Re: I was sorry to see the X-38/CRV cancelled
The X-38 was saddled with requirements for an extremely soft reentry and landing for possibly injured crewmembers, which is why they couldn't just whomp up some cheap space capsule.
However, $1.3 billion was still pretty dang steep for something like this, particularly since the technology for reentering spaceplanes is pretty much off-the-shelf by now.