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From: fcrary@lightning.Berkeley.EDU (Frank Crary)
Newsgroups: sci.space.shuttle
Subject: Re: After Endeavour, what then?
Message-ID: <1991May5.082711.25435@agate.berkeley.edu>
Date: 5 May 91 08:27:11 GMT
References: <346.281f448d@mwk.uucp> <1991May4.081930.14921@agate.berkeley.edu> <1991May4.213944.7721@zoo.toronto.edu>
Sender: root@agate.berkeley.edu (Charlie Root)
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In article <1991May4.213944.7721@zoo.toronto.edu> henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer) writes:
>The operative word, of course, is "may".  I give the X-30 itself only a 50%
>chance of flying by then, although the recent revival of military interest
>in it may help.

If I remember the timetables correctly, the X-30 is supposed to make its first
flight in 1996, with its first orbital flight in 1997. (Assuming, of course
Congress funds it.) If the program was to run 13 full years late, it would
still fly by 2010.
The credibility of the X-30 timetables is now (as of January) much better.
Instead of assuming the availability of materials and technology that have
not yet been developed, they have frozen the X-30's technology at the 1990
level. As a result, all the things they are assuming for a 1 first flight
are known to be there.          

				       Frank Crary
				       UC Berkeley