Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!att!pacbell.com!ames!skipper!shafer From: shafer@skipper.dfrf.nasa.gov (Mary Shafer) Newsgroups: sci.space.shuttle Subject: Re: HL-20 / New Mini-Shuttle Message-ID: Date: 16 Dec 90 16:57:14 GMT References: <1990Dec14.165736.11166@cunixf.cc.columbia.edu> <1990Dec15.234854.9619@zoo.toronto.edu> Sender: shafer@skipper.dfrf.nasa.gov Organization: NASA Dryden, Edwards, Cal. Lines: 35 In-reply-to: henry@zoo.toronto.edu's message of 15 Dec 90 23:48:54 GMT In article <1990Dec15.234854.9619@zoo.toronto.edu> henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer) writes: >In article <1990Dec14.165736.11166@cunixf.cc.columbia.edu> apa1@cunixf.cc.columbia.edu (Andrew Peter Anselmo) writes: >>Anybody have info on the HL-20; the mini-shuttle for Freedom? >>I saw an article in Aerospace America, and wonder what it's status is i.e >>mockup/wish hardware or what? ... Well, there's at least a manned simulation for landing. When I was at Langley Research Center earlier this year with Bill Dana, we spent a lot of time in it. Bill is the last NASA lifting body pilot still flying (also the last X-15 pilot still flying) and the Langley researchers wanted his inputs on landing it. I've heard (not from the researchers at Langley) that Adm. Truly is very interested in it. He was scheduled to fly the sim about a month after we were there. >The crucial number to look for is how much money has been spent on it. In >the case of the HL-20, it's a few million dollars. That makes it a small >design study only. NASA funds such things constantly, and very few of them >ever turn into real projects. This is quite true. NASA projects, like everyone else's, are very numerous in the proposal stage. Fewer are funded for follow-up studies and even fewer ever get to the stage that the HL-20 is at. And the number of "real" projects is even smaller. So far, I'd say the HL-20's prospects are very good. Not a certainty though. -- Mary Shafer shafer@skipper.dfrf.nasa.gov ames!skipper.dfrf.nasa.gov!shafer NASA Ames Dryden Flight Research Facility, Edwards, CA Of course I don't speak for NASA "A MiG at your six is better than no MiG at all"--Unknown US fighter pilot