Slashdot Mirror
NASA Awards Sierra Nevada's Dream Chaser an ISS Commercial Resupply Contract (examiner.com)
MarkWhittington writes: The Verge reported that NASA has awarded the second round of contracts for the commercial resupply program. Two companies, SpaceX, and Orbital Sciences, which have been hauling cargo to the International Space Station in the first phase of the program, will receive contracts to fly at least six flights each to the ISS through 2024, the anticipated end of operations year for the space station. But Sierra Nevada has also gotten a six flight commitment, using a cargo version of its Dream Chaser spacecraft.
Lots of grim faces when they didn't get the commercial crew contract.
I'm sure the brewery of the same name would like a contract to resupply the ISS as well.
the good ground has been paved over by suicidal maniacs
Since NASA is effectively becoming a procurement department to outsource everything it used to do, why not just get rid of NASA entirely? Put the whole contract, etc on eBay.
Islamic State in Space
Cool! It will be great to see some winged spacecraft again!
Am I reading this wrong or is this essentially a contract to ULA by proxy as the Dream Chaser is launched atop an Altas V? ULA had the CST-100 in development as their direct crew / cargo craft but it was knocked out of competition.
So unless I'm mistaken this end up being a contract for the 3 main launch systems, SpaceX, Orbital Sciences and ULA.
If the cargo version of the Dream Chaser (which I note is also winged and reusable), can be launched on the Falcon 9X (I think this is the version that has the reusable first stage) then almost the entire vehicle is reusable!
I think it will, unfortunately, still require a (small?) second stage to get it into orbit but perhaps the Dream Chaser (cargo version) can boost itself into orbit. In any case it would provide another reusable re-entry option for the Falcon (the Dragon space capsule of course has been proven to be recoverable).
Interesting to note that the wings on the Dream Chaser are folding so it can fit inside a launch fairing. Is this the normal launch profile? Does it never launch "naked" with wings unfolded? Perhaps the aerodynamics are just too problematic for a winged vehicle on the tip of a booster stack. Maybe that's why the crewed version didn't get approved (it would not be good to have the crew inside a launch fairing in case of an accident).
They're intrinsically corrupt, and specialize in getting work by greasing the palms of politicians and giving sinecure jobs to retired high ranking military types.
Unusually for a medium large defense contractor, SNC is not a publicly held company. It's completely owned by a husband and wife team, the Ozmans. They are of Turkish decent and Mr Ozman was originally a Turkish national. I have met them and had some casual conversations.
The fact that SNC has no share holders changes their reporting requirements and makes it easy for them to do things for people who "help" them.
Before I worked at SNC they were closely involved both professionally and personally with JIm Gibbons, former Governor and House Member for Nevada. He's a real piece of work. While he was in office SNC hired Gibbon's wife as a consultant for a very murky position. When this came out there were a lot of calls for an investigation but nothing happened. The Ozmans and Gibbons went on a junket to Turkey and Gibbons was never able to produce any documentation showing that he had paid for anything on the trip. That looks like a form of bribery to anyone who has a pulse, but again there was no follow up. It's interesting that the owners of a military contracting company should be so close to a politition called "one of America's worst governors" by CREW.
SNC has huge clout in Nevada because they are the biggest military contractor with headquarters in the state. Other contractor do a lot of work there, but have there home office somewhere else. This means that any Federal level militarily pork that is going into Nevada is very likely to end up at SNC.
I'm 100% certain that if you were to spend some time searching press releases, you would discover that a fair number of former high level government/military types from the space program took their retirement and now have juicy jobs at SNC. They're might even be some fancy vacations/fact finding trips in the mix, but I bet that the kind of inducements being offered at this point are a lot less crude.
SNC getting a plumb ISS resupply contract is very strange. SNC does not build any of the major Dream Chaser components themselves. United Launch Alliance is supplying the launch system and Lockheed-Martin builds the supply capsule. The capsule design is based on old NASA lifting body work. It's not clear if SNC is building anything, even the avionics. What they appear to be doing is acting as a systems integrator with no investment in original technology. They may be the only organization in the world that is getting paid for space access that does not have any proprietary expertise in space technology. SNC also bought a micro-satellite company, but that has very little to do with the resupply contract.
So without doing something underhanded, how does a company with such shallow technical credentials get a contract like this? (Sound of crickets...)
5% tax on the adult entertainment and alcohol industries in the US would accomplish the same thing.
Or 5% tax on firearms and ammunition. It would require a law that owners would receive rock-solid assurance that the .gov will stop trying to backdoor ban firearms in exchange. "Think of the Children" bleeding heart Democrats get their tax revenue to feed ALL the children instead of violating the Constitution to protect a couple.
There is just something sexy about this little craft, and I think it has some of the same allure as the old Boeing X20 Dyna-Soar design. It's kind of an irrational thing, but I'm glad they got the nod as I've really wanted to see it fly. The Dyna-Soar was also a small design winged craft meant to be put on top a rocket for launch, but never got past design and planning. To quote the Wikipedia page, it "suffered from two major problems: uncertainty over the booster to be used to send the craft into orbit, and a lack of a clear goal for the project."
Sexy is meaningless for real space work. The lunar landing module was not sexy, it was practical. You want sexy, go and look at fantasy rocket designs for 1930 pulp science fiction magazine covers. Since space access is really important, dump the sexy and appreciate the practical. It gets you further.
