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Commercialization

Why Does Sierra Nevada Want To Land Dream Chaser in Alabama?

By Keith Cowing
NASA Watch
June 29, 2018
Filed under
Why Does Sierra Nevada Want To Land Dream Chaser in Alabama?

Space plane could make first Alabama landing in 2022, AL.com
“A mini space plane could return from space and land at the Huntsville International Aiport as soon as 2022, the Alabama Space Authority was told today. “When the space shuttle landed, thousands of people would come out. It was a huge event,” John Roth, vice president of business relations for Sierra Nevada Corp., said in Huntsville. “We haven’t had a landing like that in a long time. We think that first landing is going to be a giant landing, and we’d like it to be here.”
Keith’s note: Is Sierra Nevada pandering to the Alabama congressional delegation or is there an actual, logical, reason to land in Alabama? Oh yes – Sierra Nevada says that their first mission might be “sponsored by the United Nations”. But who is actually paying for it? The UN?

NASA Watch founder, Explorers Club Fellow, ex-NASA, Away Teams, Journalist, Space & Astrobiology, Lapsed climber.

67 responses to “Why Does Sierra Nevada Want To Land Dream Chaser in Alabama?”

  1. Johnhouboltsmyspiritanimal says:
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    Wasn’t the pitch of dream chaser runway landing was it could land right at JSC/Ellington for quicker return of payload samples and other critical return items?

  2. Richard Brezinski says:
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    There is a lot of spirit at MSFC, and in terms of engineering leadership it is pretty good. JSC’s days may be numbered:
    https://www.houstoniamag.co
    There is essentially no leadership there and has not been in many years as many former leaders seem to agree in this article. Spirit has been lacking; I think because unless you are friends with the one or two top level key managers, career wise you are just wasting your time. JSC’s projects are mainly failing and largely are not even in the real space flight realm any longer-mainly they are simulating missions that we will never see. KSC makes more sense from a standpoint for aborts. Edwards offers lots of flat surface but its out of the way. Maybe SNC could offer landing exhibitions to the highest bidding cities?

    • Nick K says:
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      Pretty much agree with this assessment. Unfortunately JSC decided years ago that their main role was operations and they gave up on engineering and most science. That was in the Shuttle era. Now operations is hardly a thing any longer; they have far too many people ‘doing it’, operations, but nothing really going on. Partly because they were enamored with internationals, and so they gave most design and development work over not only to contractors but to other countries.They were originally called the “Manned Spacecraft Center”, but doesn’t even do that any longer. MSFC is very enthusiastic about DDT&E, science, everything that counts. Operations is almost incidental at MSFC.

      • tutiger87 says:
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        I would disagree just a bit. There is a whole lot of good work going on in software and other areas. Just not publicized.

    • chuckc192000 says:
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      Yeah, Morpheus was a good example of that — busywork just to keep a few engineers occupied. It got a LOT of press when they crashed it the same week Curiosity landed on Mars.

  3. Joe Denison says:
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    I’d say there are several logical reasons for SNC to consider Huntsville as a possible landing site.

    1. Huntsville wants DC to land there and has already applied for a license.

    2. Large aerospace footprint/NASA Center nearby. Also a potential to partner with a nearby space grant institution (Auburn University) that already has a student satellite program.

    3. Just a guess but airspace over Alabama would likely be less clogged than some other options.

    4. Also even if another site (like KSC) is used as the main landing site it is probably a good idea to have another landing site available.

    As someone who is from Alabama and graduated from Auburn I know there are a lot of good engineers, scientists, and other hard workers in the state. DC having a presence there wouldn’t be solely due to political maneuvering. There is a talent pool they could draw on.

    • fcrary says:
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      The Dream Chaser is designed to launch on a mid- to heavy launch vehicle, like an Atlas V or Falcon Heavy. After landing one in Alabama, what would SNC do with it? There are no suitable launch facilities in Huntsville. Transporting it to a launch site would be inefficient. The Shuttle program tried that, with landings in California and launches from Florida. That idea was abandoned in favor of landing in Florida, close to the site of the vehicle’s next launch.

      • Joe Denison says:
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        It would be less efficient than landing at KSC from a turnaround standpoint. That said it wouldn’t be as difficult to transport DC from Huntsville to Florida as it was to transport the shuttle across the country.

        Also the lack of launch facilities in Huntsville could be a plus. CCAFS and KSC are only going to get busier in terms of number of launches (and booster landings). The range might end up being clearer in Huntsville.

        • ThomasLMatula says:
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          No, but it will be an unnecessary expense, especially as you have Cecil Field in Florida, IF the Cape would actually be too busy to handle it. There are also the various issues associated with adding a glider like the Dream Chaser into the operations of a commercial airport with a significant number of commercial flights (Huntsville has about three dozen a day). Just how much will it cost to close the field to commercial airliners for an hour or two and who will pay for it?

          No this has nothing to do with logic and everything to do with the Alabama Pork machine and trying to tap into it.

