Holy shit, just noticed the date stamps on this thread are Nov 2015 ...how embarrassing, kinja.

The problem for Star Trek is that they have so much technology... the audience might start to wonder ‘why this way, and not that.’

Star Trek...had the run time to spend on the daily life of people in space ships. Ain’t nobody got time in Star Wars for that...

Great Morgan is finally getting an adaptation. I’d also vote for Market Forces; an interesting little near-future corporate road warrior flick is exactly what I’d like to see...with the boiler plate “if it’s done well” of course.

Sorry. I try to limit polarizing commentary.

fuckin’ magnets ... HOW DO THEY WORK????

a barge that catches / eats the rocket

...or redesign the runways to make up for landing gear that might fail?

...haven’t seen answered by SpaceX or anyone is why a soft landing in the actual water isn’t an option...

Thanks for setting the scene Mika.

Four kinds of comments:

I watch the presto-instagrammo vid over and over and the rocket tips over and blows up every single time. Over and over. Make it stop. Make it stop!

What’s this...Wall-E’s granddad! Omega!

word.

I was thinking more like a rusty Ford Bronco beater with a few after market strap-ons. More cargo space for a busy smuggler courier.

Apparently the opinion runs deep in the Russian cosmological psyche that HL-20, and therefore Dream Chaser, are direct descendents of BOR-4. from novosti-kosmonavtiki.ru/news/30156 (via google translate):

Interesting story that BOR-4 influenced HL-20 crew return vehicle design: The BOR-4 was first seen in 1982 by an Australian tv crew and first report of BOR-4 wind tunnel model at NASA are 1983, leading to stories that BOR-4 was basis of HL-20 CRV (1988). Did the Soviets give the US a model? Not likely. Langley cribbed…

That picture is great and it shows where the Soviets were prepared to go to make it happen...but that article is circa 1980. No need for pissing match, the Soviet program was impressive but the competition goes back to post-war germany and Eugen Sänger’s anti-podal, lifting body, sub-orbital space plane; the US did…

it’s that crash footage...they added the third fin on the back for stability (that’s why they all have a third fin)...actually rebuilt ship, didn’t build a new one. So now I have the theme music drifting in my brain.

The big news here is not the awarding of contracts, nor that three were chosen; It’s that SNC got a contract and a) there will be a lifting-body VTHL vehicle in use, and b) SNC will be able to refine the Dream Chaser to the crew-carrying bird it needs to be (and we’ve wanted since the 1960s).