While SpaceX and its Dragon capsule grabbed headlines this week-- and correctly so-- another emerging commercial space company was flight testing its own potential man-rated spacecraft.
Sierra Nevada Corporation is developing its Dream Chaser spacecraft, a sort of mini-shuttle that will launch vertically and land on a runway. During Dragon's mission to ISS, Dream Chaser was suspended under a heavy lift helicopter in the skies over Colorado to test its aerodynamic characteristics.
Over the next decade, a welter of new, private, man-rated spacecraft are set to emerge. If they all pass the technological tests, economics will decide the winners and losers.
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