As a complete layman, I am left with an understanding from my reading on the topic that the VS died mainly because of project-level incompetence. For example, the insistence from on-high that a Honey-Comb synthetic fuel tank be used (boy, that one seemed like a Big Duh), as well as the difficulty in constructing large composite/carbon fiber structures.

My question is, why couldn't such a project be successful now? It seems like the thermal protection system was on spec, that the Aerospike engines could be made lighter and the version created seemed successful in tests (and failed only in weight if I recall correctly), other parts of the project should be old-hat now (autonomous flight control systems, for example).

So anyway, I am not an engineer- so I'm curious... Why not the Venture Star?

Yeti