THE BIRTH OF THE DCX
| HOME | This is an historic picture: the birth of DC/X. This is the
West Wing of the White House, with Vice President Dan Quayle, then
Chairman of the National Space Council; Lt. Gen. Daniel O. Graham; rocket
scientist Max Hunter; and me, presenting Quayle with the arguments for an
experimental rocket.
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| After considerable skepticism generated by NASA officials
who assured him that Single Stage to Orbit rockets could not work, and in
any event it would be impossible to control the DC/X at low speeds, the
ship was built and flown. Quayle extracted the money from the Strategic
Defense Initiative Office budget, so none of it came out of NASA.
DC/X had several historic flights at White Sands Proving Grounds under USAF sponsorship. It was "piloted" by Pete Conrad (who stayed on the ground and controlled the ship through a Macintosh computer interfaced to the main system controls.) It had a number of successful flights under Air Force control, and demonstrated that it was capable of fully controlled flight at low speeds. NASA eventually took over the ship. On the first NASA controlled flight a NASA technician failed to connect the hydraulic lines to the landing gear, and after a successful flight the ship did a "wheels up" landing, fell over on its side, and burned. It was never replaced. NASA has always seen Single Stage to Orbit craft as a threat to Shuttle, the enormous Shuttle budget, and NASA control over manned space. |
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