Canadian Company Developing New Space Shuttle

Archimboldo writes "CNN is carrying an article on the development of a new space shuttle design by Ontario's PlanetSpace called the Silver Dart, which is based on the U.S. Air Force's Flight Dynamics Laboratory-7 (FDL-7) program. Advantages over the aging Shuttle design include an all metal exterior for all-weather re-entry, twice the shuttle's lift coefficient at sub-sonic speeds, a lighter inner body, and newer electronics." The company has high hopes of snagging some of the space tourism market along with grabbing some of the resupply missions to the ISS.

Comments

Is it cost-effective?

[pv2b]

The main question on my mind is whether it's cost-effective.

From what I've heard, the current Space Shuttle is actually more expensive to operate than an equivalent single-use vehicle, partially because of the amount of work that has to be put into making the Shuttle operational again after landing.

Will the Silver Dart actually fare any better?

Re:Is it cost-effective?

[Vo0k]

1) Various parties had their business in putting their parts in the shuttle, and cost and quality were often on a far place when considering priorities (political friendships being most important). They often need checking, replacing, in short they suck. A commercial-made shuttle won't have this kind of weight attached. Middle ground between safety and price is the key value. And good-bye all the 60's - based parts still kept for political reasons.
2) The shuttles have -enormous- amount of redundancy/safety features because of all the publicity related to astronaut deaths. Commercial solution for own use should be just secure enough to pay itself back and give profit. Likely some/lots of the redundancy will be removed. Cheaper, easier, simpler, lighter. And lesser chance of -any- part failing (if there are 4 sensors instead of two, sure, in flight 3 will still work if one fails, instead of one, and two instead of none, but on Earth you need 4 checks instead of two, the chance that at least one sensor will be broken doubles and so do costs associated with them.) In short, astronauts are a bit more disposable...
3) If it's not cost-effective, it will just end up in bankruptcy of this company and taking over the market by others. Not in stalling progress for decades by pumping billions into failed design just to keep it flying for showoff. These guys get paid for actually delivering stuff to the orbit, not for providing some parts that may or may not quite work like intended but uncle governor said they should be used.

Re:Is it cost-effective?

[wulfhound]

... and despite all that redundancy and safety, two have been lost in around a hundred missions.

If space travel is to be scaled up, and space tourism to catch on, we certainly can't afford to have it any -less- safe -- how many people would fly commercial aircraft if one in 100 airline flights ended in a fatal accident (as opposed to of the order of one in a million)? OK, so space tourism is a bleeding-edge, once-in-a-lifetime experience, but still - a safety record worse than one fatal accident every 1000 flights (roughly equivalent to the very early days of airlines c. 1930) is not going to win a lot of business, and no existing manned rocket system has gotten close to that.