ASPS - American suborbital passenger system 2005

With the evaporation of funding support for the National Aero Space Plane (NASP), realization of a single stage to orbit night system has been deferred. With the resource down sizing of the NASP management and technical team, development of the NASP concept appears to be delayed beyond the year 2030. To fill this gap for shorter flight times to remote destinations over 8,000 km, it is now proposed to convert the existing NASA shuttle to a passenger configuration and air launch horizontally from a Boeing 747 aircraft as the first stage carrier after climb to launch altitude. This US Shuttle concept may permit the transport of 100 passengers to destinations 10,000 km distant during a flight duration of 90 minutes, and during flight durations of about 120 minutes to any commercial destination on the planet Earth. This long distance system takes advantage of the existing shuttle and Boeing 747 airframe and propulsion technology, and can be implemented within the next decade.<>