Why is Snark Required?
Agreed. There is something nifty and cute about it. I'm not sure how it holds up functionally, or how it compares to spaceX and Boeing's capsule, but it's pretty neat to look at.
I was a bit disappointed when they not got elected and I thought they were done for, but apparently, if I read the comments here good, it's cargo vs crewed that makes the difference. So...cool they got selected this time.
That said, economically speaking, they should prove they're as reliable and cost-effective as the others. Nomatter how cute it looks, we shouldn't waste money at something that isn't competitive, when it can be done better by others.
So, I hope they can deliver, apart from the aesthetics.
The strength of the Dream Chaser concept is obviously as a crew vehicle. Why send up cargo in a vehicle that has an interior volume that is a fraction of Cygnus? Same goes for the ridiculous Dragon.
... to send a rocket into space?
Why hasn't any African country got a space program?
Anybody?
The end is nigh.
Wait, what kind of beer from Sierra Nevada? Is it like their pale ale?
With NASA's budget, we could feed every hungry child in this country.
Which is already being done (or at least attempted) with food stamps, school lunch programs, and even direct subsidies and tax breaks to food banks. There is no reason for a child to be hungry in America, and it certainly isn't for a lack of effort on the part of the government.
What should be remarkable is that more money is spent on lipstick than on spaceflight. Get your priorities down.
First off, there are no republicans left in the GOP. So, it is impossible to be republican welfare since it is the GOP, composed of neo-cons and teabaggers, that controls CONgress.
Secondly, this was backed by BOTH the GOP and Dems.
Third, gov has traditionally served to get advanced businesses off the ground. That has stopped with reagan, but has been brought back with Obama. O has been pushing private space, while the GOP has been fighting against it, preferring the old communist style approach to space.
Dreamchaser is launch vehicle agnostic. The reason it is slated to fly on Atlas and all the analysis and plans for it are currently Atlas-centric is purely practical: SNC does not make its own launch vehicle, so SNC must pay somebody to launch it and at the time the project started the Atlas was the most-reliable and affordable US launch vehicle in the class needed to left the DC.
Dreamchaser should be easily re-assigned to a ULA Vulcan, if the Russian engine purchasing reprieve does not induce ULA to drop that project, and could certainly fly on a Falcon if SpaceX and SNC could come to some arrangement (which might be a big PR "plus" for both companies by making it clear to everybody that the systems of both companies are compatible and both companies are cooperative).
Sadly, ALL big aerospace companies end-up involved in some cronyism - the government is DEEPLY involved in all jet- and rocket- powered aerospace activities both as a purchaser and as a regulator. As a result, ALL the big aerospace firms have board members who used to work in government, board members or employees who used to be politicians, etc.
Additionally, you cite "CREW" as a source. That's about as balanced as citing the group that did the Planned Parenthood baby parts videos as an "unbiased" source. CREW was created by Democrat activists, mainly from the Clinton team, as a left-wing counter-balance to "Judicial Watch" which files lots of FOIA requests to expose government activities. I'm not telling you to ignore CREW (or JW for that matter), as such organizations are doing one of the watchdog functions our founding fathers presumed the press would actually do for the public. The hazard lies in taking the work of CREW (which was explicitly founded as a partisan political organ to counter somebody else and "spin" the public) without a skeptical eye.
As for "a company with such shallow technical credentials" getting such a contract, well I presume that since you asked that it means your earlier claim that you "used to work for SNC a few year ago" is not true. I have long worked in Aerospace and have dealt with Boeing, Lockmart, and others and SNC has a 50 year history in the industry with a very wide swath of expertise. Most people are unaware of them because they are involved in lots of lower-profile smaller projects that simply do not attract the same attention as something like the B-2 or the F-35. I would argue that SNC has worked on a wider array of platforms than most aero companies since they work on stuff from nearly every vendor - some of their business involves modifying other companies' vehicles for custom government applications. Oh, and in case you have forgotten, the recent cluster of Orbcomm sats that SpaceX just launched were made by SNC.
1. The only vehicle with any real "downmass" capability right now is Dragon. Dreamchaser adds redundancy to this capability, which is wise.
2. This keeps NASA in the most-extreme flight regime of hypersonic reentry FLIGHT. NASA is not just a spaceman agency; it was formed partly from NACA and still has responsibility for FLIGHT research. NASA was still using Shuttles to explore aspects of hypersonic flight even on the last shuttle flight (fire-up Google and study "trip the boundary layer" in the context of the space shuttle)
3. A large part of the justification for the "commercial cargo program" when the Bush administration started it was to encourage the rise and (technological) diversity of an American commercial space industry. The program has succeeded to a certain extent with SpaceX and Orbital (although Orbital is sorta cheating by using a Ukrainian rocket body with Russian engines and an Italian spacecraft) but this further expands it with an entirely American spacecraft that will fly on a mostly American launch vehicle.
4. By flying a cargo version a half-dozen times, NASA will be able to fully validate the performance and aerodynamics and safety of the system. Should the agency want the manned version a few years hence, it will be simple, safe, and cheap to get it.
Winning move all-around - "well-done" to NASA.
I'd also point out, the opening footage on the Six Million Dollar Man showed a craft that looked a lot like the Dyna-Soar. My inner child wants this!