Posted on 05/01/2006 5:34:00 PM PDT by KevinDavis
The long-expected announcement on April 21 that retired Air Force Brigadier General Simon “Pete” Worden would be replacing the popular and respected Scott Hubbard as director of NASA’s Ames Research Center in San Jose, California, in the heart of Silicon Valley, is good news for the space agency and for its exploration initiative. Worden is an innovator and a risk-taker whose record shows that he can accomplish difficult goals without depending on massive funding.
In 1991, when the Strategic Defense Initiative Organization (SDIO) decided to go ahead with developing a flight demonstration vehicle for a single stage to orbit (SSTO) system, then-Lieutenant Colonel Pete Worden supervised the efforts of Jess Sponable, Bill Gaubatz, and others, which ended up creating the revolutionary DC-X. This program proved, among other things, that one does not need hundreds of millions or billions of dollars to valuable rocket science. The whole program ended up costs around $80 million. It showed that a reusable rocket with vertical takeoff and landing capability can be developed, and that smart use of existing technology can keep development costs to a minimum.
(Excerpt) Read more at thespacereview.com ...
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