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A comment on The New 'Dream Chaser' Spacecraft Prepares to Visit the ISS.

Re:The New 'Dream Chaser' Spacecraft Prepares to Visit the ISS by ramesh31 on Saturday May 18, 2024 @01:55PM (#40400696)
This would be a perfect Starship payload. I don't buy that human beings will ever reenter earth's atmosphere in Starship and land propulsively. There is simply too much safety advantage in an aerodynamically landable aircraft or parachute capsule to do it any other way.
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Re:The New 'Dream Chaser' Spacecraft Prepares to Visit the ISS by phkahler on Saturday May 18, 2024 @02:07PM (#40400796)
Falcon 9 has a landings are more reliable now than space shuttle launches. I'm not sure how the Starship flip would make people feel.
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Re:The New 'Dream Chaser' Spacecraft Prepares to Visit the ISS by ramesh31 on Saturday May 18, 2024 @03:06PM (#40401221)
You cannot compare the suborbital booster return to an oribital reentry, they are two completely different things. No SpaceX vehicle but Crew Dragon (a capsule) has ever returned astronauts from space, and I suspect it will be the only solution for a long time to come.
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Re:The New 'Dream Chaser' Spacecraft Prepares to Visit the ISS by phkahler on Tuesday May 21, 2024 @07:05PM (#40435217)
>> You cannot compare the suborbital booster return to an oribital reentry, they are two completely different things.

Agreed, but I expect Starship to be doing the same in a few years.

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Re:The New 'Dream Chaser' Spacecraft Prepares to Visit the ISS by avmich on Sunday May 19, 2024 @04:07PM (#40409419)
I do think that if we'd make Shuttle today, it would be much more reliable than it was. Successes of vertical Falcon-9 landings notwithstanding.
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Re:The New 'Dream Chaser' Spacecraft Prepares to Visit the ISS by avmich on Sunday May 19, 2024 @04:06PM (#40409413)
Mostly agree. Winged design can be much gentler for passing the atmosphere on the way back comparing to capsules and can probably even get passively to landing speed, the drawback being the requirements of the landing strip. They are also better to control, both with choosing the place to land and even with ability of having atmospheric engines, which would get them close to aircrafts in handling landing.
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