Unless I’m very much mistaken, this is the very last possible day for it to be done and still be valid. I wonder if someone is trying to tell someone something. Either that or someone was hoping that something would come up before now.

And yes, we have been spoiled by SpaceX, and I hope it continues.

Come on, Bennett, don’t tell me that you don’t remember them insisting that the guys at CCAFS turn off all the cameras around SLC-40 during the WDRs and test fire! I admit that we’ve probably been spoilt by the level of detail that they normally provide (especially compared to, say, ULA’s launches for NRO). However, since Falcon 1 flight 5, the lid has started slowly coming down.

Ben, what did they do? I didn’t see any of that, so I must not visit the same sites as you. I do recognize that they’ve slowed down the release of updates and new videos. SpaceX and Armadillo have been incredibly inspirational in the way they’ve let us watch the development, tests, and progress towards flight.

I never though I’d see the day when a rocket company did that, and I still hope that it catches on for other companies. I watched the streaming of the Atlas V launch a week or so back, is this something ULA has been doing all along?

Oh, I think we’re getting the message. SpaceX has recently decided that discretion is a virtue and has massively reduced its mass-media presence. The ludicrous lengths they went to to stop unauthorised images of the Falcon 9 prototype flight’s wet dress rehearsal is proof of that.

Of course, I don’t blame them. Uncontrolled information release can cause private companies problems with investors. Worse, we Internet-types are shameless speculators and have a nasty habit of couching our pet theories as if they were facts. That level of guesswork-conflated-to-fact isn’t something that a private company working on perfecting what is, for them, a new capability, wants to have regarding their products and quality control procedures.

We’re just going to have to get used to knowing only what the guys at SpaceX, ULA, Sierra Nevada, OSC, et al want us (and, more importantly, their investors) to know.

“If they are eager to push for Commercial Crew, they should be more open about their progress, rather than treat it as a black project.”

I’m always mystified by comments like this. Sierra Nevada’s customer is NASA for the Dream Chaser, and I’m sure they have each other on speed-dial and Facebook.

Everyone else, including you and me, are just observers in a slow drama – very slow.

Sierra Nevada may be an established company – I just question how much effort they are expending on DreamChaser. It is not their primary focus for sure.

If they are eager to push for Commercial Crew, they should be more open about their progress, rather than treat it as a black project. (if that is indeed what is going on)

I doubt that’s true because the NASA mockup is a couple decades old and housed ten crew while the SNC version is downscaled to six crew.

And it misses the point, anyway. SNC is building on a design and outer mold line with tons of design and testing heritage courtesy of prior government investment. If it’s applicable and useful, SNC should leverage NASA’s mockup and any other models, data, etc. that NASA generated for the HL-20. Recreating engineering tools that already exist is a stupid waste of money.

“While they certainly might have made progress, they have not shown any of it publicly. Whatever funding they have received seems to have gone towards power-points.”

Per Mr. Meijering’s post, the CCDev milestones that Sierra Nevada must meet to get paid by NASA are publicly available.

“There is zero evidence that they have any intention or capability of actually producing hardware.”

SNC has 2,000 employees and over 40 years of fairly complex systems integration experience:

sncorp.com/

SNC’s Dreamchaser team includes Boeing Phantom Works, Draper Labs, Aerojet, MDA, and others.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpaceDev_Dream_Chaser

As of February, the company has put in $10 million of its own funding:

aviationweek.com/aw/generic/story_generic.jsp?channel=awst&id=news/awst/2010/02/22/AW_02_22_2010_p53-204735.xml&headline=Sierra%20Nevada%20Building%20On%20NASA%20Design

SNC arguably has both the capbility and intent.

FWIW…