Last known photo.

Why is that?

There's nothing particularly "magical" about the technology needed to build a crew vehicle similar to the Dream Chaser concept. NASA JSC was working on a very similar project years ago, I even got to see and touch it-- the X-38 crew rescue vehicle. Although designed only as an "emergency lifeboat" and relying upon a gigantic parafoil wing for final descent and landing, and equipped only with rudimentary crew accommodations for reentry, descent, and landing after a forced evacuation from the space station, the shape and basic layout were very similar to what would be needed to build a Dream Chaser like crew taxi vehicle... the main difference being scale.

The fact that it was improperly funded (basically UNFUNDED and relied on volunteer work by the JSC staff on their time off to do things like install tiles and work on the airframe) was the main impediment to constructing and using the thing, not anything particularly technical related (at least, nothing that couldn't be overcome with some additional FUNDED research and work). NASA decided to pull what little rug they had allocated to the project out from under them, and canceled the project, saying it wasn't needed as they'd simply use an extra Soyuz attached to the station for crew evac (in addition the crew transfer Soyuz that is also docked to ISS).

Now, I agree that Dream Chaser's development has been slow rolled the point that it'll probably never see the light of day... It has suffered the same fate that has hampered almost ALL commercial spaceflight ventures (with the notable exception of Space X and Blue Origin) that were started in the 90's and early 00's... a start with good intentions, ambitious directors, and some seed corn money that then subsequently became mired in malaise and muddled mediocrity until the project became terminally underfunded and simply faded away as its chiefs drifted off to work on other things.... But that's an organizational and funding problem, NOT a technical issue or "show stopper" that makes the whole concept unfeasible or unprofitable or a non-starter.

Unlike SSTO's, it doesn't require "unobtainium" in order to work with any sort of decent payload or capability, or magic rocket engines that develop unheard of ISP's or thrust levels while being hands-off reusable and dirt cheap to boot, or other sorts of "magic" technologies that look good on paper or in the lab but present huge challenges when applied to real-world solutions (like X-33 which instantly springs to mind). It's basically a lifting body reusable crew capsule. If the lifting body design is the issue, one COULD simply upscale the Air Force's X-37B unmanned vehicle, which is already well proven, which could serve as a perfectly acceptable crew taxi vehicle to ISS or for similar missions requiring crew flown into LEO for whatever mission (spacecraft assembly of say a Mars vehicle, for instance, among other things, like say the ill-advised and nutty mission of lassoing a refrigerator size asteroid and bringing it back to LEO, instead of cislunar orbit, and sending a crew up on a relatively inexpensive and safer LEO vehicle and launcher instead of spending billions to launch a crew out to cislunar space in an SLS-Orion just to accomplish the same level of "exploration"... (though of course you can't justify spending the money to create or maintain the capability of SLS-Orion unless you use it, even for such a ridiculous mission-- it's about like buying a new refrigerator and having the company deliver it, but instead of having them drop it off at the curb and then buying a dolly to wheel it into the house, you have them deliver it to your friend's house 4 blocks away, and then use that to "justify" to your wife the necessity of buying a new diesel dually pickup truck to haul the refrigerator home... LOL)

At any rate, if Dream Chaser fails or completely disappears into the black hole of abandoned and forgotten and canceled space projects, it'll be for organizational and funding reasons, not technical ones. Remember that before the Columbia disaster laid bare the obvious flaws and faults and foibles of the antiquated shuttle program and the need to replace those aged vehicles with something more realistic, NASA's project du jour of the time was the "Orbital Space Plane" (OSP) project, from which Dream Chaser is directly descended, which is shown launching "naked" (no aero-fairing, unlike X-37B) atop a "EELV heavy", particularly an Atlas V heavy (which unfortunately was never built). After Columbia, with the announced VSE and retirement of shuttle, the OSP was abandoned and the work rolled over into the CEV, which eventually became Orion.

Just because NASA is neurotic and can't make up their mind or finish anything doesn't mean it's not possible.

Later! OL J R

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The X-87B Cruise Basselope-- THE Ultimate Weapon in the arsenal of Homeland Security and only $52 million per round!

