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The Path to Greatness

By SpaceRef Editor
March 7, 2001
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Robert Heinlein, the late, great science fiction writer, once wrote:
“Reach low orbit and you’re halfway to anywhere in the solar system.” In other
words, once you get out of the gravity well of our planet, most of the difficult lifting work has been done. Last week, NASA again realized just how difficult a proposition that actually is. After spending nearly a billion dollars on the X-33, the testbed for the next generation of heavy-lift orbiting spacecraft, the
space agency announced the cancellation of the program. The X-33 was years
behind schedule and its primary technology-single-stage-to-orbit (SSTO)-was
starting to look unattainable.


  • The full story is online at the Wall Street Journal (no subscription required)

  • SpaceRef staff editor.