XCOR and the Lynx rocket

[sdsds]

I think everyone watching the industry, including Greason, has witnessed SpaceX doing some amazingly "agile" aerospace engineering. They have designed and successfully flown quite a few vehicles, and vehicle modifications, and vehicle maneuvers. Grasshopper. Octaweb. Grid fins. Supersonic retro-propulsion. Etc.

Greason in particular has been in a position to see from "close up" how SpaceX does this; imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.

On the safety question, though: I would climb aboard a rocket blessed by St. Greason with much less hesitation than one blessed by Saint Musk or Saint Bezos. Greason just seems to know those issues a heck of a lot better....

[Lars-J]

On the safety question, though: I would climb aboard a rocket blessed by St. Greason with much less hesitation than one blessed by Saint Musk or Saint Bezos. Greason just seems to know those issues a heck of a lot better....

But this I just don't get... Why? Because Greason made some very insightful comments during the Augustine committee? What has he actually developed that has been a successful aerospace product? Where does this belief in his ability to A) get things done and B) make them safe come from? I really want to know.

[john smith 19]

But this I just don't get... Why? Because Greason made some very insightful comments during the Augustine committee? What has he actually developed that has been a successful aerospace product? Where does this belief in his ability to A) get things done and B) make them safe come from? I really want to know.

What you're missing is XCOR has been around 20 years and established a reputation as something of a "goto" house for rocket engines and parts, typically on fixed price contracts. They've delivered what they said they can deliver when they said they would. They have delivered working hardware when other contractors have just delivered Powerpoints.

Possibly the key project was something called the "Rocket Racing League" which was a plan to set up an air racing competition. The plan was to specify a standard engine and XCOR were developing this.

This meant developing an engine to run hundreds of times with no maintenance while maintaining safe operating margins.  They have also been involved with the FAA certification safety rules for reusable rocket vehicles, moving from only allowing "astronauts" to fly to "spaceflight participants."

Meanwhile they have continued to raise funds for their 1st generation Lynx vehicle which looks much  closer to being passenger ready (albeit a single passenger) than anything Blue has built so far.

[ChrisWilson68]

The majority investors in XCOR are not 'wallstreet guys'. I think this change might actually be for the better. Greason's team was probably good early on to get the thing bootstrapped, but to move into operations it is entirely possible that the new team will actually do better.

So, who are they, then? And I have yet to see a company that got better after the founders left it.

The majority of successful companies really made it big only after the founders left.  For example, the McDonald brothers had a local success with their hamburger place, but it was only after Ray Crock bought them out that McDonald's became a nationwide chain.

The skills needed to found a company are very different from those needed to scale a company.

Of course, there are also cases where outsiders take over and a company fails.  But there are just as many cases where the founders stay and the company fails.

The point is, we shouldn't over-generalize one way or another.  We don't really know if XCOR will be more or less likely to succeed without its founders.

[jongoff]

An update from October:

Wow, I did not get around to watching this video until now. But watching it, it definitely helps explain the schism that appears to have driven a wedge between the new management and some of the founders. A conflict between "we got to fly and be profitable" vs "we need to keep tweaking the design" perhaps...

Interesting, I also just watched the video thanks to your comment. I definitely agree that the sentiment Jay gave in that talk is the right attitude for where the company is currently at. They really need to get Lynx flying, and flying reliably, as soon as possible. His comments about the other founders are interesting, because the XCOR founders had always given me an impression that they were more business savvy than that--I'd be surprised if they really didn't have urgency to get Lynx flying and stop tweaking the design. I think they knew as well as the rest of us that if they took too long they were either going to run out of money, or end up ceding the market to competitors.

That said, regardless of where their heart or focus was, there's no way of knowing how efficiently they were executing--was this a case where the project really was just a lot more complicated than they had anticipated going in? Was their funding situation so spotty that they ran into a lot of delays due to that that we couldn't see from the outside (I know how excruciatingly slow progress can be when undercapitalized)? Or was it one where the previously management really was doing a poor job of executing effectively? Or a mix of all of the above? I don't think we have enough data to tell what mix of those or other explanations explain why Lynx has taken so long.

Going forward, it'll be interesting to see what happens. Jay is at least saying the right things about the need to execute better, to get to market quickly, and the need to focus more on customers and what they want than just on obsessing about product details and technology. I hope he can make things work. From what I hear there's been a few more people who've left since Jeff, Dan, and Aleta did. If they can survive that brain drain, and focus hard, hopefully they can yet get Lynx into flight operations.

As someone trying to run a bootstrapped aerospace startup, I'm hoping to learn what I can from what XCOR has done right, and what they screwed up.

~Jon

[savuporo]

On the safety question, though: I would climb aboard a rocket blessed by St. Greason with much less hesitation than one blessed by Saint Musk or Saint Bezos. Greason just seems to know those issues a heck of a lot better....

