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It sounds like there was no space plane between 2011 and Dreamcaser, whenever that may launch. But the military space plane x 37 launched in 2010, which is worth mentioning in a space plane video.

On your Soyuz graphic, you have the Orbital module marked as the Entry module, which is actually in the middle...!

The orbital scene with the new shepard😂

Using Blue Origin as an example is...amusing. The BO capsule does not reach high temperatures as it merely falls straight down again. You didn't mention that the goal is to get into orbit, key point here. SpaceX exists! 😛

We need to put that thing on a falcon 9

NASA insisted that Boeing had to be one of the two Commercial Crew Program contractors because of "experience". We've all seen how Boeing's "experience" is working out both on Earth and in space.

The diagram is wrong, that is the ORBITAL MODULE of the Soyuz spacecraft. The REENTRY module is the bell-shaped module under the semi-spherical orbital module on top of it. The Service Module (Aggregat module in Russian parlance, equipment module) is the cylindrical section under the reentry module. Unlike the US spacecraft like Gemini and Apollo or even the new SpaceX Dragon or troubled Boeing Starliner, the Russian Soyuz is a three-module vehicle. The Orbital module contains docking hatches and equipment, as well as gear and stowage for machinery and supplies to be used during the mission in space. There is a hatch in the top of the reentry module below it that connects the two and allows cosmonauts to exit the reentry module into the orbital module once they are in space, and the orbital module is used strictly while the spacecraft is in orbit. The reentry module is where the crew rides into space and back to Earth at the end of the mission, and back before Soyuz went to various space stations, provided the living space while in orbit. The service module provides the propulsion and power generation systems of the spacecraft, with the solar panels and batteries that provide power to the other two modules in orbit, as well as the main engine and thrusters necessary for orbital maneuvers and rendezvous and docking maneuvers, as well as providing the retrofire thrust necessary to put the spacecraft on a course for reentry at the end of the mission. When Soyuz returns to Earth, the crew closes the hatch between the orbital module and reentry module, and the orbital module is depressurized and then jettisoned, to burn up in the atmosphere. The spacecraft performs retrofire to deorbit itself onto a course for reentry and then the service module is jettisoned off the back of the reentry module to expose the heat shield, just as would be done with Apollo, Gemini, Dragon, or Starliner. The capsule then reenters the atmosphere and burns off speed converting it to waste heat through the heat shield, slowing down sufficiently for air drag in the lower atmosphere to slow it further before deploying drogue parachute and then main parachute, and the final touchdown is softened by the landing rocket system once the heat shield is jettisoned off the bottom of the capsule during descent. Mercury capsules had a landing bag system which detached the heat shield and dropped it down on lanyards, with an inflatable "skirt" of tough rubberized flexible material drawing in air through one-way flaps, trapping that air between the base of the capsule and the heat shield when it landed in the water (or possibly on land in the case of and abort) softening the impact, as the air would compress and escape slower through/around the flaps which acted as check valves. Gemini was originally designed to land on land using runners and landing gear under an inflatable Rogallo flex wing, but this was deemed too complicated and risky and abandoned for the more typical parachute and water landing, with the capsule retaining a lanyard system that allowed it land more horizontally into the water, cushioning the blow of water landing versus splashing down with the large, blunt flattish rounded heat shield end hitting the water first, since it had no air bag system. Apollo was large and heavy enough that the impact of splashdown wasn't as fast or violent as the smaller spacecraft like Gemini or Mercury capsules, plus the parachutes were arranged to be off-center so the large flattish heat shield was at an angle as it splashed down, allowing it to "cut into" the water and softening the impact. Dragon was originally intended to land under landing rockets (the Super Dracos), hovering down to a ground landing on landing legs like the Falcon 9 first stages, but NASA deemed this too risky and ordered them to adapt it to a splashdown landing at sea, which SpaceX designed things to be reusable under this landing method. Starliner lands on land, using a system of inflatable landing bags around the periphery of the capsule, inflated after the heat shield is jettisoned while the spacecraft is still descending under parachute...

Funny how you choose New Sheppard as a kind of orbiting vehicle, while it in reality, just makes very high jumps.

Fun fact: 4 'folded' Dreamchasers would theoretically fit in a v1 Starship fairing. I haven't yet run the numbers on v2 Starhip.

Flying home and landing on a runway is so much more civilized than plopping into the ocean.

