Possible US counter?
Air Force to Launch Robotic Winged Space Plane
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100403/ap_on_sc/us_mystery_spacecraft
Perhaps NASA was farsighted enough to see that someone like Obama would come into power and gave its R and D division to the Air Force. When the time comes (2013), NASA will have a ready made spacecraft ready to go back into space.