[X] My Assistant

[Guest_AlexBlackwell_*]

Excerpt from the Editorial in the January 16, 2006, issue of Aviation Week & Space Technology:

Editorial

The New Pasadena?
Aviation Week & Space Technology
01/16/2006, page 448

Competition is good, one of many reasons to laud the Johns Hopkins University's Applied Physics Laboratory for its development of the New Horizons spacecraft that is set to rocket toward Pluto this week (AW&ST Jan. 9, p. 46).

With the New Horizons mission, APL--in this case ably assisted by the Southwest Research Institute--is more solidly positioned as a strong competitor to NASA's storied Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., for robotic exploration of the Moon and planets.

That face-off has been building for several years. It can only serve to sharpen the management and technical competence of both APL and JPL, as each, propelled by rich histories, fights for new flights to barnstorm the Solar System.

Both labs will continue to be key technology and exploration centers. But what the emergence of APL as a major planetary player brings is a different, leaner culture. That atmosphere is not necessarily any better than JPL's, but presents a different approach toward viewing how to tackle the most difficult of space challenges.

[dvandorn]

Hmmm... Dyna-Soar and CRV never flew. Metal was never even bent on flight vehicles.

As for the much-vaunted SpaceShip One, and the X-15 for that matter, those are *aircraft* with the capability of popping up into the extreme upper atmosphere. For five minutes. Or so. Not, IMHO, spacecraft. To me, a spacecraft must be able to handle the atmospheric heating from deceleration from orbital velocities. Or, it must be designed not to ever operate in an atmosphere at all.

-the other Doug