Before I stopped paying attention, the X-33's top Mach number was around six. I remember people moaning that X-33 was so slow that the thermal protection system would never heat up enough to provide valid engineering data (X-33 was an engineering demonstrator for Venture Star). X-33 was totally incapable of functioning as an atmospheric skipper like Saenger's WW-II design. My interpretation for this media spin of X-33 as a bomber is it's one last attempt by Lock-Mart to suck more money out of the government tit before tossing the whole works into the trash dumpster.

Gary