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posted by cmn32480 on Saturday October 01 2016, @05:29AM   Printer-friendly
from the this-way-to-general-assembly-boarding-area dept.

http://spacenews.com/united-nations-to-fly-first-space-mission-on-dream-chaser/

The United Nations plans to purchase a dedicated mission on a Sierra Nevada Corporation (SNC) Dream Chaser spacecraft in 2021 to give developing nations an opportunity to fly experiments in space. At a press conference during the International Astronautical Congress here Sept. 27, the United Nations Office of Outer Space Affairs (UNOOSA) said the agreement to fly the dedicated Dream Chaser mission is part of a broader effort by the office to increase access to space to emerging nations.

"Our project is the first-ever United Nations space mission," said Simonetta Di Pippo, director of UNOOSA. "The mission has one very important goal: to allow United Nations member states to conduct research that cannot be done on Earth." The mission, she said, will be open to all nations, but with a particular emphasis on those nations that don't have the capabilities to fly their own experiments in space. UNOOSA will soon start the process of soliciting payload proposals, with a goal of selecting payloads by early 2018 so that the winning countries have time to build them for a 2021 launch.

Neither SNC nor UNOOSA disclosed the cost of the mission. Mark Sirangelo, corporate vice president of SNC's Space Systems division, said that the mission will be financed in several ways, with the countries selected to fly experiments paying at least some of the cost of the flight.

- See more at: http://spacenews.com/united-nations-to-fly-first-space-mission-on-dream-chaser/#sthash.Pz4SgTNO.dpuf


Original Submission

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Sierra Nevada Corporation's Dream Chaser Spacecraft Could Spell Trouble for Northrop Grumman 9 comments

Soon, three companies will be able to perform resupply missions for the International Space Station, and that may be one too many:

How Sierra Nevada's "Dream Chaser" Could Become a Nightmare for Northrop Grumman

[Sierra Nevada Corporation (SNC)] intends to perform its obligations under [Commercial Resupply Services (CRS-2)] using its new "Dream Chaser" spaceplane, a privately developed space shuttle (but only one-quarter the size of the Space Shuttle) that will launch into orbit atop a rocket, make its delivery, then land back on Earth under its own power like an airplane.

[...] Dream Chaser is designed to be reusable, with a service life of 15 missions. In this regard, the SNC is similar to SpaceX, which sends cargo to ISS aboard reusable Dragon space capsules launched into orbit by also-reusable Falcon rockets. Utilizing reusable spacecraft, both SNC and SpaceX should be able to save considerably on the cost of their missions, because they will not need to build new spacecraft for each supply run. In contrast, Northrop Grumman performs its ISS resupply missions using disposable Cygnus cargo capsules carried by expendable Antares rockets -- likely a more expensive proposition.

[...] Currently, plans are for SNC to purchase Atlas V rockets from United Launch Alliance for this purpose. But in 2016, SNC's then-VP of Space Systems John Olson let on that SNC was designing the spaceplane to be "agnostic" as to which launcher it uses to get into orbit. So in theory, at least, SNC could use a SpaceX Falcon rocket to carry Dream Chaser instead. Because SpaceX's Falcons are cheaper than the expendable rockets used by other space launch companies, this would probably result in a lower launch cost for SNC (and the cost could be even cheaper if SNC uses reusable Falcons).

Granted, this would necessitate giving money to a competitor. However, seeing as Sierra Nevada is going to have to buy its launch vehicles from somebody, it might as well buy them from the cheapest provider. And if it does so, this will almost certainly mean that not only SpaceX, but SNC, too, can bid below what Northrop Grumman must charge to perform CRS-2 supply missions for NASA -- giving SNC a leg up in future competitions to resupply ISS.

Related: United Nations to Launch a Space Mission
NASA to Continue Funding Private Spaceflight, Considers Sixth Hubble Upgrade Mission


Original Submission

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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 01 2016, @05:44AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 01 2016, @05:44AM (#408666)

    How many zebu cattle can graze on the space station?

    • (Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Saturday October 01 2016, @08:53AM

      by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Saturday October 01 2016, @08:53AM (#408689) Journal

      At the moment? Zero. There's no grass to be grazed. Not even any shrubs or bushes. No trees. Nada.

      If you were to plant some fast growing grasses, you might get a zebu to graze for awhile. Until someone kills it and eats it, anyway.

      • (Score: 2) by t-3 on Saturday October 01 2016, @04:02PM

        by t-3 (4907) on Saturday October 01 2016, @04:02PM (#408811)

        Wow, can you imagine slaughtering an animal in zero gravity?? It would be like spartacus in space.

        • (Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Saturday October 01 2016, @05:17PM

          by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Saturday October 01 2016, @05:17PM (#408830) Journal

          I think maybe you put him in a Ziploc BEFORE you start? Hmmmm - zebu space suits? Maybe I should start manufacturing, to beat the rush.

