I missed this part of John Carmack’s talk somehow, but it would seem to be news that Jeff Foust picked up on:

At the 2008 Lunar Lander Challenge last October, Rocket Racing and Armadillo Aerospace announced a joint venture to develop vertical takeoff, vertical landing vehicles for suborbital space tourism. However, Armadillo Aerospace founder John Carmark revealed at Space Access ‘09 this morning that this deal—at least, as announced in October—has fallen through. Carmack said that while there are relationships with both Rocket Racing and an unnamed third party, the deal as announced “did not come to fruition”. Carmack added, though, that he anticipates making some announcements in the next month that may be related to any suborbital vehicle work.

If so, he’s not the first to have run into issues working with Granger Whitelaw. Likely he’ll not be the last, either.

And I didn’t mention it in my previous post, but this was news as well, I think:

Will be competing for Level Two this year, and they hope to make their attempts from their home field when season begins in July.

My emphasis. I hadn’t heard this before. I think that it may be the first public announcement of the beginning of the competition season. I wonder if John was supposed to make it?