SpaceX: provided NASA funding to develop Crew Dragon, has flown a bunch of manned flights Boeing: giving the lion's share of funding, still can't build a functioning space capsule. Sierra: not provided any funding, going to beat Boeing to successful crewed missions anyways

The X-37 has been flying for awhile now. We just don't know what it's doing.

Didn't Scott Manley make a video about how this was based on an old soviet design rather than the space shuttle.

You left Atlantis out of your space shuttle list.

1. Gagarin's capsule still had to endure reentry. Ejecting at 7 km didn't have anything to do with that. It meant the Soviets could use existing ejection seat (including parachute) technology (for one person) rather than invent a larger parachute system for the entire capsule. 2. You got the Soyuz re-entry module wrong. It's the "middle" (bell-shaped) section, not the ball-shaped end part.

6:10 Totally forgot Atlantis

8:20 More relevant to say: a lot had changed since 1981. As you mention, the shuttle was retired in part because it wasn’t worth upgrading. It was all 30 year tech.

I believe I heard Tenacity has been delayed and Vulcan will fly a mass simulator for her second flight to gain the ability to fly certain high profile payloads.

No mention of Soviet Project Spiral and its MiG-105 (which, ironically, inspired it all), NASA HL-20 (the direct ancestor of DreamChaser - NASA ceded its design to Sierra), X-20 DynaSoar, Northrop M2-F2, Northrop M2-F3, Northrop HL-10, Martin X-24A/B, Martin X-23 PRIME, not to mention X-37 A/B, the only actually flying of those, a military "mini-shuttle" military jumped to after abandoning Shuttle, which they ruined by their large down-mass and "single orbit return to launch site" requirements (the only purpose of which cold be to quickly snatch a Soviet satellite). There was also X-38, a proposed (and tested in atmospheric drops) ISS lifeboat.

Felix baumgartner Is NOT the only person to have skydived/jumped from a balloon around that crazy altitude. Heck off the top of my head I can think of 2 others. Joe Kittinger who did it first in the late 1950s/early 1960s while running tests for the US Air Force and that Google executive Alan Eustace who did it after Felix and who beat Felix’s record. I think there was a few others kinda close to them like 20,000-50,000 feet away both for USA and Soviet Union but the 3 that went the highest were those guys. Btw Joe the guy that did it first was the guy that helped Felix and was the guy on the radio during his deal. Felix was smart and found the only guy who had done it that high up and asked him to help and give all the knowledge. He’s the old guy in the video they always showed in the command center when Felix did his attempt. His full name was Joseph William Kittinger II he past away in 2022 at 94 years old. The man was a national treasure a hero. You should watch the docs on him! It’s sad he’s not famous and well known. Not only are his records in the 50s and 60s epic but his studies helped all future astronauts!

With reusable rockets (i.e. Rockets that can land) is there even a point to a spaceplane? On the other hand arguably Starship is a spaceplane ... it's got wings.

Had to chuckle at this at first as it “implied” that Blue Origin was this & that but did mention Space X later on. Are you the same people who say that GM is the leader in EV’s.

And it looks like the Far Scape which is awesome.

Major error at 6:07 - you stated there were four operational shuttles; Columbia, Challenger, Discovery, and Endeavour. WTF happened to Atlantis? You know, the one hanging from the ceiling at KSC?

Antimatter propulsion needs funding

Sierra Space should have gotten the contract given to Boeing. Like SpaceX, they'd already have a working and veteran vehicle.

Felix Baumgartner wasn't the only exception. His record for the highest space dive was broken in 2014 by Alan Eustace.

2:05 "A month later NASA conducted a similar mission under Project Mercury. The only difference was re-entry. The Astronauts didn't eject from the craft but the capsule itself kept them contained safely (...)" I have several issues with that statement. Most importantly, the manner of landing was not the only difference. And IMO not even the most significant difference. The most significant difference was that Alan Shepard's first flight on Mercury-Redstone 3 was suborbital, whereas Gagarin's flight on Vostok 1 was fully orbital and longer. Also, the way the statement is worded gives the impression that the Mercury spacecraft could carried more than one astronaut, which is not the case.

Space Shuttle *ATLANTIS* flew 33/missions, and even serviced Hubble. How'd you miss her?

The orbiter of the space shuttle (the actual "space plane") was not the issue, and it is one of the most reliable spacecrafts in spaceflight history. The problem with the space shuttle was they put the orbiter next to the giant orange fuel tank during ascent instead of on top. During launch, the fuel tank would drop foam onto the orbiter causing damage to its thermal tiles AND there was no "launch escape system" to safely propel the orbiter away from the launch vehicle in case of a malfunction with the boosters and/or fuel tank. If the orbiter sat on top of the fuel tank, 14 astronauts would never have lost their lives and we would still be using the orbiters today (albeit, with updated parts and systems)

I love it for pure unrealistic reason, that it makes me dream of doing a space shuttle landing again!

