Author Topic: Dream Chaser ALT-2 Party thread  (Read 52394 times)

Offline rayleighscatter

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Re: Dream Chaser ALT-2 Party thread
« Reply #20 on: 10/26/2017 09:11 pm »
I thought cargo DC was unpiloted. Why are a bunch of pilots hanging out in this party thread? OK hotshots... I'm not a pilot but who knows what I'm sitting in?
A Hawaiian shirt.
« Last Edit: 10/26/2017 09:13 pm by rayleighscatter »

Offline JAFO

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Re: Dream Chaser ALT-2 Party thread
« Reply #21 on: 10/27/2017 04:38 am »
And before I die I hope to hear someone say "Eddy Tower, this is DreamChaser rollin' in on final, I'll get the gear in the flare." (You might be a Space Geek if you get the reference.)
Anyone can do the job when things are going right. In this business we play for keeps.
— Ernest K. Gann

Offline JAFO

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Re: Dream Chaser ALT-2 Party thread
« Reply #22 on: 11/05/2017 04:17 pm »
Winds at KMHV currently 280 18g25. My bet is a scrub today.
Anyone can do the job when things are going right. In this business we play for keeps.
— Ernest K. Gann

Offline Bubbinski

Re: Dream Chaser ALT-2 Party thread
« Reply #23 on: 11/05/2017 04:26 pm »
If the Dreamchaser ALT is scrubbed today how is tomorrow looking?
I'll even excitedly look forward to "flags and footprints" and suborbital missions. Just fly...somewhere.

Offline JAFO

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Re: Dream Chaser ALT-2 Party thread
« Reply #24 on: 11/06/2017 05:28 pm »
I wonder what their restrictions/agreements are with the AF regarding a weekday test? Seems like they're trying for a weekend, but can they grab an opportunity on short notice without impacting EAFB operations? They won't be able to keep the chopper down there for a month.
« Last Edit: 11/06/2017 05:31 pm by JAFO »
Anyone can do the job when things are going right. In this business we play for keeps.
— Ernest K. Gann

Offline Bubbinski

Re: Dream Chaser ALT-2 Party thread
« Reply #25 on: 11/06/2017 05:37 pm »
Well it is my birthday today, a successful Dreamchaser ALT test would be a nice present :)
I'll even excitedly look forward to "flags and footprints" and suborbital missions. Just fly...somewhere.

Offline Lar

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Re: Dream Chaser ALT-2 Party thread
« Reply #26 on: 11/06/2017 09:20 pm »
Well it is my birthday today, a successful Dreamchaser ALT test would be a nice present :)

Happy Birthday.... here's hoping.

"Hawaiian shirt"  - No. I might have been sitting ON a bit of it but not sitting IN it.
"An aeroplane" - technically correct, but not specific enough
'747-400" - winner!
"I think it would be great to be born on Earth and to die on Mars. Just hopefully not at the point of impact." -Elon Musk
"We're a little bit like the dog who caught the bus" - Musk after CRS-8 S1 successfully landed on ASDS OCISLY

Offline ejb749

Re: Dream Chaser ALT-2 Party thread
« Reply #27 on: 11/06/2017 09:34 pm »
If the Dreamchaser ALT is scrubbed today how is tomorrow looking?
Tomorrow looks good for winds. 
https://www.wunderground.com/forecast/us/ca/mojave/93501?cm_ven=localwx_10day

Offline JazzFan

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Re: Dream Chaser ALT-2 Party thread
« Reply #28 on: 11/06/2017 10:42 pm »
And before I die I hope to hear someone say "Eddy Tower, this is DreamChaser rollin' in on final, I'll get the gear in the flare." (You might be a Space Geek if you get the reference.)

From "At Home in Space: The Late Seventies into the Eighties"

By Ben Evans

Offline Rocket Science

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Re: Dream Chaser ALT-2 Party thread
« Reply #29 on: 11/06/2017 11:32 pm »
The Chris(s) have written and posted the article so I guess we can go now... ;D
"The laws of physics are unforgiving"
~Rob: Physics instructor, Aviator

Offline john smith 19

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Re: Dream Chaser ALT-2 Party thread
« Reply #30 on: 11/06/2017 11:40 pm »
I have a dream, that one day the skies over Edwards will once again echo with a double sonic boom announcing the arrival of a Dream Chaser cargo spacecraft.
Or possibly Kourou.  :)

Despite what people may think DC remains the most cutting edge current vehicle that has actually been built.

