RpK has replaced OSC with Andrews. They'll take over some of the systems engineering and integration work, and will be making an investment. So another one of the unsuccessful COTS bidders gets back in the game, through the back door.

[Update a few minutes later]

Clark Lindsey has a press release.

[Update at 5:30 PM EDT]

And here's a more extensive article on not only the Jim Benson announcement, but on NewSpace in general. Bottom line (buried in the middle of the article)--investors are starting to take this industry seriously.

Mr. Benson says he "managed to raise $1 million with less than a dozen phone calls." Some investors said yes without ever seeing a formal proposal, he says. "If I had tried three or four years ago to solicit money for this kind of private space flight, I wouldn't have had any luck."

Not much giggling left.

Alan Boyle has more.

And yes, I really do have some thoughts on this stuff, but I'm saving them for a couple articles I'm working on, for TCS Daily and The New Atlantis.

it's an article originally from the wall street journal.
Now a million in startup capital isn't much to do a
billion dollar problem

Where does this leave SpaceDev?

Bah, there's plenty of giggling left for Rocketplane Kistler and Jim Benson.

He wants to build an orbital vehicle and he's only raised $1m in venture capital? Who the hell is he kidding?

What makes this problem a "billion dollar" problem? And what's wrong with a million dollars? That's pretty good for high tech startups. More than enough to figure out how to create a space tourism business. Maybe even bend a little metal.

Let's look at what has been done. There's various launch vehicles already capable of putting people into space. The Soyuz is ready to gowhile the Atlas V doesn't appear to need that much work, the crew vehicle is the big missing part. Bigelow is in the process of demonstrating viable space-side living quarters, ie, "the destination".

It appears to me that there will be a lot of potential infrastructure in place or available to a would-be startup. So in particular, there doesn't seem to be a great need for capital early on. And from what little I've observed of startups, it doesn't appear to be a great idea to throw lots of money at a new startup. That doesn't seem to improve the chances that the company will be viable.

Our anonymous cowardly moron is, as usual, completely clueless about business.

Simberg

How much do you think it will take to build an Orbital
capable multi passenger vehicle.

Strawman argument Anonymous Coward!

JB lefto to go suborbital, not orbital.

Reading comprehension is fundamental.

Strawman argument Anonymous Coward!
JB lefto to go suborbital, not orbital.

It's not a strawman argument, he merely didn't RTFA (neither did I) and realise that the Dream Chaser is no longer being designed as an orbital vehicle.

It's understandable that we'd be confused, in every press release before now it was stated to be an OV.

DreamChaser was sized as the HL-20 aeroform,
and proposed for COTS. To suddenly reposition it
as a Suborbital platform is to say the least startling to me.

I'll have to see what they are proposing to do, in terms of
payload, mission, and sortie rate, before i guess what the
costs are. Somewhere between $50M and $500M.

The other question is does it make sense to use the HL-20
planform in this mission. Again without seeing a trajectory
it could be anywhere from Marginal to Insane.

Design of Aerospace vehicles is really hard, there are a lot of
funny things that bite you, and it's damned hard for the
lay public to undrstand, given there is a lack of
engineering experience in this field.

Consequently con-artists, shysters and the merely
deluded operate without any base of people to tell them to
go f#$% off.

JB always said he wanted the Dream Chaser to first see life as a Suborbital Vehicle.

This is not the shocking new development you make it to be.

Him taking it and leaving SpaceDev is the shocking development.

Why leave your own company?

Research is also fundamental.

if i were going to guess, SpaceDev probably has large
shareholders who don't want to be diluted
by the equity requirements for building a
spaceship.