          • RocketDawg says:
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            No reason to close the airport to land the DC, except maybe for a few minutes. There are two runways a mile apart. Just plan around it. It’s not JFK or LAX we’re talking about, with flights coming in every few seconds.

          • ThomasLMatula says:
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            Except that it won’t be able to follow a standard landing pattern. Likely it will be making some high speed turns in the vicinity to burn off altitude and speed, how much would vary by flight. So it could well be cutting across all the normal approach and landing patterns.

          • Steve Pemberton says:
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            If it’s anything like the Shuttle those high speed turns will be happening hundreds if not thousands of miles from the airport, at altitudes far above even airliners and military planes at cruising altitude.

            And because of its steep descent, even the spaceplane’s final turn towards the runway will be far above any other aircraft that are approaching or departing the airport.

            Although as it descends below 50,000 feet in the final few minutes before landing it would potentially be in the way of aircraft cruising through that area, or aircraft departing or arriving at another airport in the vicinity. But ATC would just route other aircraft around the area that the spaceplane is passing through, just as they route planes around a thunderstorm. Because of the steep descent there isn’t a huge horizontal ground track from 50,000 feet down to the runway.

      • Steve Pemberton says:
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        They always intended to land the Shuttle at KSC, however for the first several landings they wanted the extra room available at Edwards. Sally Ride’s STS-7 flight was planned to be the first landing at KSC, however bad weather caused it to divert to Edwards. The first landing at KSC was the tenth mission in 1984. However in 1985 after a blown tire and brake damage they shifted all landings back to Edwards while they got that sorted out. Compounded by the Challenger accident in 1986, it would be five years until the next KSC landing in 1990, ironically that landing was a weather diversion from Edwards. Scheduled landings at KSC didn’t resume until 1991. Adding to all of this was the finicky Florida weather causing many diversions to Edwards during the program. In the end the Shuttle wound up making 54 of its 133 landings at Edwards, and of course one at White Sands,

        The number always tossed around for how much it cost to transport the Shuttle from California to Florida was one million dollars. Maybe not accurate but I would guess it’s in the ballpark. And it was far from being a non-stop flight. Due to the drag of the orbiter on top of the 747 they had to fly at slow speeds and make several stops along the way. And they wouldn’t fly a segment if there was even a chance of rain as that could damage the orbiter. Combined with the mate-demate process on each end, the whole thing took about a week from what I remember.

        • RocketDawg says:
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          And somewhere in all that they added the braking parachutes for landing. I don’t remember exactly when that happened, but the early flights did not have that feature. Buran did, for its one and only flight.

          • fcrary says:
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            That was post-Challenger. The Rogers report expressed concerns about the brakes/landing gear overheating. I don’t think it was ever problem, but they didn’t think there was enough margin for error.

      • RocketDawg says:
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        True, you’re not going to launch in Huntsville as long as range safety restrictions are in effect. Edwards was never a primary landing site, except for the early flights. Beyond that, it was an alternate site and it was quite expensive to ferry it back to Florida. When Vandenburg was a planned Shuttle launch site, I honestly don’t remember where the Orbiter was going to land. If weather prevented landing at either KSC or Edwards, then White Sands was a tertiary site, and I think only used once.

        I suspect that ferrying the Dream Chaser from Huntsville to the launch site would be much less expensive than ferrying the Shuttle. But are politics involved in site selection? Of course. There’s hardly anything these days that not political.

    • Neal Aldin says:
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      Based on your comments absolutely no supporting rationale for a landing in HSV other than some interestéd bystanders..

    • unfunded_dreams says:
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      A large part of the reason it made sense to land shuttle at KSC was that the post-flight servicing function was at KSC. I’m not familiar with the post-flight servicing plans for the dreamchaser, but if it’s serviced somewhere in the Midwest MSFC may be a perfectly reasonable choice.

    • RocketDawg says:
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      I don’t know if they are “space grant universities”, but there are also other universities physically closer to Huntsville than Auburn is … such as Mississippi State, Georgia Tech, Vanderbilt … and they all have pretty decent engineering programs. So the aerospace talent impact is even larger than you stated.

  4. richard_schumacher says:
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    “Pandering” sounds about right. Maybe SNC plans not to re-use this one, so why not land in an otherwise impractical place. [Edit: Nahh, of course they will re-use it.]

    • ThomasLMatula says:
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      Transport should not be an issue. It’s small enough it fits on a flatbed. That is how it was transported from Colorado to Edwards AFB.

  5. tutiger87 says:
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    Two words: overflight risk. It became a pain in the tail after Columbia, limiting entry approaches. Undoubtedly Dream Chaser will have a significantly smaller casualty footprint, but it will still be an issue.

  6. ThomasLMatula says:
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    Funny, I don’t recall the Shuttle Orbiter ever landing in Huntsville. The only other landings sites that NASA used was Edwards AFB and once, Northrup Strip at WSMR.

    As for the selection of Huntsville, the answer is simple, Pork Funding. If they make Senator Shelby and the rest of the pork masters in Huntsville happy they may get more funding.

    • Joe Denison says:
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      The shuttle is a much larger and more complex spacecraft than DC. Just because it didn’t make sense for the shuttle to land there doesn’t mean a DC landing is unworkable.