A crew rated (has to be if it's berthing/docking to ISS) composite structure lifting body vehicle expected to fly from full LEO to landing automatically.

People will say "What about the X37b," but while it is automated it's not crew rated, and its design is a fairly conventional winged body (as was Shuttle, but with complex wings for the near totally unused cross range requirement).
« Last Edit: 11/06/2017 11:42 pm by john smith 19 »
MCT ITS BFR SS. The worlds first Methane fueled FFSC engined CFRP SS structure A380 sized aerospaceplane tail sitter capable of Earth & Mars atmospheric flight.First flight to Mars by end of 2022 TBC. T&C apply. Trust nothing. Run your own #s "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof" R. Simberg."Competitve" means cheaper ¬cheap SCramjet proposed 1956. First +ve thrust 2004. US R&D spend to date > $10Bn. #deployed designs. Zero.

Offline JAFO

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Re: Dream Chaser ALT-2 Party thread
« Reply #31 on: 11/06/2017 11:59 pm »
And before I die I hope to hear someone say "Eddy Tower, this is DreamChaser rollin' in on final, I'll get the gear in the flare." (You might be a Space Geek if you get the reference.)

From "At Home in Space: The Late Seventies into the Eighties"

By Ben Evans

Read the book but can't remember if it's in there or not, can you be more specific?


« Last Edit: 11/07/2017 12:56 pm by JAFO »
Anyone can do the job when things are going right. In this business we play for keeps.
— Ernest K. Gann

Offline Lars-J

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Re: Dream Chaser ALT-2 Party thread
« Reply #32 on: 11/07/2017 04:41 am »
I have a dream, that one day the skies over Edwards will once again echo with a double sonic boom announcing the arrival of a Dream Chaser cargo spacecraft.
Or possibly Kourou.  :)

Despite what people may think DC remains the most cutting edge current vehicle that has actually been built.

...based on a Soviet test spacecraft that first flew in 1982.  ;) So be careful with that hyberbole, it is very selective.
« Last Edit: 11/07/2017 04:42 am by Lars-J »

Offline Lar

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Re: Dream Chaser ALT-2 Party thread
« Reply #33 on: 11/07/2017 10:07 am »
It was advanced in 1982. The state of the art in lifting bodies maybe hasn't advanced enough to make it not advanced now.
"I think it would be great to be born on Earth and to die on Mars. Just hopefully not at the point of impact." -Elon Musk
"We're a little bit like the dog who caught the bus" - Musk after CRS-8 S1 successfully landed on ASDS OCISLY

Offline john smith 19

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Re: Dream Chaser ALT-2 Party thread
« Reply #34 on: 11/07/2017 11:12 am »
It was advanced in 1982. The state of the art in lifting bodies maybe hasn't advanced enough to make it not advanced now.
I have a dream, that one day the skies over Edwards will once again echo with a double sonic boom announcing the arrival of a Dream Chaser cargo spacecraft.
Or possibly Kourou.  :)

Despite what people may think DC remains the most cutting edge current vehicle that has actually been built.

...based on a Soviet test spacecraft that first flew in 1982.  ;) So be careful with that hyberbole, it is very selective.
Why? I characterized it as "cutting edge" for the total package, not for any one feature.
a) No other design close to flight is a lifting body.
b) Crew rated (none of the Russian vehicles or the X37b is)
c) Composite construction. AFAIK only the X37b and BEAM modules are. You would not like to attempt Earth entry inside BEAM, although it's probably survivable in the payload bay of the X37b.

By contrast the both of the other CC vehicles are very technically conservative, especially so with the elimination of land landing from Dragon 2.  :(
MCT ITS BFR SS. The worlds first Methane fueled FFSC engined CFRP SS structure A380 sized aerospaceplane tail sitter capable of Earth & Mars atmospheric flight.First flight to Mars by end of 2022 TBC. T&C apply. Trust nothing. Run your own #s "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof" R. Simberg."Competitve" means cheaper ¬cheap SCramjet proposed 1956. First +ve thrust 2004. US R&D spend to date > $10Bn. #deployed designs. Zero.

