegant, including SSTO. It was the USAF that forced NASA into so many spec changes that we ended up with the costly, klunky kluge that's been flying since '81.
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Which SSTO projects are you refering to?
The Rockwell X-30 was cancelled in 1993 because NASA couldn't design it to cary a crew and a small payload with the US DOD wanted, which I think was quite a reasonable request.
The Lockheed-Martin X-33 was cancelled in 2001 after a long series of technical difficulties and after NASA had invested $922 million and Lockheed Martin another $357 million, which in turn led to the cancellation of Venture Star, as X-33 was a subscale technological demonstrater for the Venture Star project.
Then there is Blackstar which nobody seems to know much about other than claiming it doesn't exist, and its not a NASA project.