Blue Origin is an entertainment company. Not a rocket company or space exploration company

Funny you used Blue Origin as your example which cannot even reach orbit.

I always enjoy watching those videos. Thank you for this great job!

I wanna see a crewed version of this. It’s so cool.

Seeing the spaceshuttle within the indoor exhibit at Kennedy Space Center is a mesmerizing experience. Capsules mignt work but spaceplanes give me the rizz frfr.

They need a version that does not require payload fairings. You do not want to negate return to Earth advantages with launch disadvantages.

7:20 the middle part of the sojus ist the landing capsule not the front sphere.

You left the retro package on the Mercury capsule. It is jettisoned before reentry (yes, I know about John Glenn. That was an "anomaly.")

2:06, That wasn't really a similiar mission as it didn't even make it to orbit, it was a suborbital mission.

Also let’s not forget the CNES/ESA Hermes space plane in all this and also the “paper” space planes swing developed by the U.K. in the 1960’s until the US quietly put a stop to it and the U.K.’s own indigenous satellite launchers

Can't wait to see this one fly, it will be so exciting to have the fourth capsule capable of re-entry and as it proves reliability to become the fourth capsule from America that can bring people to space. Maybe one day they can have Dragon, Starliner, Dream chaser and Orion all in space simultaneously.

More rockets!! More spaceplanes!! More exploration!!

When i first seen the space shuttle i didn't really think much of it but now i realize that quality & simplicity is everything

It will be interesting to see how quickly Sierra Space can leverage their Cargo Only Spaceplane technology to build a man-rated spaceplane. My prediction is 5-7 years to first flight, due to the difficulties of satisfying NASAs post-Shuttle man rating requirements. I think the service module will be required to generate abort thrusts during launch so that the Dream Chaser can separate from an exploding booster.

How a video about space planes turned into a history lesson from 65 years ago.

Excited for the Farscape program to get started. DC-100 is a perfect module for that gravity slingshot test.

the new crewed type looks a lot with the lockheed martin proporsal for a CEV

What a time to be alive!

the re-entry part of soyuz is shown incorrectly at 7:20 , soyuz have 3 modules, the middle one is the re-entry one!

The loss of the Space Shuttle was a huge setback I think. Despite its problems every time I see footage of the Shuttle it just leaves me amazed at what we can do and what an amazing feat of engineering Nasa accomplished. Spaceplane is the way forward. Great work Sierra Space. The inflatable Space module is incredible. I grew up as a boy watching the Apollo missions and it so fired everyone's imaginations for an exciting future. 👍👍

7:15. No. The round bubble on the front is not the Entry Capsule. It's the cone shaped in the middle. The bubble one is the orbital module.

Yuri was the first person in space to survive re-entry. HAM radio operators picked up at least one cosmonaut burning alive when attempting the maneuver. The Soviet government hid failures.

Great information! 👏🏻... If you would make a video on "AWS accelerator India for space startups", that would be so helpful for me to know about that topic thoroughly. 😊

Dream chaser was inspired by the HL20, not the space shuttle. Its a lifting body craft designed back in the 1960's and 70's. Dreamchaser is a direct copy of HL20

the thing is this thing is designed for ISS which is set to be deorbited in early 2030s, having a wing on a deep space vehicle is pure deadweight, wing is only useful for near earth orbit which we have like what 6-7 years left of missions? (and no there is no successor to ISS in sight right now, that thing cost 100 billion dollars and the money simply isn't there right now)

Smaller is better. The plane will be more robust structurally. Very cool.

Felix red bull isn't the only guy to do that, someone broke his record shortly afterwards

Man that Mercury retro pack must have been tough as nails to survive those temps eh? 😉

I'll just wait until Musk and SpaceX build a spaceship that looks like the Galactica from BSG. At least we will all know that the ship will actually work like it's supposed to

Sounds like they going forward in the space industry.

Great video...but did you forget that they had recently announced the DC-100 was delayed to possible 2025 due to issues with the Tenacity? Vulcan may end up not being open for another attempt to launch it until next year unless something comes up.

Some would say that Yuri Gagarin was the first human to return alive from space. There may have been a few unsuccessful attempts before his flight.

