Author Topic: Dream Chaser ETA review promotes positives despite anomaly  (Read 79406 times)

Offline matthewkantar

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Re: Dream Chaser ETA review promotes positives despite anomaly
« Reply #40 on: 10/30/2013 01:51 pm »
It would be much easier to concentrate on the positive if the were not so clearly hiding the negative. The vehicle crashed. Avoiding the use of words because they are accurate is very worrisome to me. I have high hopes for SN and for DC. I don't think the crash is a big setback, but hiding the facts of the crash is just fertilizing BS speculation.

Online edkyle99

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Re: Dream Chaser ETA review promotes positives despite anomaly
« Reply #41 on: 10/30/2013 02:00 pm »
Exactly what is the problem Ed? You don't let a chance go by to display your dismay with commercial companies not showing their failures. This is not NASA. The things these companies do are not public domain. They have every legal right to keep information about these failures from the general public, regardless of them being financed with tax-payers dollars. This is the world of proprietary information. This is how it works. This is how commercial PR works. You celebrate the things that go right, and you downplay the things that went wrong.
That's not new. It has been standard MO since the very start of the aerospace industry.
As far as I'm concerned, these are still essentially public projects.  They would not exist without our (taxpayer) money.  They are competing to carry our astronauts to our space station.  We should know the facts, at least to the extent that NASA previously provided the facts. 

By the standards you describe, if SLS-51L had been a "commercial" launch someone would have pushed a big red button to cut off the NASA-TV feed (which would have been a delayed feed) when the failure occurred.  No news media would have been invited to witness the launch either.

 - Ed Kyle

Offline Lurker Steve

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Re: Dream Chaser ETA review promotes positives despite anomaly
« Reply #42 on: 10/30/2013 02:02 pm »
Thanks again for the nice words! Means a lot, because you're the readers. :)

Did it take a tumble?  They seem to be saying now that it did not.  Skidded sideways off the runway in a cloud of dust and came to a stop upright?   

She took a tumble. They were really careful to avoid words like crash, tumble, flip -  but she did.  Trust me, I know. But again, she's a strong little girl to do that and "survive". Sure, she looks a mess on the outside, but inside is what counts.
But that would have happened as she scrubbed off speed and diverged from the runway unto the soft sand, which although allowed DC to dig on to her left and presumable over, but cushion the impact.

Does that sound fair Chris?


I think that's fair. I also think it's fair to say it "looked" a lot worse than it was, with all the sand/dust/fake TPS. I'm betting that's a good reason as to why they haven't released that part of the video. Could easily be dramatized (not by the space flight media).....and it would do them no good to have screenshots of that all over websites and news papers.

It would be OK, if they only had to explain the incident to NASA and possibly congressional oversight.
Their competitors would have a field day.

I can imagine Elon Musk telling prospective customers that there's a possibility you'll end up a bionic man after a flight on DC, while not telling them about the minor glitches on each and every SpaceX mission.

Offline Elmar Moelzer

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Re: Dream Chaser ETA review promotes positives despite anomaly
« Reply #43 on: 10/30/2013 02:05 pm »
Actually, I think that congress would and probably will have a field day on this too. So many there that want commercial crew dead and that would and will use this as an argument. The gullible public does not get it anyway. They see a video of a vehicle crashing and immediately assume that it is not safe and should therefore be cancelled as "it is all wasteful government spending" anyway and "only NASA can develop safe spacecraft".

Offline Chris Bergin


I can imagine Elon Musk telling prospective customers that there's a possibility you'll end up a bionic man after a flight on DC, while not telling them about the minor glitches on each and every SpaceX mission.


That wouldn't happen for a number of reasons.

1) Mark clearly noted the low G incident and lack of damage to the crew cabin would have resulted in the crew walking away.

2) Elon wouldn't take a poke at SNC. Everyone's a potential customer, rather than a competitor, in commercial space.

3) One of my end of year feature articles is going to be based an overview (no restrictions on it) of all the Dragon flights so far, where all the little faults are overviewed. They did the same with the ASAP too. So how they act with the media is not the same as how open they are with the likes of ASAP, NASA, etc.

Bloody heck, everything revolves back to SpaceX! ;D
« Last Edit: 10/30/2013 02:24 pm by Chris Bergin »
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Offline newpylong

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Re: Dream Chaser ETA review promotes positives despite anomaly
« Reply #45 on: 10/30/2013 02:31 pm »
Exactly what is the problem Ed? You don't let a chance go by to display your dismay with commercial companies not showing their failures. This is not NASA. The things these companies do are not public domain. They have every legal right to keep information about these failures from the general public, regardless of them being financed with tax-payers dollars. This is the world of proprietary information. This is how it works. This is how commercial PR works. You celebrate the things that go right, and you downplay the things that went wrong.
That's not new. It has been standard MO since the very start of the aerospace industry.
As far as I'm concerned, these are still essentially public projects.  They would not exist without our (taxpayer) money.  They are competing to carry our astronauts to our space station.  We should know the facts, at least to the extent that NASA previously provided the facts. 

