NASA and the Air Force Research Lab are working together to develop a technology roadmap for the commercial reusable launch vehicle industry, NASA announced last week. The effort is to officially kick off next week in Dayton, Ohio, home to AFRL, during the Commercial and Government Responsive Access to Space Technology Exchange 2009. NASA and AFRL officials expect to meet with industry representatives to discuss industry’s long-range RLV plans. Lori Garver, deputy administrator at NASA headquarters, said, “There is a natural evolutionary path from today’s emerging commercial suborbital RLV industry to growing and developing the capability to provide low-cost, frequent, and reliable access to low Earth orbit.”
No matter what happens with the Nunn-McCurdy review of the Sentinel ICBM program, the nation must have a land-based element of its nuclear triad, Pentagon acquisition and sustainment chief William LaPlante told the Senate Appropriations defense subcommittee.