      • ThomasLMatula says:
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        The size will impact the length of the runway needed, but little else. The Dream Chaser, like the Shuttle, is a high speed glider which means it’s ability to maneuver is limited. And once on the runway special teams in hazmat gear will need to make it safe before it is towed off and the runway is available for other aircraft to use. This may be faster because it is smaller, but you still are looking at closing the airport and keeping its airspace clear. You also will need contingency planning in case it’s not able to land on the first opportunity and needs to make an additional orbit. Of course if a landing is possible on the next orbit would depend on its cross range. That is why, although the X-37B is about the same size it only lands at VAFB and KSC. You need to remember a spaceplane is much different than conventional aircraft and trying to integrate it into a commercial airfield is not going to be cheap or easy.

        And did we talk about the sonic booms it will make on the way in?

        • fcrary says:
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          In the case of Dream Chaser, hazmat teams shouldn’t be required. Unless the design has changed (again), it would use propane and nitrous oxide. The Shuttle needed the hazmat team because it used NTO/MMH.

  7. Homer Hickam says:
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    The airport in Huntsville is part of the Port of Huntsville with a large capacity for servicing, housing, and transporting cargo by rail, barge, and truck so no problem moving this small spacecraft or servicing it. Barges from Huntsville have carried rocket stages and engines from Huntsville to KSC for decades. The airport has two long and relatively lightly used parallel runways, one of which is the second longest in the SE US at 12,600 feet. Its International Intermodal Center has a large capacity to expand and/or accept new occupants. Huntsville is also the home of Space Camp so Dream Chaser would be seen by thousands of young people as it comes in to land. Since I live in Huntsville most of the time, I’d like to see it come here. Come to think of it, I should have just mentioned that latter fact and left it at that.

    PS – Although there are many Auburn graduates here, Auburn University itself is located on the other end of the state and has only a small footprint in Huntsville/Madison. However, University of Alabama in Huntsville is a top-rated engineering school and Alabama A&M and Oakwood University are also located here, both fine schools.

    • ThomasLMatula says:
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      Yes, statistics show it has 221 flights a day, including 35 commercial flights. Four passenger and six cargo airlines serve it. It will be interesting see what reaction will be of those airlines to shutting the field down for an hour or two to avaition to support a Dream Chaser landing. There is a reason no one else, other than the defunct XCOR, has been looking to operate spacecraft from major airports with commercial service. But it does sound cool to call a facility an Air and Spaceport ?

      • Homer Hickam says:
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        If I may, let’s pick your commentary apart just a little bit. When one enters the huge, recently completely remodeled Huntsville passenger terminal, experienced flyers notice at once how calm and downright quiet it is (unless packed with a class of Space Campers going to and fro). This is because there are very, very few travelers making connections there. For the most part, passengers in the Huntsville terminal are either leaving from there or arriving so they aren’t frantically trying to reach a gate (none of which in any case are in another terminal, all within a few steps of one another). Another reason for the calm is that savvy Huntsville airline ticket holders always try to build a cushion into their flights since they are heading to hubs such as Atlanta, Dallas, and Denver. After they get even savvier, they build a cushion at the hubs as well since Huntsville departers often have to sit on the tarmac or in the terminal waiting for the busy or weather situations to clear out at their connecting airport. A scheduled flight in by Dream Chaser is going to have little effect on Huntsville passengers, most of whom are connected with the high tech industry in one way or the other and would surely welcome having the spacecraft land here. As for cargo flights, which are the bulk of flights in and out of Huntsville, a majority of them come in at night or, given enough warning, can reschedule as required so there’s not much problem there. For emergencies of either the Dream Chaser or the commercial/cargo flights, Redstone Army Airfield is only a few miles away with its 7300 foot runway as well as the Madison County Executive Airport (6500 foot runway) only a little farther. On the glide path of the Dream Chaser and available for an extreme emergency landing would also be the big runways of Nashville, Memphis, and with a high center glide path, Birmingham. When you think about it, why would anyone want to land a winged spacecraft anywhere other than Huntsville?

        • ThomasLMatula says:
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          Statistics show about 700,000 passengers a year flying to, from or connecting at Huntsville. That would be about 2,000 a day. If it seems empty it’s only because easy access to Congressional money (9 to 1 matching local) has resulted in the terminals being built far too large for a city its size.

          If those other airports are going to potentially be emergency fields than you are going to be disrupting operations there as well. Really, if Huntsville made so much sense why didn’t NASA land the Shuttle there? Or the X-37B? If the runway is too short I am sure Senator Shelby would have found money to lengthen it. No, once the airlines see what the financial impact is they will have a discussion with the airport operators and you will see support for it disappear fast.

          • Homer Hickam says:
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            Let’s just leave it there, Tom.

          • RocketDawg says:
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            The annual passenger (enplanement and deplanment) count at HSV is actually 1.1 to 1.2M. It has dropped a little in the last year or two, but not to 700K.

