I can understand Lock-Mart not continuing with X-33, as it is a test craft and not a commercial product - the goal was (is) to gain knowledge of large hypersonic craft and aerospike engines -
not produce a viable commercial launcher -

As it currently sits with the com-sat market, price margins are not going to allow new launcher development costs to be written off -

The EELVs are coming online, but that still leaves the next generation open. Neither DC-X nor RLV offer better abort modes for manned flight than would a mini-shuttle on top of an EELV, PROVIDED the EELVs don't have a high failure rate. (RLV offers more abort modes for commercial payloads than a DC-X architecture.) I don't know where the manned spaceplane is at, or if solutions were found to the earlier problems they hit -

The House space committee bucked the President on the NASA budget, but
the "surplus" is shrinking, and there's weakness in international markets, to say the least. The mid-east is heating up, and whether this will impact US oil prices is unclear -

Personally, when I think about sorting out the confusion in the analysis of launch markets caused by Tumlinson and his supporters...

EP