Is it odd that DC-X was going so well under Airforce hands and then crapped out so immediately when turned over to NASA?
Exactly my thinking
It already had plenty of funding and the political support of a very popular POTUS. The problems were the three I mentioned. The size of the tanks is not an issue. Both the Venturestar and the X-33 have tanks so large that it is not practical to put them in an autoclave, so composite design that does not require an autoclave is required. There is/was no significant difference in the construction needs of the two and as stated, Scaled Composites/N-G have developed a way to build these structures reliably for use with either horizontal or vertical landing designs. What was research back in the day is now researched.
No, Lockheed never got enough private funding for the Venture Star, mainly after all the problems with the design emerged and the whole thing turned into a big joke (wings got bigger and bigger and the payload moved outboard and so on). Everyone was laughing about it before it got cancelled.