            The two runways at HSV are a mile apart. Both are used for landings and takeoff of commercial and cargo aircraft, and can handle any airplane currently in operation.

            As far as I can recall, no commercial airport in the country had a runway long enough or strong enough to handle a Shuttle landing. Landing speed was quite high, plus post-flight servicing was extensive, most of which was done at KSC. Even when landing at Edwards, it had to be ferried back to KSC by 747 for post-flight processing, other than immediate safety concerns.

          • Nick K says:
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            Not sure where you are getting your information. Shuttle had dozens of landng sites all over the world loaded in their computers in case of emergency returns. Shuttles were not that heavy (200000 lb compared to jumbos of 1,000,000 lb) and landing speed was not exceptional at around 200 mph, similar to many military aircraft. You generally did not want the fuel venting into areas with people was the only real issue.

          • Daniel Woodard says:
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            It’s quite true that remote emergency landing sites around the world were identified for the Shuttle, but this was considered a very unlikely contingency, more like an airliner declaring an emergency than a normal operation, and wherever possible military airfields were designated rather than commercial airports. The only commercial airport routinely prepared for Shuttle landings was the Transatlantic Abort Landing site at Banjul International Airport, in the Gambia on Africa’s west coast. A team from KSC was sent prior to each launch, if Banjul was on the flight path, to prepare the landing aids.

          • Nick K says:
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            Banjul was late in the program. Early on there were many more with crews routinely dispatched to Rota Spain, Dakar Senegal, and several others. My comment was just in reference to RocketDawg’s statement that “As far as I can recall, no commercial airport in the country had a runway long enough or strong enough to handle a Shuttle landing. Landing speed was quite high…” In fact Shuttle required nothing special as far as landing on a typical large runway. Servicing of hypergols was another matter.

          • fcrary says:
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            Some of the Shuttle’s abort sites weren’t too well thought out. After Challenger, the Rogers commission too a look at the whole system and found a number of issues which were then corrected. For example, a launch out of Vandenberg (which they never used), one of the abort sites would have been Easter Island. The runway was fine for Shuttle landings. But not for a 747 taking off with a Shuttle on top of it. They upgraded it in 1987.

            Edit: I can’t find that in the Rogers report, so maybe they weren’t the ones who noticed. But did pay to upgrade Mataveri International Airport’s runway in 1987, and the airport credits this with allowing use by wide-body aircraft.

          • ThomasLMatula says:
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            Actually Orlando is listed as one of the emergency fields as are a number of foreign fields, but as they say “any port in a storm”.

            https://www.globalsecurity….

          • RocketDawg says:
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            I meant as a routine landing site. Yes, there were several foreign sites for various failure modes during launch. Didn’t know about Orlando being an emergency site but it’s not surprising.

        • fcrary says:
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          Actually, there is an interesting point lurking in here about using _any_ commercial airport for spaceplane landings. Especially a glide landing. What would the FAA say about other aircraft? From the reentry burn to landing, the spacecraft is committed, and I presume that means there would be a certain amount of time when no other aircraft could use the runway.

          That would be true even if the other aircraft had an emergency. And no planes taxing to the end of the runway, since some delay might put them in the way for the spaceplane. I’m not sure how the FAA would feel about using other runways at the same airport.

          I’m not sure how much of a window would be required, or how they would handle a reentry delayed due to weather or some other contingency. Is this a matter of closing the airport for an hour? Or an afternoon? Or every day until further notice (in case of a delay)?

          • Steve Pemberton says:
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            I suspect it wouldn’t be much of a disruption, and possibly no disruption at all. It’s not like when Air Force One comes to town and shuts the whole place down for twenty minutes while it approaches, lands and taxis.

            Huntsville has two parallel runways on either side of the terminal, 10,000 and 12,000 foot, conveniently oriented exactly north/south for polar missions 🙂 I’m guessing DC could use either runway, although I’m pretty sure they would be given the 12,000 foot runway. So that would be the only runway that needs to be closed while it lands. Homer might know but I’m guessing normally one runway is used for takeoffs and the other for landings. In that case while DC is using one runway, the other runway would be used for both takeoffs and landings for the other planes. That would be the only potential delay that I can think of because during that period a departing aircraft couldn’t just taxi out and take off like it normally would, it might have to wait for an arriving aircraft to land.

            DC will be coming in on a predictable path and predictable landing time so I would think they could probably close its runway say fifteen minutes before it arrives, assuming that’s enough time to clear out the approach path. Assuming DC descends at a rate anything like Shuttle it will only be in the terminal control area very briefly, and only for the last few miles before touchdown, so it’s not like they have to clear out 100 miles of approach airspace. Yes they would have to keep airspace clear at higher altitudes as it descends, but those wouldn’t be aircraft landing at Huntsville.

            After landing, however long it takes to tow it out of the way, let’s say fifteen minutes for that also. So one runway out of two closed for 30 minutes, however many times a year DC flies.

