What's Happening at Bigelow?

[david1971]

About 18 months back Bigelow was putting $760M on the table in rocket contracts, including $100M up front.  Sure, everyone is hurting now, but taking that to inform some sort of baseline, I'd think that there would be more than enough cash to keep doing whatever it is they are currently doing.

Is there a solid number on the size of Bigelow?  How large are they compared to SpaceX?

[Paul Adams]

Living locally to Bigelow, and keeping something of an 'eye' on the company, I have not seen any negative news at all on the company.

Paul

[js117]

Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia reports
This is old information 2006

 
Founded 1999
Founder(s) Robert Bigelow (Founder and President)
Headquarters North Las Vegas, Nevada, United States
Industry Aerospace
Products Orbital facilities, commercial space stations
Employees 120 (2006)
Website BigelowAerospace.com

[mlorrey]

Granted everyone's wallet is thinner these days, but isn't Bigelow's net worth roughly an order of magnitude greater than Musk's?  How many people could Robert Bigelow point to and say "I don't have enough $$$, be my sugar daddy"?  Of course there's the Feds, but I don't see them dumping money here.

It might simply be the difference between "net worth" and liquid assets. Bigelow's money could be in the form of hotel buildings, whereas Musk's was in the form of bank accounts. Now, of course, Musk's money may largely be in the form of SpaceX (buildings, machinery, rockets...).

Bigelow also owns a substantial number of apartment buildings around the US as well as a construction company that has offices in several states. IIRC his stated worth is $1.5 billion, but that would be very difficult to turn into cash.

Does he still own Budget Suites? How is that company doing in this economy?

[Danderman]

Its been just over a year, 2/5/2008 that Bigelow announced they were working with Lockheed.  I have not heard anything since that press release. http://bigelowaerospace.com/news/?Terms_For_Launch_Services
I'm betting that NASA wasn't very happy with Lockheed.   It would be
embarrassing for Bigelow to have a space station with people in it using American rockets while NASA was buying Russian.

Don't forget this:

http://andrewsspace.com/news.php?subsection=MzEy

Andrews Awarded Aerojet Contract to Build Hardware for Sundancer

Seattle, WA, August 19, 2008 - Andrews Space, Inc. (Andrews) announced today that it has signed a contract with Aerojet of Sacramento, CA to develop aft propulsion system controllers for Bigelow's Sundancer spacecraft. 

[khallow]

Having so much assets in real estate is a problem. How much of one depends on how leveraged the real estate is and what sort of cash flow Bigelow currently has. Almost no debt means a 10% decline (to pull an example out of thin air) in real estate prices would be up to a 10% decline in the value of the company. A problem, but not a serious one. If real estate assets were only 10% greater than debt, then the company would have effectively zero net value for its real estate, which is a much more serious problem. That would greatly reduce their ability to borrow more or modify current debt.

Cash flow is another potential problem. If your cash flow is too low, you can be forced to do unprofitable things (like sell off real estate into a bad market) just to maintain a supply of cash for day to day activities. I imagine that just like almost everyone else, Bigelow is probably experiencing some degree of cash flow reduction.

[Patchouli]

I hope they get sundancer launched soon as they are the ones advancing the technology of space stations.
As for income Robert Bigelow should still be getting good income from his hotel chain and his apartments could even be seeing an increase in business since people who lost their home to foreclosure will likely move to an apartment.

[Ben the Space Brit]

Maybe someone out there knows: Is the flight by Falcon 9 (manifested for 2011) for Bigelow the Sundancer or the full-scale station?

[ChefPat]

Maybe someone out there knows: Is the flight by Falcon 9 (manifested for 2011) for Bigelow the Sundancer or the full-scale station?

IIRC it is for the Sundancer. The Falcon 9 doesn't have the lift capacity to put a Nautilus in orbit anyway. F9H & other lifters in that class will be needed.

[general]

This thread is all very amusing, but you're all missing the point.  Bigelows problem is transportation.  He needs a crew capsule that could actually take people to his destination.  Why would he start building his Space Station if he can't get anyone there???  He's a visionary, but he's not stupid!

