The National Aero-Space Plane

This article, which appeared in the GAO Journal, No. 4, Winter 1988, discusses the National Aerospace Plane Program that the Department of Defense and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration are jointly conducting to build and test the X-30 experimental flight vehicle. The program could result in a decision to develop future hypersonic cruise airplanes and single-stage-to-orbit space launch vehicles. Although the program may cost more than $3.3 billion by 1994, foreign competition and the military and commercial payoffs are too great for the United States to relinquish its traditional technological and aeronautical leadership.