            It’s an important point that you bring up about it being committed to landing after the deorbit burn. However the worst case scenario that I can think of is the extremely unlikely event of another aircraft getting stuck on the runway, say after a crash landing or gear up landing, and there isn’t time to get it off the runway before DC arrives. In that case DC would have to use the other runway, in which case the airport would effectively be closed until it landed. Same thing if another aircraft declared an emergency while DC is on approach, they would have to close the other available runway for that aircraft to use.

          • ThomasLMatula says:
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            Remember, before it’s towed away the hazmat team has to check and make the vehicle safe which may take longer then 15 minutes. It may be OK to use the other runway during that period, but the FAA would have to determine if it would be safe or would it present risks to the hazmat team working on it.

          • Steve Pemberton says:
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            Per the SNC website:

            “Since Dream Chaser uses all non-toxic consumables, including propellants, there are no environmental or safety hazards that require unique ground support infrastructure. As a result, it has the potential to land anywhere that has a suitable 10,000 ft runway capable of handling a typical large passenger airplane (like a Boeing 737 or Airbus 320). Almost immediately after landing, the Dream Chaser spacecraft offers access to cargo and crew.”

            According to Wikipedia the propellant is propane and nitrous oxide and the RCS uses ethanol.

          • fcrary says:
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            I’m a little worried about the way you describe this. It’s as if Dream Chaser will be in routine operations. That was one point about the CAIB report made about the Shuttle. With a very new sort of vehicle, you can’t just do a few commissioning flights and then safely put it into routine service. Admittedly, Dream Chaser is less novel than the Shuttle was. But even for much more evolutionary designs of aircraft, you see prototypes and Y-planes before they go to the production version. We may have to wait for the DC-2 before we see the sort of operations you describe.

            In any case, even if you assume Dream Chaser can be operated in the way you describe, it still wouldn’t be quite that easy. First, in terms of regulations, I’m not an expert, but doesn’t the FAA have something to say about inserting a glider into the traffic flow at a commercial airport? What, exactly, do they say? I suspect the answer is “don’t, except in case of emergencies” and/or rules predicated on the assumption this would only be done in an emergency. I know recreational gliders aren’t treated that way, but I also don’t see them using the same runways as 737s. If my guess is correct, those rules and regulations would have to change before Dream Chaser could operate in the way you describe.

            Second, that 30 minute estimate is based on the time Dream Chaser itself needs. The air and ground traffic at an airport isn’t trivial. Consider a few random examples.

            It isn’t at all unusual for an airplane to get to the start of the runway and be asked to wait five or ten minutes due to wind conditions. It that would take it into the window where Dream Chaser needs a clear runway, waiting isn’t an option. I guess that would mean turning around and going back to a taxiway, along with any aircraft lined up behind the one in front. Which would be a total mess. More likely, they would add in some margin and have aircraft wait at the gate until Dream Chaser was down. That’s probably going to mean another 15 minutes plus whatever margin they want.

            In the air, what about incoming aircraft? Can you put them in a holding pattern while Dream Chaser is on the way in? (And what sort of no-fly zone was used for Shuttle landings?) That could be a problem if a flight was longer than planned (e.g. due to weather) or if the airport is just backed up due to one sort of delay or another. (Try flying into Heathrow; you are almost guaranteed to end up in a holding pattern; they’re operating too close to capacity and with too little margin for minor glitches.) That’s all solvable, but it’s inviting diverts to other airports. That’s really not something you want to do on a regular basis (and minor glitches are things which happen on a regular basis.) So they would probably want to limit incoming traffic. I’d guess that’s another 15 to 30 minutes plus margin.

            Those look like minor issues, but the very low accident rate in civil aviation is all about getting all those little details right. And the 15 minutes here and the 15 minutes there add up. A safe, reliable way to handle the traffic flow around a spaceplane landing would, I suspect, mean shutting down the airport for at least a couple hours. And that’s with an operational spaceplane.

          • Steve Pemberton says:
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            Agree that it depends on how the FAA views all of this. It’s new territory, in the same arena as UAV cargo and passenger flights over populated areas, with the additional complexity of being a spaceplane. However I think there is a realization that the future has arrived or at least quickly approaching, and that most likely some accommodation is going to be needed for activities that not all that long ago were considered futuristic science fiction. However it’s hard to predict what the initial regulations will look like. What I am describing is how I think it will look at some point, but how soon the FAA would allow SNC or any other company to operate as I describe is unpredictable.

            The glider concept, combined with your previous comment about commitment to landing, will probably be the thorniest issue. In effect a spaceplane declares an emergency as soon as it begins deorbit burn. If the FAA sticks with traditional thinking about this then it will be extremely restrictive about where such landings can occur. However the FAA may decide that the new technological landscape that we are transitioning into will need some accommodating, to the extent that it can be proven safe. Again SNC may not be the one to meet that high bar initially.

            In most circumstances I don’t see a need for holding patterns for incoming planes. The controllers know which planes will be arriving during the runway closure period, and thus how many planes will be funneling into the single active runway during that time. Controllers are quite good at spacing incoming planes coming from various directions long before they get anywhere near the airport. It would be less complex I think than changing the airport’s active runway due to changing wind direction right in the middle of a busy day.