We should all be writing letters to our elected officials to advocate:

1) NASA should fund a Commercial Crew Initiative.  (NOT COTS D with it's "skin in the game" provision.) 

2) Get NASA OUT OF THE WAY!! (NO NASA Bureaucrat Engineers levying garbage requirements.) 

3) Get a CREDIBLE domestic company to build a commercial capsule.
(I'll bet you a dollar that there's probably a start at an Orion "Lite" design out there in someone's desk drawer.) 

4) Put it on an existing, flight demonstrated launch vehicle.   (Duh!)

Stand back and watch what happens in 3 years.

[Jorge]

This thread is all very amusing, but you're all missing the point.  Bigelows problem is transportation.  He needs a crew capsule that could actually take people to his destination.  Why would he start building his Space Station if he can't get anyone there???  He's a visionary, but he's not stupid!

We should all be writing letters to our elected officials to advocate:

1) NASA should fund a Commercial Crew Initiative.  (NOT COTS D with it's "skin in the game" provision.) 

"skin in the game" is the best part about COTS.

It limits the field to serious providers that are confident that they have a business case for their spacecraft beyond selling rides to NASA.

[jongoff]

This thread is all very amusing, but you're all missing the point.  Bigelows problem is transportation.  He needs a crew capsule that could actually take people to his destination.  Why would he start building his Space Station if he can't get anyone there???  He's a visionary, but he's not stupid!

We should all be writing letters to our elected officials to advocate:

1) NASA should fund a Commercial Crew Initiative.  (NOT COTS D with it's "skin in the game" provision.) 

"skin in the game" is the best part about COTS.

It limits the field to serious providers that are confident that they have a business case for their spacecraft beyond selling rides to NASA.

Though personally, I'd like to see the skin-in-the-game requirements reduced slightly, and milestone payments shifted more towards hardware milestones (instead of paying for PDRs, CDRs, etc).  But I agree that at least on some level, the skin-in-the-game requirements are useful.

~Jon

[HMXHMX]

This thread is all very amusing, but you're all missing the point.  Bigelows problem is transportation.  He needs a crew capsule that could actually take people to his destination.  Why would he start building his Space Station if he can't get anyone there???  He's a visionary, but he's not stupid!

We should all be writing letters to our elected officials to advocate:

1) NASA should fund a Commercial Crew Initiative.  (NOT COTS D with it's "skin in the game" provision.) 

"skin in the game" is the best part about COTS.

It limits the field to serious providers that are confident that they have a business case for their spacecraft beyond selling rides to NASA.

It is the worst part of COTS, in my view.  It freezes out any firm or team that doesn't have a sugar daddy.  For example, Scaled could not have competed for the X-Prize absent an investment from Paul Allen.  And it took more guarantees than NASA can or will give (at least in 2005, when COTS began) to bring Allen into the Scaled investment.

[R.Simko]

Some kind of new balance needs to be reached about how much skin needs to be put up.   It is very difficult for any new start-up to come up with the funding needed. 

[William Barton]

This thread is all very amusing, but you're all missing the point.  Bigelows problem is transportation.  He needs a crew capsule that could actually take people to his destination.  Why would he start building his Space Station if he can't get anyone there???  He's a visionary, but he's not stupid!

We should all be writing letters to our elected officials to advocate:

1) NASA should fund a Commercial Crew Initiative.  (NOT COTS D with it's "skin in the game" provision.) 

"skin in the game" is the best part about COTS.

It limits the field to serious providers that are confident that they have a business case for their spacecraft beyond selling rides to NASA.

It is the worst part of COTS, in my view.  It freezes out any firm or team that doesn't have a sugar daddy.  For example, Scaled could not have competed for the X-Prize absent an investment from Paul Allen.  And it took more guarantees than NASA can or will give (at least in 2005, when COTS began) to bring Allen into the Scaled investment.

Absent the skin-in-the-game provision, what's different from business as usual? A government funding reservation of small players?

