Business, Space, Technology and Society

What Happened To My Suborbital Ride?

6 Comments

I have some thoughts and links on the 10th anniversary celebration, over at Ricochet:

Basically, the late Jim Benson of SpaceDev (now part of the Sierra Nevada corporation, which finally seems to have given up on its own plans to use a hybrid motor for its Dream Chaser vehicle) sold Burt Rutan a bill of goods with the hybrid, with claims of simplicity and safety. In fact, as many of us told him at the time, he’d have been a lot better off purchasing a liquid engine from XCOR, but they didn’t have a sufficient track record at the time for him to think they could meet the deadline to win the prize. Then, once they’d (sort of) succeeded in flying something into space, they continued on with what they thought they knew. They’ve been in a sunk-cost trap ever since, unable to get themselves out of the hybrid-propulsion rut.

As I’ve long noted, the delays in the arrival of commercial spaceflight have been a combination of people who knew what to do not having money, and the people how had money not understanding the problem, and being too arrogant to listen to the veterans. Only now is the crucial combination of money and know how finally coming together.

As I note there, I stopped by XCOR in the morning before the event. Looks like they’re making good progress in bringing the spacecraft together.

6 thoughts on “What Happened To My Suborbital Ride?”

  1. I agree. With all the money Branson put into it you would expect them to at least partially fund a second engine supplier in case the first one went belly up. The history of aviation is chock full of failed aviation engines which caused the cancellation of aircraft. Spacecraft are no different.

  3. Is XCOR’s building of an airframe also a case of being too arrogant to listen to the veterans? Aren’t they engine people, not airplane people?

    1. They have had plenty of knowledgeable consultants on the airframe, and they’ve been hiring a lot of people. Also, airframes are a much more mature technology than hybrid engines.

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