            I’m not minimizing any of this, I’m just saying these people are really good at what they do and I think they would get their routine down pretty quickly on how to manage this. Only if there happened to be a large number of incoming flights during the closure period would they have to possibly put some of them in a holding pattern. But even in those situations they would probably instead keep some planes at the gate at their departure airport, like they do with other high volume periods.

            Shuttle no-fly zone I think was more along the lines of Air Force One, a lot of it was for security. I don’t think a commercial spaceplane will be viewed the same way. And anyway I think the Dream Chaser no-fly zone would only relate to the high altitude part of the descent. As DC gets near the airport it will basically “drop in” to the TCA which is already tightly controlled airspace.

            Sonic booms – I know in general sonic booms aren’t allowed over populated areas, not even by the military. However Shuttle did it all the time over populated areas of Florida. And I suspect people in Melbourne hear the Falcon 9 boosters arriving. I’m not sure what the rules are for exceptions, probably frequency is part of it, i.e. maybe only so many spaceplane landings per month will be allowed. Like me you may be old enough to remember when the backlash against sonic booms killed SST in the early 70’s (among other factors). And yet NASA is now making plans to do some public acceptance testing of sonic booms near Galveston, albeit relatively mild sonic booms. I think the future points towards sonic booms no longer being an either-or, but a matter of degree and frequency.

            Clearly the airport, the FAA and the public have to see a value to this before they would allow even minor disruptions to commercial airline flight. That’s another unknown. There may be enough resentment initially to keep it from happening. But eventually I think this will be a reality.

          • fcrary says:
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            They are good at managing air traffic (and ground traffic; moving all those planes from the gate to the runway isn’t trivial.) But there are circumstances which aren’t under their control. I flight might have to detour around a storm; they might have to close a runway for half an hour due to weather; etc. All that can mess up a nice, evenly spaced flow of landings and takeoffs.

            I mentioned holding patterns because that’s one of the standard tools to deal with that. And it’s not at all uncommon at some airports. I wasn’t joking about Heathrow. It’s bad enough that I’m surprised when I fly in and don’t end up in a holding pattern. They really are running close enough to capacity than any little bug or glitch starts messing things up. If there is a temporary no fly zone for a spaceplane landing, and they know they won’t have an option of putting incoming flights in a holding pattern, it’s going to mean more time when the airport (or runway) is closed to aircraft.

            On top of that, the whole thing is choreographed to keep the flow smooth. We’re talking about an industry when five minutes more or less in turning around an aircraft is a big deal. You’re talking about spaceplane landings which would add more than a little hiccup, but probably a significant disruption.

            However, mentioning Heathrow made me think of something. All those problems I’m thinking of are worse there, because they are running so close to capacity. Maybe that’s something to consider when selecting an airport for spaceplane landings. Some airports operate well below capacity.

            Charlottesville-Albemarle (Virginia, CHO, not Charlotte, North Carolina, CLT, which is a hub) has very few flights. So few that a friend who lived there once told be the Air Force One crews use it to practice takeoffs and landings. It’s easy to grab the runway for an hour without upsetting anyone. (A quick check of today’s schedule showed several 30-60 minute and one 90 minute gaps where no one was scheduled on the runway.) I’m not seriously suggesting CHO for a spaceplane landing; the runway is too short and there isn’t really anything nearby (The University of Virginia is a fine school, but it’s not known for its aerospace engineering department.) I’m just using it as an example because I’m familiar with it.

            Perhaps a qualification for airport supporting spaceplane landings should be underutilization. If they regularly have hour-long gaps in runway use, that could be as important as having easy access to rail or water transport (to get the vehicle back to the refurbishing/launch site.)

          • Steve Pemberton says:
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            Yes I would say Heathrow is probably out (I realize that was just an example). But I don’t think it has to necessarily be an underutilized airport, although of course that would make things even easier. The only criteria that I can think of for larger airports is that they normally use separate parallel runways for departures and arrivals, which is pretty common. DC would land on the departure runway. In that case you really aren’t worried about incoming aircraft at all, it’s business as usual on that runway, no worries about spacing or holding patterns.

            And I think I was probably being generous closing the departure runway fifteen minutes prior to DC landing. They know to the minute when it will touch down, so I think other aircraft could safely take off up to five minutes prior to DC touchdown, wake turbulence from large aircraft being the only real concern. However probably they would close it ten minutes prior in case of the possible although highly unlikely event that a departing plane pulls onto the runway and for whatever reason can’t get off the runway within ten minutes, like for an aborted takeoff with blown tires. Ten minutes should be plenty of time for DC to switch from say 18R to 18L in the case of Huntsville. Although that obviously would affect incoming aircraft in that case, but it’s a highly unlikely scenario.

            And I wonder if they really need fifteen minutes to get DC off the runway. As a criteria they need to have the truck positioned (safely) near the wheel-stop end of the runway, and have developed a method to quickly hook up and tow it to the nearest exit. If they need fifteen or twenty minutes to do that, then that makes DC less than suitable for commercial airports in my opinion.