By the standards you describe, if SLS-51L had been a "commercial" launch someone would have pushed a big red button to cut off the NASA-TV feed (which would have been a delayed feed) when the failure occurred.  No news media would have been invited to witness the launch either.

 - Ed Kyle

Exactly the reason I am irritated at the lack of information coming from SpaceX on the manned Dragon. Are they really worried about someone stealing their designs? Capsules have been around for 60 years. The most information I have seen about it has been through the NASA Commercial Crew program.

It wouldn't exist without my wallet, and neither would SpaceX. We are getting more information out of the least likely to do so - Boeing! SNC has been the best about releasing information out of the three.
« Last Edit: 10/30/2013 02:35 pm by newpylong »

Offline JAFO

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Re: Dream Chaser ETA review promotes positives despite anomaly
« Reply #46 on: 10/30/2013 02:48 pm »
Exactly what is the problem Ed? You don't let a chance go by to display your dismay with commercial companies not showing their failures. This is not NASA. The things these companies do are not public domain. They have every legal right to keep information about these failures from the general public, regardless of them being financed with tax-payers dollars. This is the world of proprietary information. This is how it works. This is how commercial PR works. You celebrate the things that go right, and you downplay the things that went wrong.
That's not new. It has been standard MO since the very start of the aerospace industry.
As far as I'm concerned, these are still essentially public projects.  They would not exist without our (taxpayer) money.  They are competing to carry our astronauts to our space station.  We should know the facts, at least to the extent that NASA previously provided the facts. 

By the standards you describe, if SLS-51L had been a "commercial" launch someone would have pushed a big red button to cut off the NASA-TV feed (which would have been a delayed feed) when the failure occurred.  No news media would have been invited to witness the launch either.

 - Ed Kyle

I'd be happy if the video of 51L would cut off before the failure. People I respected (and yes, envied) were killed in that mishap, I hate seeing their deaths publicly replayed over and over and.....


Thanks again for the nice words! Means a lot, because you're the readers. :)

Did it take a tumble?  They seem to be saying now that it did not.  Skidded sideways off the runway in a cloud of dust and came to a stop upright?   

She took a tumble. They were really careful to avoid words like crash, tumble, flip -  but she did.  Trust me, I know. But again, she's a strong little girl to do that and "survive". Sure, she looks a mess on the outside, but inside is what counts.

As long as the main structure is intact and not tweaked, the outside can be fixed. The question is how much are they willing to spend on it.

Good writeup, Chris. :cheers:
« Last Edit: 10/30/2013 02:51 pm by JAFO »
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Online rcoppola

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Re: Dream Chaser ETA review promotes positives despite anomaly
« Reply #47 on: 10/30/2013 02:57 pm »
Can we please stop this "Epic Fail" because we didn't see the crash video meme!

I feel like I'm in an alternate universe.

This was a hugely successful milestone that is helping to prove out an incredibly impressive system that along with SpaceX and Boeing, will forever alter access to space.

The only people I care that know or get to see exactly what happened are the engineers in charge of fixing it and NASA who's in charge of helping to fund and provide historical expertise.

SnarK Alert:
If you feel entitled to know everything simply because something received tax payer funds, why don't you take a walk over to Boeing Phantom Works and ask to see what's up with their latest stealth drones. I'm sure they'd tell you all about it. ("Oh come on, that's different, that's military not civilian." Hmm, you don't say. OK, then go ask to see the 5 million lines of worthless code we spent billions on for the new HealthCare website. Yeh, good luck with that.
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Offline woods170

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Re: Dream Chaser ETA review promotes positives despite anomaly
« Reply #48 on: 10/30/2013 03:00 pm »
Exactly what is the problem Ed? You don't let a chance go by to display your dismay with commercial companies not showing their failures. This is not NASA. The things these companies do are not public domain. They have every legal right to keep information about these failures from the general public, regardless of them being financed with tax-payers dollars. This is the world of proprietary information. This is how it works. This is how commercial PR works. You celebrate the things that go right, and you downplay the things that went wrong.
That's not new. It has been standard MO since the very start of the aerospace industry.
As far as I'm concerned, these are still essentially public projects.  They would not exist without our (taxpayer) money.  They are competing to carry our astronauts to our space station.  We should know the facts, at least to the extent that NASA previously provided the facts. 

By the standards you describe, if SLS-51L had been a "commercial" launch someone would have pushed a big red button to cut off the NASA-TV feed (which would have been a delayed feed) when the failure occurred.  No news media would have been invited to witness the launch either.

 - Ed Kyle

Them supposedly being public projects is your interpretation. But the rules in place for both CRS, CCDEV and CCICAP say differently.

And your analogy to STS-51L does not apply. That was supposedly an operational flight. The early flights of Falcon 1 (SpaceX sitting on that footage) and the recent Dreamchaser free flight were test flights. Different rules with regards to PR generally apply to testflights, particularly when the test-subject is born out of a non-public project.

Offline Rocket Science

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Re: Dream Chaser ETA review promotes positives despite anomaly
« Reply #49 on: 10/30/2013 03:10 pm »
Hi Chris,

Thanks for the great article, as always!  I have one question - was the airspeed at landing for this test flight similar to what would be expected on an actual reteurn from orbit? 