[jongoff]

It is the worst part of COTS, in my view.  It freezes out any firm or team that doesn't have a sugar daddy.  For example, Scaled could not have competed for the X-Prize absent an investment from Paul Allen.  And it took more guarantees than NASA can or will give (at least in 2005, when COTS began) to bring Allen into the Scaled investment.

Absent the skin-in-the-game provision, what's different from business as usual? A government funding reservation of small players?

Requirement that the firm, fixed-price payments are based only on technical milestones, not just paper milestones. 

~Jon

[William Barton]

It is the worst part of COTS, in my view.  It freezes out any firm or team that doesn't have a sugar daddy.  For example, Scaled could not have competed for the X-Prize absent an investment from Paul Allen.  And it took more guarantees than NASA can or will give (at least in 2005, when COTS began) to bring Allen into the Scaled investment.

Absent the skin-in-the-game provision, what's different from business as usual? A government funding reservation of small players?

Requirement that the firm, fixed-price payments are based only on technical milestones, not just paper milestones. 

~Jon

How does that elminate skin in the game? It seems like the company would still have to come up with money of its own ("sugar daddy").

[jongoff]

It is the worst part of COTS, in my view.  It freezes out any firm or team that doesn't have a sugar daddy.  For example, Scaled could not have competed for the X-Prize absent an investment from Paul Allen.  And it took more guarantees than NASA can or will give (at least in 2005, when COTS began) to bring Allen into the Scaled investment.

Absent the skin-in-the-game provision, what's different from business as usual? A government funding reservation of small players?

Requirement that the firm, fixed-price payments are based only on technical milestones, not just paper milestones. 

~Jon

How does that elminate skin in the game? It seems like the company would still have to come up with money of its own ("sugar daddy").

Yeah, but in much smaller chunks.  Raising enough operating capital to make it to the next milestone, when that milestone has a firm contract for it, and is much smaller than the overall vehicle development program, is a lot easier than raising money for the overall vehicle development program when the actual firm part of the contract is worth less than the amount you're expected to raise.  The problem is that with uncertain demand upon completion of COTS, it's really hard to raise a lot of money.  Whereas for a contract that is paying by the technical milestone, where you are actually planning on making a profit on the development work, it's a lot easier to put together that money.  Not trivial, but easier.

I guess what I'm saying, and what Gary is trying to say is that by doing things the way they did with COTS, they both excluded any competitor that didn't have a sugar daddy, and they increased the risk to the taxpayer by frontloading most of the payments on non-hardware demonstration "paper milestones."  If the market was clear enough that you could raise hundreds of millions without having a sugar daddy on-board, you probably wouldn't need COTS either.

COTS *is* better than the previous status quo, just saying there are things that could be done better.

~Jon

[HMXHMX]

It is the worst part of COTS, in my view.  It freezes out any firm or team that doesn't have a sugar daddy.  For example, Scaled could not have competed for the X-Prize absent an investment from Paul Allen.  And it took more guarantees than NASA can or will give (at least in 2005, when COTS began) to bring Allen into the Scaled investment.

Absent the skin-in-the-game provision, what's different from business as usual? A government funding reservation of small players?

Requirement that the firm, fixed-price payments are based only on technical milestones, not just paper milestones. 

~Jon

How does that elminate skin in the game? It seems like the company would still have to come up with money of its own ("sugar daddy").

Jon has it right, payments on hardware milestones.  Recognizing the need for "pump priming" I proposed (and got NASA to accept in 2004) the need for a "kick-off" payment that would not be tied to a hardware milestone but would be paid upon being selected for the contract.  The amount would be perhaps 10-15% of the total value.  This would have been the limit of what NASA would have had at risk.  This was the only compromise that I could see being financially practical.

Of course, once underway, I had hope that lines of credit might well become available that would backstop the "unknown-unknowns" risk.  At t/Space we did manage to obtain about $60M in such lines in anticipation of award.  (Not equity, credit lines...)

[ChefPat]

So how are things going for Bigelow these days?