Business, Economics, Space

Rocketplane Resurrection?

8 Comments

I talked to George French briefly last night at the bar. He hasn’t given up on raising funds not only for Rocketplane XP, but is still hoping to revive Kistler itself. It wasn’t clear whether or not this was contingent on another bite at the COTS apple, but he’s hoping to have money reraised by August. Good luck with that in this economy. It would be nice, though, to see at least one reusable system going to orbit, after all these years.

8 thoughts on “Rocketplane Resurrection?”

  1. The state of oklahoma pitched 18 million at RiP and NASA tossed 30 million at Kistler, and nothing happened. What makes anyone think it will be different now?

  4. I remember doing a policy analysis paper for launch systems back in grad school…I would have been shocked if you’d have told me the K-1 would never even test fly given how far along it got. I’ve never, never understood how a system that was as close to launch as it got was never completed.

  5. ” I’ve never, never understood how a system that was as close to launch as it got was never completed.”

    It was never that close to launch.

  6. Jack’s right. “75% complete by mass” doesn’t really tell you that much about how close it really is to completion.

    There’s one good thing that came out of K-1’s troubles though. Had they not lost their COTS contract, I don’t think our GN&C guy would’ve wanted to leave Draper Labs, and we probably still wouldn’t be flying ourselves.

    That said, it would be cool if it ever flew.

    ~Jon

  7. I think what I found compelling was that it was something tangible, not just a powerpoint presentation.

  8. “I think what I found compelling was that it was something tangible,”

    Tangible it was, probable it wasn’t.

    The architecture was flawed when Gary Hudson did it, it wasn’t any better when George Mueller re-did it.

    That rocketback flyback return is unwise. You spend a fortune trying to get Delta-V in, and then you have to burn to get rid of it and rocketback? I you size the first stage so you can fly back in a C-5 or on a truck, or even gas it up and bunny hop it back.

    The TPS solution was total handwaving. I’m sure the TPS could be worked out, but, it’s a critical system. The NK-33 needed to spend a lot more time on the stand before it was ready. The original Kistler management team was insane, they spent money like drunken sailors. The RpK team wasn’t any better. Nepotism, Incompetence, Delusion…

    It’s a pity a TSTO RLV is conceivable, but, not with those people. Scaled Composites has looked at Winged TSTO and not been able to close it.

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