  • (Score: 4, Funny) by archfeld on Saturday October 01 2016, @06:43AM

    by archfeld (4650) <treboreel@live.com> on Saturday October 01 2016, @06:43AM (#408672) Journal

    I heard the mission would be to the Sun, but to save on cooling costs, they would go at night.

    --
    For the NSA : Explosives, guns, assassination, conspiracy, primers, detonators, initiators, main charge, nuclear charge
  • (Score: 3, Funny) by GungnirSniper on Saturday October 01 2016, @07:57AM

    by GungnirSniper (1671) on Saturday October 01 2016, @07:57AM (#408678) Journal

    They'd stand by as the red Martians rape and slaughter the grey Martians. This is why we need the USAF in space, the final frontier.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 01 2016, @08:05AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 01 2016, @08:05AM (#408679)

    Don't developing nations have more important things to focus on than space? Like, I dunno, DEVELOPING? No clean water, rampant poverty, but lets go to space! Its also expensive to go to space so someone is wasting cash on the luxury of going to space when it should be spent on food/water/shelter/developing the country. The UN needs to get its priorities straight. If a country doesn't have the cash to get an experiment into space on their own maybe they need to worry about other things first rather than have someone else pay their way.

    • (Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Saturday October 01 2016, @08:56AM

      by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Saturday October 01 2016, @08:56AM (#408690) Journal

      Dude, we're going to space for precisely those reasons. We hope to find clean water, more poor people, and good shit to waste money on. 'The poor will always be with you.' If they are hungry, let them build their own space station to grow food on.

    • (Score: 2) by fritsd on Saturday October 01 2016, @08:44PM

      by fritsd (4586) on Saturday October 01 2016, @08:44PM (#408869) Journal

      Um... I take it you've never heard of Landsat [wikipedia.org] (operational since 1972).

      "In 1975, NASA Administrator Dr. James Fletcher predicted that if one space age development would save the world, it would be Landsat and its successor satellites"

      African governments must deal with questions like:
      How do you see if a part of your rainforest is sick?

      Which humongous province has the driest soil after last month's drought?

      One of the many investigative techniques, and not even a very expensive one (well, 30 years ago), is:

      Look at your country from above through a few different infra-red spectral bands.

      here's the link: Landsat [nasa.gov]
      here's a graph of the bands: spectral bands [nasa.gov]

      the instruments can only "see" what gets reflected back from earth in sufficient quantity.
      so that's visible light (400- 800 nanometer wavelength, left bit of the graph) and chunks of infrared; I count three broad infrared bands, coloured yellow, gray and light red in the graph, that get picked up by the various generations of Landsats.

  • (Score: 1) by Type44Q on Saturday October 01 2016, @10:53AM

    by Type44Q (4347) on Saturday October 01 2016, @10:53AM (#408716)

    Why did Jessie Jackson bring a pooper-scooper to the missile conference? He heard someone say "ICBM..."

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 01 2016, @11:42AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 01 2016, @11:42AM (#408726)

    The goal of this 'project' is to maintain the illusion of space as well as the illusion of dominance of the UN. The organizers need to demonstrate that not only the UN is relevant and the international organization of consequence, bearing and prestige that does stuff, but that the stuff that it does are as well of consequence and are themselves prestigious; this is to forget that the UN is a miserable facade, the shadow of a failed "World Government" that never was.

    In this here project, the goal is to program the minds of people that not only 'space' is something attainable that "we are just about to conquer", but it is in fact something so trivial, that "we" (==we that "have" and "are civilized" and "decide") can export it to our less fortunate, ethnic humanoid siblings with their backwards traditional medicine practices and their lack of toilet paper. So let's "fly their experiments up there".

    Pathetic.

    How many people have ever been "in space"? A hundred? 200? Five hundred tops.

    How many of those are freemasons and/or military men? I have nothing against either, but those are people under oath, and you need to understand that if, say, space was not what the TV tells you, they would not be the ones to let you know.

    • (Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Saturday October 01 2016, @01:13PM

      by Phoenix666 (552) on Saturday October 01 2016, @01:13PM (#408752) Journal

      The UN is generally a slush fund for the children and relatives of third world dictators everywhere. As a middle-class American, you walk into the place wanting to do good, and everyone there lives in palatial apartments on the Upper East Side of Manhattan (not a low-rent district) and drives sports cars. The only thing they talk about is partying. No money is spent on the facility itself, which looks like the inside of a trailer park in Tuscaloosa.

      So the UN wanting to build a space program is a stretch.

      --
      Washington DC delenda est.
    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 02 2016, @01:37AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 02 2016, @01:37AM (#408937)

      The UN logo is an azimuthal equidistant projection! How could the lizard people make it more obvious?!

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 03 2016, @12:38AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 03 2016, @12:38AM (#409198)

        What lizard people? Make what more obvious?

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 01 2016, @05:25PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 01 2016, @05:25PM (#408834)

    JFC, why not just become a stakeholder in the ISS? They get to get undeveloped countries into space, and NASA and Russia get to pretend that the ISS actually has some usefulness beyond seeing if ants can use tiny wrenches in space.