25 thoughts on “Bill Gaubatz”

1. OMG. He never gave me a hint of any medical issues. Of course, that would be in character.

   And I could’ve just been sudden.

   What a loss.

2. Yes, what a loss. My condolences to his family and friends.

   I remember him from the days they were testing the DC-X at the NASA facility outside of Las Cruces. Its a pity NASA took over DC-X, it should have stayed a DOD project, then we would have had a SSTO vehicle to replace the STS.

   1. I think that’s unlikely. SSTO is highly overrated.

      1. Why do you think SSTO is over-rated?
         How are you defining SSTO? Is it just one stage up or one vehicle up and back?

         1. I can’t speak for Rand, but it’s technologically difficult right now, and the estimated payload costs for first-generation SSTO designs aren’t much different to the cost of a fully-reusable Falcon. Skylon, for example, would end up launching at a similar cost to SpaceX estimates for a reusable Falcon, but would require over ten billion dollars of investment before a single vehicle flew revenue payloads.

            1. Also, they have terrible off-design performance.

            2. Don’t let Alan Bond’s propaganda fool you. Skylon is not the most rational way to build an SSTO. It would costs tens of billions of dollars because he insists on developing an airbreathing engine which doesn’t make any the technical problems any easier (and makes some problems, like TPS, harder).

   2. I’ll always remember how kind Bill was to come and give talks about DC-X here in Portland. He was always willing to do quite a bit more than usual to make a presentation work. The last one I remember was at OMSI.

      There was no chance for DC-X/Delta Clipper after the 1992 election. The WH decided in January of 1993 that they did not want a military space presence through SDIO (now MDA). That’s why the Comptroller of the Office of the Secretary of Defense started simply refusing to sign the checks for DC-X in May of 1993. They had went to the trouble of appointing a “Space Architect” to cover them by formally assigning all crewed spaceflight to NASA, and starting the EELV program (which gave us Atlas V and Delta IV) for the Air Force to put recon sats in orbit. That made the NASA follow-on to DC-X the LockMart Vertical Takeoff/Horizontal Landing vehicle that had *no* continuity with DC-X. That, and the fact that LockMart was the company with the highest employee contributions to the 1996 Clinton/Gore campaign.

      1. Not to mention the fact that at the 11th hour MacDac bailed out of putting any corporate funds up, which killed their DCY entry per the acquisition rules for the bid.

         The company ceased to exist shortly thereafter.

      2. The WH decided in January of 1993 that they did not want a military space presence… They had went to the trouble of appointing a “Space Architect” to cover them by formally assigning all crewed spaceflight to NASA

         There’s been an unwritten policy against the military doing manned space since the Kennedy Administration (arguably even Eisenhower). Even when there was a supportive President like Reagan, Congress was still adamant. Every time the military tried to develop a manned space program, they ran head first into a brick wall, until finally they mostly stopped trying.

         The last serious proposal was the Marine Corps’ Small Unit Space Transport And INsertion (SUSTAIN), which looked like it might get some traction until George W. Bush decided he’d rather do Apollo again.

         1. The military hasn’t seen much value in putting humans in space.
            The Russians never went that way, the chinese haven’t,
            it’s been to date de-militarized. Lots of sensors and comms, no weapons
            or people.

            1. The military hasn’t seen much value in putting humans in space.

               That’s the politicians’ version, not the military version. The DoD paper trail clearly shows that. “The formal need for a SUSTAIN capability is documented in the Marine Corps SUSTAIN Universal Need Statement dated 22 July 2002 and the USSOCOM Space Enabling Concept dated 25 March 2004.”

               The Russians never went that way,

               That would surprise anyone familiar with the Russian space program, including the Almaz (military Salyut) space station with its 23-mm cannon. (Three stations flown, at least one reported remaining in flyable storage.)

               the chinese haven’t, it’s been to date de-militarized. Lots of sensors and comms, no weapons

               China has a very active antisatellite weapons program. It’s been in the news for several years now.

            2. The Chinese space program is a military program.

            3. The Russians, like was said here, had the Almaz stations and the TKS spacecraft. The TKS spacecraft provided the basic design for the ISS Zarya module. Even near the fall of the Soviet Union they tried to launch a Polyus spacecraft, based around the TKS , aboard the Energia launcher:
               http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polyus_%28spacecraft%29

               The Chinese space program is military in nature. There have even been claims of top military people in the PLA claiming they should develop a space bomber more than once. Every once in a while pictures of Chinese space plane mockups or prototypes show up in the web. Long March 5 is being developed to maintain whole satellite constellations including their own equivalent of GPS i.e. Beidou.
               http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beidou_Navigation_Satellite_System

   3. On that note, why have space activists almost completely ignored DARPA and Experimental Spaceplane-1 (managed by Jess Sponable, another DC-X veteran)?

      NASA and Boeing just signed a $2.8B contract for the SLS core section alone. It won’t enable the United States to do anything new. XS-1 is slated to cost just $140M and could bring about a revolution in access to space. Yet, XS-1 gets less than 1% of the attention SLS does. Or ISS, or even Curiosity,

      1. I’ve been hearing about Dave Masten’s win of a contract for XS-1 everywhere. You haven’t?

         1. Do you understand the concept of counting, Trent? One tweet about Masten winning a contract does not equal a thousand articles, videos, speeches, etc. about SLS.

            1. Masten isn’t even allowed to say anything about it yet. That’s DARPA for ya.

            2. Masten isn’t even allowed to say anything about it yet. That’s DARPA for ya.

               So? That explains why Masten isn’t saying anything — not the space community in general.

      2. Possibly because publicizing it would just make it more likely someone in DC would become aware of it and target it for defunding.

         1. Given the anti-military statements I have heard from some space activist leaders, I find it hard believe they would remain quiet to prevent the cancelation of a military system.

3. Rand, thanks for the report. I am greatly saddened. Bill was a good friend and he will be missed. He is one of Lynx’s godfathers, along with the others mentioned by Jerry. I hope a Luna City street gets named after him.

4. Bill always amazed me, because in the entire time I knew him he never seemed to change. I’ll always regret having been unable to make the DC-X reunion. Though I had nothing to do with the project, Bill sent me a personal invitation. He considered me part of “the crowd.” He was a fine gentleman.

5. I have never heard of the person but he must have been pretty cool for so many accomplished people to say such great things about him.

6. Sometimes it seems all the people of vision lived in the sixties (and didn’t take drugs.)

   I’m not big on the concept of the afterlife

   The bible would agree with you. At death “your thoughts do perish” and your body returns to dust. Resurrection is the example given of future life. Rev. 20 talking about a 1000 years without demonic influence after Armageddon and before a final test.

   I think that magical elf Santa is sending the wrong message to kids as well.

   I remember the 60s so I obviously wasn’t there! We might have to explain that to the kids?

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