In article ,
Chad Irby writes:
In article .net,
"Steven P. McNicoll" wrote:

"Chad Irby" wrote in message
om...

...for a tiny fraction of the cost, and having the ability to
repeat the feat in less than two weeks (which the government
program didn't manage).

So what's significant about it?

If I have to explain to you the significance of the tech behind a
reusable spaceplane, then why have you even bothered posting to this
thread to begin with?

There ain't a whole lot of tech, there, Chad - Burt's taking a very
low-speed approach, (Rather Grand Fenwickian, in fact) with a low
thrust, long burning rocket motor, and a fairly lightweight, high drag
reentry vehicle. Peak speeds are around Mach 2 on ascent, and
somewhere around Mach 1.9 on the re-entry. There's nothing
particularly exotic about those speeds. Heating is low - around 100
Deg C, and an Aluminum or Composite airframe can deal with those
temperatures and dynamic pressures without a whole lot of trickery.

He's also designed a self-stabilizing shape, (In some ways not too
different from the behavior of a badminton birdie) that doesn't need
sophisticated systems, such as adaptive flight control systems or
reaction controls, to set and hold its attitude. While it's a good
design, it's not significant in advancing technology. It also can't
be expanded much beyond the X-Prize requirements. You aren't going to
see an orbital Spaceship !, or a Semi-Ballistic Spaceship 1 Hypersonic
Transport.

It's a very clever design very highly optimized to do only one thing -
meet teh X-Prize requirements.

--
Pete Stickney
A strong conviction that something must be done is the parent of many
bad measures. -- Daniel Webster