It's an opinion. As is yours.

Although I do think the two guys buying a ride around the moon from SpaceX are trying to prove SLS is a 10-20 year late boondoggle. I bet Elon is giving them a nice discount too.

Ah okay, thought you might have a more reasoned response... Lol

Yeah, we'll see if that ever happens, but I think your right on both counts... Lol

Later! OL J R

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The X-87B Cruise Basselope-- THE Ultimate Weapon in the arsenal of Homeland Security and only $52 million per round!

It's an historic television prop, too--Lee Majors actually got into the HL-10 for the filming of the "The Six Million Dollar Man" episode in which Steve Austin flew the vehicle again.

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I think it's just that Dream Chaser is now redundant. A lifting body is inherently more complex than a capsule, has a smaller payload than a capsule of comparable size, and is restricted to land landings on prepared runways. Dragon, CST-100, and Orion make Dream Chaser unnecessary. But:

I still would like to see it fly and become operational. One place where it would have an edge over a capsule is in landing autonomously at industrial airparks, to return space-manufactured products directly to their owners (its non-toxic propellants also facilitate this capability). If Bigelow's private expandable space stations come to fruition, Dream Chaser might have enough work to be viable--we shall see...

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All of my book proceeds go to the Northcote Heavy Horse Centre www.northcotehorses.com.
NAR #54895 SR

Vehicles like Dan DeLong's Teledyne Brown Spaceplane (see: http://selenianboondocks.com/2008/0...-launched-ssto/ , and Reply #7 here: http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/in...p?topic=27712.0 ) are the kind of air-launched, "assisted-SSTO" reusable winged "taxi" vehicles that would go perfectly with the Stratolaunch aircraft. This vehicle was designed to be launched from the back of a 747 (the picture in the second link above shows a model of the Spaceplane/747 combination), but the combined vehicles' loiter time was marginal, and had a short range; the Stratolaunch plane would provide ample cruise range and loiter time to make this RLV not just feasible, but practical.

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Black Shire--Draft horse in human form, model rocketeer, occasional mystic, and writer, see:
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All of my book proceeds go to the Northcote Heavy Horse Centre www.northcotehorses.com.
NAR #54895 SR

I'd argue that Dragon may yet make CST-100 and Orion unnecessary... we shall see... (though I think NASA will continue with Orion so long as funding is forthcoming... regardless of it's "necessity" or not. The shuttle mafia lives on, now in the Orion/SLS mafia... LOL



True... I think that a lifting body type crew vehicle has some advantages... It will probably always have an edge in safety when it comes to landings compared to a ballistic capsule using a powered descent and landing (Dragon, eventually) even with parachute backups... there's a point where you're so low that parachutes do you absolutely no good but you're still quite high enough to pancake in... at least a winged/lifting body type vehicle can, so long as it maintains some sort of controlled glide, do a belly landing and have a chance to walk away from...

Later! OL J R

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The X-87B Cruise Basselope-- THE Ultimate Weapon in the arsenal of Homeland Security and only $52 million per round!

Someone said "I would like to see it become operational"

Sure, why not?

But economic? Nope.

The sheer number of planes that were made is astounding. The number which raised to either interesting or great was trivial.

Just Jerry

Its name is strangely relevant to this. When a group has committed itself to such a project--a dream, if you will--it can be hard for them to abandon it and walk away. The history of private space ventures is mostly one of failed ventures, and I would agree that the odds are against Dream Chaser being economically successful (its success also depends, at least in part, on its intended private space station destinations--built by Bigelow Aerospace--being successful). But some of these ventures do beat the odds, and if I were involved in one, I would hate to walk away from it and wonder forever afterward, "What if...?"

__________________
Black Shire--Draft horse in human form, model rocketeer, occasional mystic, and writer, see:
http://www.lulu.com/content/paperba...an-form/8075185
http://www.lulu.com/product/cd/what...of-2%29/6122050
http://www.lulu.com/product/cd/what...of-2%29/6126511
All of my book proceeds go to the Northcote Heavy Horse Centre www.northcotehorses.com.
NAR #54895 SR