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Re:Boeing-SpaceX Team Split Space Taxi Award by mikeash on Wednesday September 17, 2014 @06:38AM (#8329374)
Look at capabilities, not looks. Dragon V2, if it lives up to its promise along with F9R, means dramatically reduced costs for launching people into space through almost complete reusability of the launch vehicle and capsule. Turnaround times on the order of days, launch costs in the single-digit millions, it would be huge. It's basically all of the empty promises of the Space Shuttle, but (it appears for the moment, at least) with the hardware to back it up.

CST-100 makes similar promises if it can be matched with a reusable launcher (perhaps F9R). I'm not sure if they're looking at similarly short turnaround times (probably not). But they're much less far along and it's hard to judge if they can deliver.

Dream Chaser also makes similar promises, again if it can be matched with a reusable launcher. What's the advantage of it over the others? As far as I can see, the only real advantage is less gee loading during reentry. In exchange, you add a lot of complication and weight (wings and wheels). It doesn't seem worth it at all.

Spaceplanes look cool, but what's the point? The goal should be robustness and cheapness, with reusability a necessity for enabling the latter. Vertical powered landing with a capsule looks like an excellent way to achieve this.

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