October 1, 1997
Venture Star -- Launch Vehicle for the 21st Century
Image Credit: NASA/Marshall Space Flight Center.
The vehicles shown in this image are the X-33, Venture Star, and NASA's space shuttle. All three are designed to be launched into Earth orbit vertically, like a rocket, and to return to Earth horizontally, like an aircraft.
But there the similarities end. The X-33 is a half-scale test vehicle of Venture Star, designed to demonstrate a whole new approach to getting people and payloads into Earth orbit -- and doing it ten times cheaper, and with less risk, than the space shuttle. Operations should then become routine, the way airlines operate their planes.
Venture star is the full-scale, real thing, to be developed and go into service early in the next century.
For more information on the X-33 and Venture Star, click on the following: