space shuttle HL-20



NASA designed trips two decades ago. An aerospace company based in California, US, SpaceDev wants to sell NASA’s these trips into orbit on a shuttle-like spaceship. It is called Dream Chaser. Based on a small, plane-like craft called the HL-20, NASA designed in the 1980s as an alternative to the space shuttle. It cost the space agency $2 billion to develop the design, along with a full scale prototype, but a working HL-20 was never built. It was since then NASA made details of the HL-20 design publicly available.



SpaceDev also has ties with the space agency, helping NASA’s Ames Research Center explore different spacecraft concepts. The company says it could begin flying four-person suborbital flights in 2008 if it receives about $20 million in funding. It claims, for an additional $100 million it could launch six-person missions to the International Space Station by around 2010.



Via: New Scientist