Yuri Gregarine, in the first Soviet space flight, orbited the earth 1 complete time. The first Mercury capsule, with Alan Shepard, was a passenger in a 15 minute sub-orbital flight. A timid start for the US

The space shuttle never failed. The external rocket boosters and tank caused both accidents.

I haven't seen space shuttle special effects since Moonraker! 😆

Somewhere I'd read that the Americans love to over-engineer their space tech while the Russians have prefered to find the simplest solutions possible in order to minimize complexity and risk (and presumably cost), which is why the Soyuz has proven to be such a reliable workhorse for decades. Yeah, it's a single use vehicle, but they "roll them off the assembly line like Ford trucks". And while splashdowns eliminate a great deal of the cost/complexity/risk associated with the Shuttle, it must be a tremendous hassle having to deploy ships at sea in order to collect the returning astronauts (who go from the danger of getting torched to the danger of drowning). In this day and age of advanced tech and manufacturing processes, you'd think that astronauts could now simply and safely glide back down from space to any airport, and then take a short walk across the tarmac (or ride a van) for a post-flight medical examination. Yay Dreamchaser!!! (Dang shame that Buran never got to really prove itself. 😞)

7:18 That’s not the entry capsule. Thats the orbital module.

Funny choice of graphics in the intro. Bezo's Blue Origin, despite it's hilarious phallic resemblance, doesn't even count as an orbital spacecraft.

2020: finally the dream chaser will launch 2021: finally the dream chaser will launch 2022: finally the dream chaser will launch 2023: finally the dream chaser will launch 2024: finally the dream chaser will launch 2025: finally the dream chaser will launch 2026: JUST LET THE DREAM *FLY*

I hope they've designed the wing hinge gaps to avoid the kind of plasma ingress that the last Spacex Starship suffered on reentry.

if we had a crewed version with an airlock system it could replace the orbital servicing capabilities from the space shuttle

FOR THE EMPEROR!!!

A bunch of Dream Chasers, better than one space shuttle.

Remember the Shuttle was designed in the late 60's and built in the late 70's, and delays to 1981. This despite constant budget cuts. If Nasa had a consistent budget things would be better. The X-33/VentureStar would have been an interesting project, even if it was just an experimental engineering project.

With impressive as today’s rockets are, there’s nothing as beautiful as the space shuttle.

7:20 Return capsule is the middle bell like shaped part of the Soyuz.

the Soyuz graphic show the wrong module as the re-entry capsule.

Didn't Sierra just announce that they won't be up with Dreamchaser until 2025 now due to Vulcan problems (of course) .?

I’m really surprised no other country has not TRIED to develop a space plane like Dream Chaser?

At 7:15 your diagram is wrong. The reentry capsule is the part in the middle, not the part on the left.

There needs to be a nuclear powered spacecraft

NASA doesn't seem to think Dream Chaser is a very high priority. It seems to think Starliner is more important.

Looks like the old XB that was in the movie Marooned with Gene Hackman.

It is literaly a screaming image of soviet "Spiral" space fighter! (Космический истребитель Спираль)

This looks like a winner...

Missing shuttle Atlantis

I like it. Machst du moar bitteschoen home dawg 😂

you are mistaken...Baumgartener jumped form 128,000 feet, but 2 years latter Anal Eustace jumped from 135,000 feet. and even before them. Joseph Kittinger, in 1960, jumped from 102,800 feet.

Wonderful skeletal model of the Shuttle after 4.58 mins, can you provide a link?

love the content

So far, Dreamchaser reinvented Space Shuttle's delays 😅 Not that I'm against them - I LOVED Space Shuttles, cried when Venture Star was Cancelled and I wish to see cargo and passenge r versions of Dreamchaser flying to ISS and I understand that they didn't receive any funding since CrapLiner was chosen by NASA instead. Just I'm kinda annoyed when it was announced that they won't make it till their scheduled launch 😢

Blue Origin is not a spacecraft, it's an amusement park ride for the rich. It doesn't orbit, it doesn't have or need a heat shield. And besides it looks like, well you know what, if you've seen "Flesh Gordon".

This content is so good. But please use Celsius, what is a Faren height?

10:25 - The Space Shuttle did not experience 3g's on re-entry. 3g's was the force the shuttle experienced on launch. Re-entry g's were about 1.7.

What about the F-302? Those aerospike engines and the naquadria hyperdrive (even if doesn’t work for long jumps) are purty durn cool.

A wonderful video

Exciting to see the space shuttle evolving into its original concept: a space taxi, not a space truck.

we didn't really retire the space shuttle, we've been using one.