Mark

They told me that the planned return from orbit landing speed was 191 knots.
Lee Jay,

Did they tell you at what landing weight for that speed?

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~Rob: Physics instructor, Aviator

Offline Overflow

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Re: Dream Chaser ETA review promotes positives despite anomaly
« Reply #50 on: 10/30/2013 05:55 pm »
Great article, Chris.

Offline Alpha Control

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Re: Dream Chaser ETA review promotes positives despite anomaly
« Reply #51 on: 10/30/2013 06:34 pm »
I also want to thank you for a great article, Chris. It was your usual factual and thorough reporting, but with an eye on the larger picture, which I appreciated. It was also an enjoyable read, with a style and tone I found most engaging.

It seems to me that NASA's upcoming review of this 1st ALT flight will be key, and whether they concur that the milestone was met or not.  If not, hopefully the repairs & landing gear correction can be made in a short period of time, and she can repeat the flight with a smooth landing rollout as a conclusion.

Edit: Hey, I reached my 1000th post! Where's my NSF coffee mug? :)
« Last Edit: 10/30/2013 07:16 pm by Alpha Control »
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Online edkyle99

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Re: Dream Chaser ETA review promotes positives despite anomaly
« Reply #52 on: 10/30/2013 07:07 pm »
And your analogy to STS-51L does not apply. That was supposedly an operational flight. The early flights of Falcon 1 (SpaceX sitting on that footage) and the recent Dreamchaser free flight were test flights. Different rules with regards to PR generally apply to testflights, particularly when the test-subject is born out of a non-public project.
Was CRS-2 an operational flight?  Someone hit the big red button during that mission.

 - Ed Kyle

Offline BrightLight

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Re: Dream Chaser ETA review promotes positives despite anomaly
« Reply #53 on: 10/30/2013 07:22 pm »
I don't know if this has been posted here:
From Space News site:
http://www.spacenews.com/article/launch-report/37903snc-mission-accomplished-in-dream-chaser-test-despite-crash-landing

"NASA's Partner Integration Team will be evaluating the data from the test to determine if the success criteria ... have been met," NASA spokesman Trent Perrotto wrote in an Oct. 29 email. "It is not required that the test be anomaly free in order for the success criteria to be met."

Phil McAlister, director of Commercial Spaceflight Development at NASA headquarters here, said the agency "was very pleased with the flight portion of Saturday's test of the Dream Chaser test article. The vehicle performed very well and Sierra Nevada will have lots of test data to use for its future development effort."

This follows well what Sirangelo said in the SNC de-brief.

Offline Chris Bergin

I also want to thank you for a great article, Chris. It was your usual factual and thorough reporting, but with an eye on the larger picture, which I appreciated. It was also an enjoyable read, with a style and tone I found most engaging.

It seems to me that NASA's upcoming review of this 1st ALT flight will be key, and whether they concur that the milestone was met or not.  If not, hopefully the repairs & landing gear correction can be made in a short period of time, and she can repeat the flight with a smooth landing rollout as a conclusion.

Edit: Hey, I reached my 1000th post! Where's my NSF coffee mug? :)

Thanks! But no mugs in stock at this time! ;)

Hey, not everyone's happy with it. Just got a sarcastic e-mail complaining about me calling the ETA a "she". I guess he's new to my articles then! ;D
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Offline Ronpur50

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Re: Dream Chaser ETA review promotes positives despite anomaly
« Reply #55 on: 10/30/2013 08:02 pm »
In fact, she is a beautiful she! ;)

Offline Lars_J

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Re: Dream Chaser ETA review promotes positives despite anomaly
« Reply #56 on: 10/30/2013 08:14 pm »

And your analogy to STS-51L does not apply. That was supposedly an operational flight. The early flights of Falcon 1 (SpaceX sitting on that footage) and the recent Dreamchaser free flight were test flights. Different rules with regards to PR generally apply to testflights, particularly when the test-subject is born out of a non-public project.
Was CRS-2 an operational flight?  Someone hit the big red button during that mission.

 - Ed Kyle

What red button? When?

Offline clongton

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Re: Dream Chaser ETA review promotes positives despite anomaly
« Reply #57 on: 10/30/2013 08:41 pm »
Ships are almost always called "she, her", etc.
It matters not whether or not the ship floats or flies. It's a "her". -Period-
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Offline Lar

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Re: Dream Chaser ETA review promotes positives despite anomaly
« Reply #58 on: 10/30/2013 08:49 pm »
Edit: Hey, I reached my 1000th post! Where's my NSF coffee mug? :)
I think you have to report 1000 typos to get one of those. :) or just buy one when the store is up and running?

I have to admit I'm of two minds about the information release thing. One side of me is all "it's my taxpayer money I want to know what my money is getting" and the other side is all "it's commercial, relax" 

Both views have merit so castigating each other probably isn't helpful... but we are going to have to get used to more spin control and less raw data.
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"We're a little bit like the dog who caught the bus" - Musk after CRS-8 S1 successfully landed on ASDS OCISLY

Offline MP99

SLS-51L

Would be nice one day to see a 25th SLS launch.  ;)

cheers, Martin

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