"Basically, I've accomplished what I came over from the Pentagon to do," Payton said. "My intent was to get the RLV program laid out, get it started on the right foot, and make sure that it had the flight test flavor. I have five years with NASA… so that's enough time," he said.
Payton declined to talk about specifics of X-vehicle projects under his watch, citing his hopes to work in the aerospace industry later this year.
NASA's big budget poster child for RLV work, the $1.3 billion X 33 prototype space plane, has run into serious problems of late.
The high-tech effort has encountered a continuing series of snags, most recently a composite hydrogen fuel tank that failed in testing.
More money and more time are now needed before X 33 can take to the air. This sub-scale plane, built to shake out RLV technologies via a series of suborbital jaunts, is a precursor to Lockheed Martin's commercial VentureStar launcher.
NASA engineers at the Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama are now preparing an investigative report into the damaged fuel tank. Their review should be complete in mid-February, with recommendations on the next steps for the X 33 project to be decided in early March, according to industry insiders.
"The fact that you're going to run into technology problems is predictable," Payton said. "Which technology [to use] ends up being the toughest problem… that's why you do X-vehicles."
"My decision on leaving [NASA] this spring has nothing to do with the current state of play in any given, particular program," Payton said.
John Logsdon, director of George Washington University's Space Policy Institute, senses more behind Payton's departure. Logsdon notes that a White House budget, due out February 7, is likely to contain a new approach to the nation's future space transportation needs.
"The program is being reconfigured rather fundamentally," Logsdon said.
Logsdon said NASA now realizes that "going immediately to single-stage-to-orbit in one model was a mistake. It's an appropriate time for a change in approach and people."
Tom Rogers, chief scientist for the Space Transportation Association, an industry trade group, said Payton should be commended for doing a good job under tough circumstances.
"My judgment is that we have deep systemic difficulties," Rogers said. "It is not NASA, not the Congress, not [the] aerospace industry, and it's not the White House. It's all of us. We have to change in a very, very distinct fashion how we are going to go about space transportation. We can't get there by just continuing to do what we've been doing in the past."
Less supportive of NASA's work in RLVs to date is Henry Vanderbilt, executive director of the Space Access Society in Phoenix, Arizona, a watchdog group focused on launch vehicle developments.
NASA was given sole responsibility for RLV work by the Clinton Administration, Vanderbilt said. They were given five years to come up with a practical re-usable launch vehicle.
"On evidence, to date, giving sole responsibility for RLV to NASA has been a mistake," Vanderbilt said.
"The problem with NASA is that what they want to do with an RLV is very much conditioned by their view of their own mission needs. They seemed to have lost sight of doing things that will actually help out industry anytime soon," Vanderbilt said.
Payton, however, remains optimistic about NASA's future RLV initiatives.
"I would encourage [my] successor to continue the work on making sure that other agencies and other parts of the government have a sense of ownership in the program," he said. "Not all government programs work to make sure that happens. I think that's one of the successes of the RLV effort, why it has wide support. We've been very vigorous at making sure other organizations within the government have this sense of ownership," Payton said.
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