Well, apparently RpK isn't quite dead yet--it's only mostly dead. But as Billy Crystal noted, there's a big difference between dead and mostly dead. Alan Boyle has the latest. Apparently, if the money is pulled back, it will be recompeted.

[Afternoon update]

Charles Lurio has some a thoughts on the potential damage that NASA's COTS approach may have done to the industry in general.

Looks like some of the travel agents selling rides on the XP have lost their patience for the alt.space way of doing business and Boyle's Law.

Wonder how many more will follow this firm's lead with the other firms that have been promising space tourist services - someday...

From the Chicago Tribune

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/north/chi-spacesuit_11sep11,1,1761752.story?ctrack=1&cset=true

Space tourism in limbo, suit says
Oak Brook firm says work has stopped on Rocketplane project
By Steve Schmadeke
Special to the Tribune
September 11, 2007

[[[The Oak Brook luxury vacation firm contracted to market and reserve flights on a planned suborbital space plane has filed a $3.4 million lawsuit against its partner, an Oklahoma City aerospace engineering company, that it claims has stopped all work on the project.]]]

Funny thing about firms in the real business world. Unlike the government they expect you to keep to your schedules.

It will be interesting to see what the court's definition of "stopping work" is versus the alt.space industry's. I expect that they won't view laying off the workforce on a project and just producing more viewgraphs as "continuing work" as alt.space firms do.

Wow - a re-compete death spiral. Each cycle the budget dwindles and gets passed on to riskier prospects (or so I'm assuming, given that they were passed over on the first round.) Wouldn't it make more sense for NASA to build on success and make the remaining funding available for SpaceX?

SpaceX seems to be doing fairly well on its own (in that they've actually flown hardware that's come within spitting distance of successfully reaching orbit, and the reasons for failure seem well understood).

The idea, I'm both hoping and supposing, is to broaden the number of possible launch suppliers, rather than bet everything on one horse, as the agency tends to do (Remember when the plan was to support more than one company's suborbital demonstrator, after DC-X? Where might we be now, if LockMart knew a competitor was going for the same goal?).

Frank is right, Elon said in his Space Show interview that dumping money at SpaceX will do nothing to make Falcon 9 come about any faster, which is why he's refusing prospective investmentors at this time.

True, dumping more money on SpaceX is unlikely to accelerate their program, but it might give them more money for contingencies and additional testing. I'd hate to see them hit a few snags and run out of cash on the brink of success.