Does the HL-20 mockup that Langley built still exist?
Got home from work and found that my copy of "Flying Without Wings" has been delivered Looks like I'll be settling in for a good read over the weekend.
Anyone who has watched the Shuttle land in marginal winds knows how valuable every bit of lift can be on final approach, and how much safer it would be with a lower touchdown speed and greater control margins. I cannot imagine selecting a vehicle with even slimmer safety margins for landing on a runway. Conversely the X-37, which evolved from the Shuttle design, has landed twice from space at a relatively comfortable speed of about 100 knots and with no visible TPS damage at all.
Yet I can find no indication in the Commercial Crew selection criteria that any advantage was given to a vehicle with better aerodynamic performance (i.e. the OSC Prometheus). Apparently the Dreamchaser was chosen over the Prometheus because of its larger passenger capacity (4 vs 6, although both met the spec) without any consideration of such basic aerodynamic criteria as lift and drag.
I was wondering what M2-F1 stood for, I've gotten as far as finding out that M=Manned, F=Flight, and figger that F1 stood for the Flight version 1, was there a M1-F1?TIA