            Weather, at least local weather shouldn’t be an issue since I can’t imagine they would do the deorbit burn unless the forecast was favorable for landing. For some cities that might mean no landings in late summer afternoons where pop-up thunderstorms can’t be predicted at least one hour out. Same with snow during the winter. But that would all be true wherever DC lands, even at non-commercial airports, I’m just saying local weather probably isn’t going to be an issue, or would rarely be.

            So really the only potential delay is to departing aircraft, and only when they can’t find openings for them in between aircraft that are landing, during what should be a relatively brief closure of the departure runway. And all of that however many times a year DC would be landing at a particular airport. If an airport has zero tolerance for any effect on airline operations, then that’s another airport that has to be crossed off the list.

          • Daniel Woodard says:
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            Don’t forget wave-offs due to weather, which can kick the landing time back 90 minutes, just when flights might be scheduled to land and would be in the air. Or one day. Plus the cost of shiping the spacecraft back to the launch site, unless of course it lands at the launch site, which it easily could. My guess is the company is fishing for a subsidy.

          • Michael Spencer says:
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            Do we not, at some point, want to see a future where landings from space can occur just about anywhere on the planet?

            More: isn’t the future soon arriving in which an arriving space plane is no different from an arriving 737?

          • fcrary says:
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            I’m not sure about that. Currently, an arriving 737 is quite different from an arriving boat, train or bus (or, for that mater, helicopter.) The way a train station works is tailored to the way trains work, and airports are tailored to the way airplanes work. I’m not at all sure an airport would be a good place for BFR flights. Actually, I’m sure it wouldn’t since a jetway for getting passengers on and off a rocket doesn’t work. And if the passengers are going to the Moon or Mars, most people would want more than one carryon bag and one personal item during the trip. So I think a spaceport would end up being fairly different from an airport.

          • Michael Spencer says:
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            I didn’t really have BFR in mind, though, because it is obviously a different critter entirely. More specifically I’m imagining a future populated by some sort of SSTO device.

            But even in the case of BFR, airports have a lot in common with the infrastructure required for airplanes: parking, security, food service, airplane service, highway access, location: a lot of commonalities come to mind. The ability to handle huge numbers of people, too.

            I suppose the roar a big 747 or A380 would be lost in the roar of 27 rockets, though 🙂

            And this: many commenting on this post cling to the present-day state of spacecraft landings. A day will come, and soon, when even rocket takeoff/landings are safe, secure, scheduled, and frequent, no more disruptive than any airplane landing.

          • fcrary says:
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            I’m still not sure about spaceports being like airports. Many of the commonalities you mention, “parking, security, food service, airplane service, highway access, location” could also apply to trains. And in most countries, there are major differences between train and air stations. As a trivial example, getting to a train station fifteen minutes before departure is unusually early. That means the shops and restaurants you typically find at an airport are much less common. So the means of transport affect the infrastructure at the transport hub.

            As another issue, for spaceports, I mentioned luggage. For a multi-day trip to the Moon, or a multi-month trip to Mars, people will want their luggage with them. Personally, as long as I can do laundry every week to ten days, I can survive with just a carryon bag. But most people would prefer more for long trips. That makes loading passengers onto a spaceship more like loading them onto a boat than an airplane.

          • Steve Pemberton says:
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            Trains stations, at least the main ones, are usually located in city centers (I’m referring to worldwide). Whereas airports are normally located outside of cities, mainly because they need a lot of land. Of course over time urban sprawl can encroach on an airport, but even then the airport will still be way out in the suburbs, not near the city center. The exception being older airports like Reagan, LaGuardia, etc.

            Spaceports where launches take place will need to be even further out than airports as there can be no encroachment. At least for the foreseeable future. I keep thinking why does this differ from airplanes. Of course the obvious answer is that aircraft are proven safe with extremely low risk of dropping on someone’s house.

            But have they always been? No, and yet even when airplanes were relatively new technology they were allowed to fly over homes and businesses. But back when airplanes were new, and unreliable, they were also small and lightweight, without a lot of fuel onboard. As they evolved, airplanes got larger and carried more fuel, which in one sense made them more dangerous to people below, but overall they actually got safer because of better reliability, training and regulation. This trend has continued to the point where we don’t worry about a 400 ton A380 loaded with over 200 tons of kerosene flying over our heads.

            But rockets unfortunately don’t get to spend their formative years made of wood and canvas and tiny fuel tanks. They are extremely dangerous to the populace from day one. Only when launch vehicles have a proven track record at least comparable to airliners will they be allowed to launch anywhere near populated areas.

          • fcrary says:
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            Most of the train stations I can think of weren’t built in city centers. They are there today because the cities grew around them. (Although most of my experience is with the stations in the United Kingdom and western Europe.)

            In any case, I wasn’t thinking so much of safety, although that’s an issue. I was thinking of things like the duration of the trip, the frequency of departures and the frequency of delays or cancelations. That feeds into the flow of passengers and cargo/luggage (and what people check as opposed to carrying on), what sorts of services (hotels, restaurants, etc. inside or outside security) are available, etc.

