If it had blasted off on a Chevy Vega you would’ve never seen it again. And there would be a puddle of rust and oil on the launching pad.
CC
Well, Sierra Nevada Corp had a “mini shuttle” in the running for the next LEO vehicle but nasa, in it’s infinite wisdom, decided to return to the past with splash down capsules. Of course since SNC was a realtive newcomer and the Boeing long time buddy connection was firmly in place plus the paypal, obie’s buddy connection, with spaceX............ Well, you know the rest of the story.
So they want to re-invent a downsized space shuttle.
Do the math.
It was costing us $500 million per shuttle launch. How is this new one going to reduce that number on a per ton basis?
If it is the European Space Agency, why did it take off from South America and land on a runway, like the space shuttle? No comparison.
gather information on how space objects fall back to Earth
It’s called gravity.