[edwin hubble]

"Great. Some private guys just made it to space in a hang glider and NASA wants to demonstrate their competence by shooting missiles into the ocean. Send them another $100 billion!"


In the development of this scramjet engine the US is way out in front on an otherwise unknown technology.

It will lead to fractional orbit craft and finally runway-to-orbit spacecraft.

The private sub-orbital craft are great, but they have only a third of the speed of the NASA scramjet, and about seventh of the speed needed for orbit.

[Jaysun]

The private sub-orbital craft are great, but they have only a third of the speed of the NASA scramjet, and about seventh of the speed needed for orbit.

It's true that the NASA scramjet is superior in some ways to the private suborbital craft, but I would point out that their objectives were very different. My only gripe is that NASA is an absurdly inefficient and cumbersome organization.

Wouldn't the people at NASA be capable of doing the same things if they worked somewhere else? It isn't as if having NASA printed on your pay stub magically endows you with knowledge that you wouldn't otherwise have.