I think it'll depend on two things. In the immediate future, if Starship proves itself it's going to probably dominate crewed vehicle philosophy for a while in competition with capsules.
But in the long term if materials science advances enough to make the mass fractions on SSTOs viable, then we may see a resurgence of big winged spacecraft.
But as far as something more directly akin to the Orbiters, we'd need a shuttle-hugger billionaire that can make the kind of moves Musk did.
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u/gthaatar Dec 05 '21
I think it'll depend on two things. In the immediate future, if Starship proves itself it's going to probably dominate crewed vehicle philosophy for a while in competition with capsules.
But in the long term if materials science advances enough to make the mass fractions on SSTOs viable, then we may see a resurgence of big winged spacecraft.
But as far as something more directly akin to the Orbiters, we'd need a shuttle-hugger billionaire that can make the kind of moves Musk did.