Science Fair Project Encyclopedia
VentureStar
VentureStar was Lockheed-Martin's proposed design for the Orbital Space Plane (OSP) program. The program's primary goal was to develop a reusable space plane for shuttling astronauts to and from the ISS. VentureStar was to be a commerial endeavor and flights would have been leased by Lockheed-Martin, for example, to NASA.
A small-scale prototype of VentureStar, co-funded by NASA and called the X-33 was near completion when the program was cancelled on March 1, 2001. The X-33 was plagued by test failures, schedule setbacks, and cost-overruns, which contributed to its cancellation. Over US$1 billion had been spent between NASA and Lockheed-Martin.
The VentureStar was to be a single stage to orbit vehicle. It would take off vertically and land like an airplane and was to use aerospike engines.
The contents of this article is licensed from www.wikipedia.org under the GNU Free Documentation License. Click here to see the transparent copy and copyright details