Offline abaddon

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Re: Dream Chaser ALT-2 Party thread
« Reply #35 on: 11/07/2017 12:08 pm »
Oh goodie, the return of “lifting bodies are great and capsules are dumb”.  Lifting bodies aren’t inherently more advanced than capsules.

Also, docking with ISS doesn’t make something “crew rated” (an increasingly widely applied term these days). 

There are things to like about DC cargo without making stuff up.

Offline Lar

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Re: Dream Chaser ALT-2 Party thread
« Reply #36 on: 11/07/2017 02:01 pm »
It's a party thread. Party on...
"I think it would be great to be born on Earth and to die on Mars. Just hopefully not at the point of impact." -Elon Musk
"We're a little bit like the dog who caught the bus" - Musk after CRS-8 S1 successfully landed on ASDS OCISLY

Offline JazzFan

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Re: Dream Chaser ALT-2 Party thread
« Reply #37 on: 11/07/2017 11:13 pm »
It's a party thread. Party on...

I second that,  Party on..... Garth, or to quote Snoop Dogg, "drop it like it's HOT!"

Offline Rocket Science

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Re: Dream Chaser ALT-2 Party thread
« Reply #38 on: 11/08/2017 12:36 am »
I have a dream, that one day the skies over Edwards will once again echo with a double sonic boom announcing the arrival of a Dream Chaser cargo spacecraft.
Or possibly Kourou.  :)

Despite what people may think DC remains the most cutting edge current vehicle that has actually been built.

...based on a Soviet test spacecraft that first flew in 1982.  ;) So be careful with that hyberbole, it is very selective.
Which was based on the SV-5D/X-23/PRIME from the mid 1960's but hey, the laws of physics haven't changed much for spaceflight since...
https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=36029.0
"The laws of physics are unforgiving"
~Rob: Physics instructor, Aviator

Offline john smith 19

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Re: Dream Chaser ALT-2 Party thread
« Reply #39 on: 11/08/2017 08:34 am »
Oh goodie, the return of “lifting bodies are great and capsules are dumb”.  Lifting bodies aren’t inherently more advanced than capsules.

The term I used was "cutting edge," because it is using approaches that have not been very well explored up to now.

I'm not saying DC is "better, " merely that it pushes the boundaries more than capsule designs. How many capsule designs have flown (AFAIK all biology sample returns and film return from reconnaissance satellites through the 1960s and 70's were capsules. That only changed with Shuttle).

Different <> Better.  DC and capsules both have attractive features, along with less attractive features.

Quote from: abaddon
Also, docking with ISS doesn’t make something “crew rated” (an increasingly widely applied term these days). 
This came up during SX's design of Dragon and Dragon 2.
Anything docking or berthing to the ISS has to be safe enough for humans to use it, in terms of the structural integrity, temperature and pressure it can maintain, basically by complying with all design standards necessary to do so.
What's no longer mandatory is a GNC and landing system with 5 9's reliability (since IIRC this will still be berthed, and ISS will be in control of most of the process) and the g limits can be relaxed.
 
IIRC Rand Simberg pointed out that "Man rating" originally applied to how to increase the reliability of re-purposed ICBM's to the level they could reasonably safely carry humans. Given that including sitting on top of several hundred tons of toxic, carcinogenic and corrosive hypergols during the Gemini programme, this is an unusual definition of the word "safe."

Your future posts would be improved if you read what I wrote, not what you think I wrote.
MCT ITS BFR SS. The worlds first Methane fueled FFSC engined CFRP SS structure A380 sized aerospaceplane tail sitter capable of Earth & Mars atmospheric flight.First flight to Mars by end of 2022 TBC. T&C apply. Trust nothing. Run your own #s "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof" R. Simberg."Competitve" means cheaper ¬cheap SCramjet proposed 1956. First +ve thrust 2004. US R&D spend to date > $10Bn. #deployed designs. Zero.

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