VentureStar
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VentureStar was Lockheed-Martin's proposed design for a SSTO RLV. The program's primary goal was to develop a reusable unmanned space plane for launching satellites into orbit at about 1/10 the cost of other systems that would completely replace the space shuttle. While the requirement was for an unmanned launcher, it was expected to optionally carry passengers as cargo. The Venture Star was hoped to provide rapid turn-around and low cost launches with a modular system. It would have also used a new metallic thermal protection system that would be safer and cheaper to maintain than the ceramic one on the Space Shuttle. It was to be a single stage to orbit vehicle that would take off vertically and land like an airplane. The design specifications also called for it to use Linear aerospike engines, which can provide high efficiency thrust at all altitudes. VentureStar was to be a commercial endeavor and flights would have been leased to NASA as needed.
A small-scale prototype of VentureStar, co-funded by NASA and called the X-33 was underway 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. Additionally, some of the new technologies required (such as composite fuel tanks and metallic heat shields) had failed to develop as needed. The composite fuel tank suffered a blowout during a pressure test, and delays in the aerospike development led NASA and Lockheed to switch over to aluminum tanks and conventional rocket engines before it was cancelled. Over US$1 billion was spent before the program was stopped. After the cancellation, engineers were able to make a working Oxygen tank out of Carbon Fiber Composite.
With the demise of the X-33 test program, plans to build the full size VentureStar follow-on were scrapped.
In John Varley's science fiction novel, Red Thunder the Venture Star is featured as the main spacecraft in use by a United States of America set in the near future and was making daily flights into orbit from Cape Canaveral.
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