Huh?

Travis Johnson writes about SpaceDev’s prospects, with the loss of its COTS bid. I’m not sure he understands Rocketplane Kistler, though:

Rocketplane Kistler arguably has the design that’s most like SpaceDev’s DreamChaser, in that it’s based on a spaceplane design somewhat like a smaller version of the current shuttle, so if there was a spot for SpaceDev on this contract I expect we have Rocketplane to blame for them not getting it. SpaceX’s Dragon spacecraft is essentially a capsule that rides on the Falcon launch vehicle.

I have no idea what he’s talking about here (perhaps because he has no idea what he’s talking about, either). There is no resemblance whatsoever between the Shuttle, Dreamchaser or the Kistler orbital vehicle.

Well, all right, there’s a superficial resemblance between Dreamchaser and the Shuttle, in that they’re both vertical takeoff/horizontal landing vehicles. But neither of them look anything like the Kistler vehicle, which returns a capsule with no wings at all (via parachute, I believe). Perhaps he is confused by the Rocketplane XP (a Learjet derivative), but that has nothing to do with COTS–it’s a suborbital vehicle only.