Canadian Arrow test flights announced!

Yes I had read the Alan Boyle article and the reasons given.

Even though I understand that NASA's recent announcement to outsource cargo and crew transport to private companies might make planetSpace think about an orbital vehicle as a project. I cant understand why they would do anything to delay the first flight of Canadian Arrow even more than it has been already.

I would have thought that having a working or nearly working suborbital craft would have given them a huge amount of kudos when bidding on any NASA contract. Besides Canadian Arrow will get them a definite income from tourists but winning a NASA contract without any track record seems unlikely.

There are plenty of companies with connections and well respected engineers. Without any working hardware what separates them from dozens of other hopefuls trying to break into the industry?

Silver Dart would be a good Hot Eagle concept. Sadly Congress has bought into the "we spend too little on aeronautics and too much on space" BS. The Air Farce has had one new plane after another, after another, and all we got were two EELVs absolutely no better than the Titans they replace.

This Silver Dart or the Andrews lifting body (like Space Devs) might wind up atop the stick (a la' TAV) or HLLV.