            When intercity trains run on an hourly schedule, no one talks about getting to the station two hours before the departure. When flights to a given city leave once or twice a day, allowing extra time to make sure you don’t miss it makes more sense. If the rocket flights are only weekly, that would also be different.

          • Daniel Woodard says:
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            Normally there were no aircraft operations at the SLS for several hours before landing except the astronauts flying approaches to evaluate the winds and weather for the approaching Shuttle.

    • Daniel Woodard says:
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      The runway at KSC is the longest in the Southeast, at 15,000 feet and, yes, six inches.

  8. Joe Denison says:
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    Instead of pooh-poohing this move I think all of us who are fans of commercial space should be glad that cities like Huntsville are making it easier for commercial enterprises to form and do business in their area.

    Automatically declaring that any commercial space investment in the state is only the result of political maneuvering is not only inaccurate but offensive to the many intelligent and diligent workers in the space industry in AL.

    Contrary to popular belief Alabama isn’t overrun with idiot rednecks who only live off the government dole. Stop portraying Alabama as being worthless when it comes to the space industry.

    • Daniel Woodard says:
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      Don’t get sensitive. My wife is from Alabama, and I don’t even hold that against the state. And if Alabama wants to invest in space, more power to it. There are limitless opportunities. But landing a spacecraft at a commercial airport does not make sense. It would impose cumbersome safety measures, unavoidable risks, and disruptions of commercial service that would undermine the primary goal of commercial spaceflight, which is safe and dependable access to space at the absolute minimum cost.

      • Homer Hickam says:
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        Not to be argumentative, although that is exactly what I’m being, it also didn’t make sense to send men to the moon for a thousand pounds of moon rocks but now that we did it, wasn’t it a wonderful thing? “There are more things in heaven and Earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.” This will all play out as it should. Personally, I’d just like to see the damn thing in orbit, never mind where it lands.

        • Daniel Woodard says:
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          I agree. By tradition, Horatio was a Stoic, an ancient philosophy which holds that virtue lies in adhering always to logic and reason and abandoning the irrational emotions. A predecessor of Mr. Spock.

        • ThomasLMatula says:
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          Except the astronauts were not sent to the Moon to collect rocks or do science, they were sent to beat the Russians from reaching there first. The rocks and science were just something it was convenient for them to do while they were already there.

  9. Steve Pemberton says:
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    I suppose publicity is worth something. Landing at KSC would somewhat make the news, and that probably only for the first one or two flights. But landing a spaceship at a commercial airport? That’s sort of a man bites dog story and I think there would be a lot of interest.

  10. Vladislaw says:
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    Why to fly into Shelbyville .. why else..

  11. Daniel Woodard says:
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    Hey, if you want a 15000 foot runway that is almost unused but has an excellent control tower and is just steps away from the launch site,so you can tow the vehicle straight to the processing facility, and has already provided landings for both Shuttle and X-37, try the Cape. Landing a spacecraft with hazardous commodities at a commercial airport simply doesn’t make sense unless you are just pushing a local venue and abandoning reality.

    • Steve Pemberton says:
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      According to SNC 10,000 feet is long enough. And no hazardous propellants or RCS.

      I think there are two discussions. The first is why is Huntsville even being considered. It seems what this is really about is a United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs project to fund an orbital mission that would allow scientists and students in countries that wouldn’t normally have access or funds to put experiments in orbit. Apparently there is some nebulous idea of landing the mission at a commercial airport, which the UN will decide on after receiving proposals from interested airports and spaceports. Huntsville, perhaps feeling a bit of “spaceport fever” sees this as an opportunity. There was also an idea mentioned in the article that NASA experiments (presumably from ISS) could be delivered straight to Huntsville. At this point it all just sounds like talk.

      I think the second discussion is more interesting. Which, flipping the question around, why should a company land their spaceplane at KSC or out in the desert somewhere when it would be more advantageous to land it in a city somewhere else? In these early, essentially experimental projects, I can agree that the regulatory hurdles of landing at a commercial airport will likely lead to missions landing at KSC or dedicated spaceports, even if that isn’t the company’s preference. But eventually I think there will be a different mindset as commercial operations become more common, and as technology continues to advance. In say 10-20 years it might seem narrow minded to think that piloted and unpiloted aircraft as well as spacecraft can’t all share the same airport, perhaps even the same runways.

      • Daniel Woodard says:
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        If this were a massive commercial transport market, then location would matter. For spacecraft the cost of the terrestrial leg is so much smaller than the orbital leg theat there is little benefit. When making a dead-stick approach there is always uncertainty due to wind shifts, so more runway is better.

        But having seen a lot of Shuttle operations, the biggest problem is uncertainty. You never know when the weather will require a waveoff for one orbit or one day, and the airlines that might be happy to see a sngle touchdown will get pretty tired when they face repeated and unpredictable delays. And if someone approaching a busy airport doesn’t get the word, and intrudes on the airspace after the deorbit burn, what are you going to do, shoot him down?

        KSC isn’t the only choice, there are long and often unused runways already available at White Sands, Edwards, and numerous military bases around the world that would be safer choices.