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The Rockwell X-30 was an advanced technology demonstrator project for the National Aero-Space Plane (NASP), part of a United States project to create a single-stage-to-orbit (SSTO) spacecraft and passenger spaceliner. It was cancelled in the early 1990s, before a prototype was completed, although much development work in advanced materials and aerospace design was completed. While a goal of a future NASP was a passenger liner capable of two hour flights from Washington to Tokyo, the X-30 was planned for a crew of two and oriented towards testing. ==Development== The NASP concept is thought to have been derived from the "Copper Canyon" project of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), from 1982 to 1985. In his 1986 State of the Union address, President Ronald Reagan called for "a new Orient Express that could, by the end of the next decade, take off from Dulles Airport, accelerate up to 25 times the speed of sound, attaining low earth orbit or flying to Tokyo within two hours." Research suggested a maximum speed of Mach 8 for scramjet based aircraft, as the vehicle would generate heat due to atmospheric friction, which would expend considerable energy. The project showed that much of this energy could be recovered by passing hydrogen over the skin and carrying the heat into the combustion chamber: Mach 20 then seemed possible. The result was a program funded by NASA, and the United States Department of Defense (funding was approximately equally divided among NASA, DARPA, the US Air Force, the Strategic Defense Initiative Office (SDIO) and the US Navy).〔(National Aero-space Plane Program Fact Sheet )〕 McDonnell Douglas, Rockwell International, and General Dynamics competed to develop technology for a hypersonic air-breathing SSTO vehicle. Rocketdyne and Pratt & Whitney competed to develop engines. In 1990, the companies joined under the direction of Rockwell International to develop the craft to deal with the technical and budgetary obstacles. Development on the X-30, as it was then designated. Despite progress in developing the necessary structural and propulsion technology, NASA still had substantial problems to solve. The Department of Defense wanted it to carry a crew of two and even a small payload. The demands of being a human-rated vehicle, with the instrumentation, environmental control system, and safety equipment, made X-30 larger, heavier, and more expensive than required for a technology demonstrator. The X-30 program was terminated amid budget cuts and technical concerns in 1993. A more modest hypersonic program culminated in the unmanned X-43 "Hyper-X". A detailed 1/3rd scale (50 foot long) mock-up of the X-30 was built by engineering students at Mississippi State University's Raspet Flight Research Lab in Starkville, Mississippi.〔(Mississippi State Wins Aero-Space Plane Mockup Competition )〕〔(NASP X-30 )〕〔(X-30 National Aero-Space Plane Mockup Rolls Out )〕 The mock-up is on display at the Aviation Challenge campus of the U.S. Space Camp facility in Huntsville, Alabama. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Rockwell X-30」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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