NASA Eyes Spaceplanes For Crew Transport

By Graham Warwick
Washington

Private industry could be prepared to go where NASA fears to tread and develop a spaceplane to replace the space shuttle and ferry crews to and from the International Space Station. But if industry succeeds, it will be thanks to decades of work by the space agency on lifting-body reentry vehicles.

While its plans for replacing the shuttle are in flux, NASA has a small program underway intended to stimulate ...

---