let me get this straight, a 5minute up and down ride isn’t a ticket to no place, but an orbit trip to a bigelow station is a ticket to no place?

Who said anything about Branson HSF commerical as ‘orbital?’– only you. You don’t read very well as the comment says: ‘The next logical phase for ‘commercial HSF’ is Branson’s effort.’ Suborbital commerical pops w/paying passengers for the thrill and view is a sound, logical step. SpaceX is a ticket to no place in HSF. But then, we’re all awaiting Australia’s first manned space mission, too,- orbital or sub-orbital, aren’t we.

Soon to join the ranks of AlmightHotAir. Branson as the logical step to orbital – next stupid idea please! No basis in fact (SS3 not happening for orbital) otherwise point to it and, CCDev Rd2 isn’t it.
SpaceX has a business already for LEO. No need for NASA or DoD. But those are markets and SpaceX believes they are worth pursuing.
BTW Musk is on record for wanting a mission to Mars. He’s perhaps doing more than anyone to promote this by moving forward on FH on his own dime. No other company private or public has done that.

I was only asking. Any reference to your assertion between DoD and F9H? Note that responsive or quick is a relative notion, should I say “more responsive” or “quicker”?

I don’t know enough about X-37 though. But it’d be nice you give us more than a few words…

No relationship between DOD and F9H.

Yeah some people seem to have a terrible time coming out to 2011. 1956 is relevant to the current geopolitical, and space policy situation. For sure. Now let’s check the successor to X-15 so to speak is what? X-51 maybe http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_X-51

Any difference you think between X-15 and X-51, I mean technical difference you can see?

Oh well…

I thought I would pass but I just can’t help.

“there isn’t a military pilot/aviator alive who’d pass up taking a crack at the controls of a manned spacecraft if the opportunity presented itself.”

See this to those who know at least a little ought to say how little you actually know about the subject. The next generation of spacecraft will be crewed, not manned, and will be fully automated. No controls my friend. No joystick. The last one was Shuttle and might have been in part Orion. Shuttle is gone and Orion too. No controls. No fighter pilot with a white scarf rolling the victory roll. And of course I am talking orbital vehicles. The only remaining place for the pilots and not for that long is the suborbital hop business. And not all teh suborbital hops will require a pilot.

F’oget’about’it.

@ Vladislaw wrote @ April 9th, 2011 at 12:20 pm

Just want to make sure I made myself clear:

1. NASA will not go under DoD. Period. I’ll pass our friend DCSCA usual tirade.

2. SpaceX is/was partially funded by DARPA/USAF hence DoD. DoD therefore sees SpaceX somehow as part of our national security: Quick, affordable access to space. However, not for humans but rather for satellites and the likes. No Space Marines for a while to come sorry.

3. It’s not whether DoD minds F9H, it rather is that F9H is coming out of a program, again, funded by DoD. What the relationship between SpaceX and DoD might be remains to be seen and is yet another story.

4. Weapons in space is not about the US public, it is about international treaties: Never going to happen, not openly anyway. Therefore if it were to happen it already did. The DoD needs neither NASA nor SpaceX to do that.

Now for the sake of argument: X-37 flies on F9H, what does that mean? Ever thought about that: Responsive, quick, military space vector.

No truth? Hmmm. Circa 1956: “General Thomas S. Power, [USAF] Commander of ARDC, expressed-impatience with the failure of his “idea men” to propose any advanced flight systems that could be undertaken after the X-15. Work should begin now, he declared, on two or three separate approaches beyond the X-15, including a vehicle that would operate outside the atmosphere without wings. He suggested that a manned ballistic rocket might be “eventually capable of useful intercontinental military and commercial transport and cargo operation.” But the main benefit of having an advanced research project underway, Power pointed out, was that the Air Force could more easily acquire funds for the “general technical work needed.”

“Thus prodded into action, Power’s staff quickly proposed two separate research projects. [The second,] termed “Manned Ballistic Rocket Research System,” would be a separable manned nose cone, or capsule, the final stage of an ICBM. Such a vehicle could lead to the “quick reaction delivery of high priority logistics to any place on Earth,” as suggested by Power, or to a manned satellite. Power’s staff argued that the manned ballistic concept offered the greater promise, because the solution to the outstanding technical problems, the most critical of which was aerodynamic heating, would result from current ICBM research and development; because existing ICBMs would furnish the booster system, so that efforts could be concentrated on the capsule; and because the ballistic vehicle possibly could be developed by 1960. Either program, however, should be pushed rapidly so that the Air Force could protect its own interests in the field of space flight.

In March 1956, ARDC established two research projects, one for [a] glide rocket system, the other, known as Task 27544, for the manned ballistic capsule.” – source, NASA. Task 27544 evolved into Project Mercury. Bye-bye, Byeman.