X-33 TAKING SLOW ROAD; WINDING RETURN TRIP SCHEDULED.

Byline: Charles F. Bostwick Daily News Staff Writer

Lockheed Martin's X-33 space plane will rocket from Southern California to Montana in 24 minutes, skimming the edge of space.

But coming home will be almost as big an adventure - though considerably slower.

As wide as eight big rigs placed side by side, the 32.5-ton space plane will be trucked back to California over hundreds of miles of two-lane highways - crossing mountains, desert and the Continental Divide, contending with overpasses, highway signs, roadside trees and small towns.

``It's the largest load we've ever planned on moving on our state highways,'' Department of Transportation spokesman Scott Magruder said in Nevada, where officials may hold public hearings to inform residents of the hamlets the behemoth will pass beginning next summer.

Nearly the size of the space shuttle but piloted by computers on the ground, the wingless, wedge-shaped rocket plane will blast off from a launch site now under construction at Edwards Air Force Base. Its purpose is to test technology needed for the VentureStar reusable spacecraft - Lockheed Martin's proposed entry in the commercial space race.

The X-33 is scheduled to make its maiden flight in late summer to an Army air field at the Dugway Proving Grounds in western Utah. The next five flights also will be to Dugway - a 450-mile flight that will take 14 minutes.

24 minutes to Montana

Its seventh flight will go to Malmstrom Air Force Base near Great Falls, Mont., 950 miles from Edwards. That flight will take 24 minutes.

Rocketing in a steep arc toward Montana, the X-33 will zoom as high as 250,000 feet - 47 miles, or about six miles below the 280,000 feet at which the Air Force awarded its X-15 pilots astronaut wings in the 1960s.

Lockheed Martin is not saying much about its transportation plan for the return trip. The company is awaiting bids this week from two unidentified companies to do the actual moving and doesn't want to say anything until then that could affect the contract.

``It is still in a competitive nature,'' spokesman Ron Lindeke said.

But documents and interviews show that Lockheed Martin officials originally planned to fly the X-33 back to Edwards piggyback on the NASA 747 that regularly ferries space shuttles back and forth between Florida's Kennedy Space Center and Palmdale.

The company eventually concluded flying would cost too much, and there were problems with the availability of the 747, Lindeke said.

Driving the X-33 back to Edwards presents its own problems: bridges, for example.

As it sits atop its custom transport trailer, the craft's vertical tail fins reach 26 feet above the pavement - far too tall to fit under highway bridges with an average 13 to 16 feet of clearance, highway officials say.

To negotiate the overpasses, an initial idea was to fabricate a set of mobile ramps, each hauled by its own tractor-trailer. One set of ramps would pull up to one side of an overpass, another set to the back side.

The X-33's tractor would drive up one set of ramps, across the roadway atop the overpass, then down the ramps on the other side. That idea also was rejected, again as too expensive, Lindeke said.

Alternate routes

Now the plan is to bypass bridges using highway on- and off-ramps, frontage roads, secondary roads and judicious route selection - a map which still isn't finished.

Entering California, for example, the space plane's trailer will cross the state line just east of Death Valley and cruise at 25 or 30 mph for about 80 miles down lightly traveled Highway 127.

Before the craft reaches the town of Baker on Interstate 15, it turns west onto county roads and eventually cuts across the Army's Fort Irwin training grounds on the last leg to Edwards.

``This is the widest load, to the best of anybody's memory, that we've ever had,'' said Caltrans spokesman Jim Drago.

Highway 127 will be shut down to let the craft pass.

``The road is wide enough to accommodate the X-33, but not anything else,'' Drago said.

But he notes that Gov. Pete Wilson and the state Legislature have recognized the commercial space industry - of which the X-33 is a harbinger - as important to California's future.

``You always are going to have an impact on somebody,'' he said. ``What we do is try to minimize that impact.''

Going through towns

In Nevada, the craft's likely route is Highway 95, which passes through towns including Beatty, Tonapah and Goldfield. Nevada highway officials said they've asked Lockheed Martin officials whether the size of the craft will require cutting down roadside trees or building detours, and whether it can pull over periodically to let traffic go by.

``We obviously realize this is a important project and we are trying to do everything we can to work with Lockheed Martin, but obviously there are some concerns that need to be addressed,'' Magruder said.

In Montana, two-lane highways are typically 36 feet wide - barely more than half the X-33's width from canted tail fin to canted tail fin. But officials believe it will fit, though maybe at the expense of a few trees.

CAPTION(S):

photo, drawing

Photo: (color) no caption (X-33)

Drawing: X-33: transporter overpass concept

Among the ideas considered for getting the X-33 spaceplane back to Edwards Air Force Base from Utah and Montana was a set of mobile ramps hauled by tractor trailers. The ramps would have allowed the 33.5 ton spaceplane to be hauled over highway overpasses. Lockheed Martin discarded the idea because of cost.

Source: Lockheed Martin

Gregg Miller/Daily News