Posts: 42988
From: Houston, TX
Registered: Nov 1999

Posts: 867
From: CA.
Registered: Jan 2011

posted 09-26-2017 06:10 PM               

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Just for interest's sake, is the U.S. taxpayer the person who is predominantly paying for this little endeavor? The U.S. is currently planning to use the Dream Chaser (DC) as a cargo van to the ISS. Is this UN project essentially a politically correct way for the U.S. government to finance a third option for an unmanned flight ready orbiter?

Don't get me wrong, I like the concept of the Dream Chaser and would have liked to see it as a third U.S. platform for taking people to the ISS. I just have a real problem with not spending the money up front for actually creating the human lift capability, and instead using this project as a work around for funneling money to a politically connected aerospace company.

Posts: 42988
From: Houston, TX
Registered: Nov 1999

posted 09-26-2017 06:25 PM               

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NASA (and therefore the U.S. taxpayer) is only funding Dream Chaser for cargo flights to the space station. Any other missions or application of the Dream Chaser design is the financial responsibility of Sierra Nevada and its partners.

The same is true for all U.S. commercial spacecraft with NASA contracts. Sierra Nevada, Boeing, SpaceX and Orbital ATK (Northrop Grumman) can use their spacecraft for other missions and customers, but NASA funds can only go toward NASA flights.