Why isn industry building the Delta Clipper?
McDonnell Douglas and its teammates have already made a significant investment in the basic technologies and the skills and facilities necessary to develop a SSTO. The government needs to take the next step of funding an experimental prototype vehicle to prove the Delta Clipper’s basic concepts and technologies. Once demonstrated, the commercial sector may be interested in investing in an operational system. Such a system could have an enormous impact on the development of space as an commercial market as well as the future of the US space program.
