00:00In the 1980s the government under Ronald Reagan announced the National Aerospace Plane Program
00:06with its planned X-30 aircraft, a scramjet-powered Orient Express, which was supposed to fly into
00:12orbit in a single stage. In 1993 it was cancelled, without ever having flown. In the 1990s the X-33
00:23by Lockheed Martin followed, a technology demonstrator for the large Venture Star space
00:29plane with an exotic aerospike engine and carbon fiber tanks. After about $1.3 billion had been
00:36spent, that was also cancelled in 2001 after the new hydrogen tank failed during a test.
00:43But there were also bright spots, like the DC-X Delta Clipper by McDonnell Douglas, a small rocket
00:49that launched vertically and landed vertically again and thus showed years before SpaceX that it was
00:55possible. But the pattern remained, every single major national SSTO program was cancelled before it reached
01:04orbit.
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