That would be incredibly ill informed. Something as complex as manned spacecraft safety is not driven by a single person, its a team job. And i don't know about BO, but SpaceX has certainly hired a ton of expertise in that area.

[savuporo]

BTW, I dont like to link there but Rand Simberg has a short interview with Greason here:
http://www.transterrestrial.com/?p=62791

Due to the focus of resources on completing the Lynx, my efforts to work on next-generation R&D projects didn’t gain the traction inside XCOR that I hoped, so I didn’t feel I was in a situation where I was contributing the best that I could to the industry.

That is odd. What next-gen R&D sir, when you haven't gotten your first ever machine flying ?

I recognized that I have a lot of experience with a problem that many companies have been frustrated by – how to shorten the vehicle prototyping cycle so that time to market is faster and the fly-learn-build cycle is faster.

Ah. When was the last time for the fly in this fly-learn-build cycle ?

[parabolicarc]

Basically what happened was this:

The XCOR board felt they needed someone to take over the CEO position full time who had more business, management and fund-raising expertise. Greason was CTO and trying to run the company and running the company at the same time.

Gibson made some changes in the org chart that had Greason and Dan DeLong working on XCOR's long-range plan for a fully reusable orbital system. The Lynx is a  stepping stone vehicle toward this system. The idea is to able to fly to space, return and then turn the vehicle around for another trip to orbit very quickly.  It's really a mark of how bad XCOR's publicity, marketing and branding has been that few people understand that this is part of the plan.

In any event, I don't thing the new org chart was working out that well for Greason, DeLong and Aleta jackson. I don't think they were that happy with how that was going.

XCOR remains committed to the orbital system, but the obvious short-term goal is to get Lynx flying and to attract more investors. Efforts on both fronts are proceeding.

[Lars-J]

But this I just don't get... Why? Because Greason made some very insightful comments during the Augustine committee? What has he actually developed that has been a successful aerospace product? Where does this belief in his ability to A) get things done and B) make them safe come from? I really want to know.

What you're missing is XCOR has been around 20 years and established a reputation as something of a "goto" house for rocket engines and parts, typically on fixed price contracts. They've delivered what they said they can deliver when they said they would. They have delivered working hardware when other contractors have just delivered Powerpoints.

Possibly the key project was something called the "Rocket Racing League" which was a plan to set up an air racing competition. The plan was to specify a standard engine and XCOR were developing this.

This meant developing an engine to run hundreds of times with no maintenance while maintaining safe operating margins.  They have also been involved with the FAA certification safety rules for reusable rocket vehicles, moving from only allowing "astronauts" to fly to "spaceflight participants."

So they can deliver engines, yes. Bolted on to existing aircraft, yes. But building something from scratch? That appears to have been a lot more complicated than they expected, and instead of finishing it Greason and his co-founders have now jumped ship. (as far as I can tell)

Meanwhile they have continued to raise funds for their 1st generation Lynx vehicle which looks much  closer to being passenger ready (albeit a single passenger) than anything Blue has built so far.

Really? Blue has flown their capsule twice, tested their launch abort. They have flown the booster twice, and landed successfully once.

Meanwhile Lynx is sitting in pieces in a garage. Have I entered an alternate universe where that is supposed to be "much  closer to being passenger ready"? 

[savuporo]

Meanwhile Lynx is sitting in pieces in a garage. Have I entered an alternate universe where that is supposed to be "much  closer to being passenger ready"? 

But is it 75% structurally complete yet ?

[Robotbeat]

BTW, I dont like to link there but Rand Simberg has a short interview with Greason here:
http://www.transterrestrial.com/?p=62791

Due to the focus of resources on completing the Lynx, my efforts to work on next-generation R&D projects didn’t gain the traction inside XCOR that I hoped, so I didn’t feel I was in a situation where I was contributing the best that I could to the industry.

That is odd. What next-gen R&D sir, when you haven't gotten your first ever machine flying ?...

I'll respond to this, I guess, in the stead of Jeff (who is probably reading this thread).

XCOR was not founded for suborbital tourism. Their real goal is cheap, highly reliable orbital spaceflight. TSTO, HTHLhydrolox spaceplane stages.

Also, this isn't their "first ever machine." They flew many flights in the EZ-Rocket, demonstrating gas-and-go reuse of rocket-powered aircraft and their rocket engine.

Also, there's no need to pile on Jeff on some sort of "I obviously know better than this fool" trip. It's up to the board of XCOR to make those sort of decisions, and I really, really think those are pretty hollow words from someone (referring to NSF members) who likely has never attempted, let alone succeeded, at doing something as challenging as what XCOR is attempting. In other words, don't be an ass. Seriously. There's nothing to be gained at this point.

[sdsds]

On the safety question, though: I would climb aboard a rocket blessed by St. Greason with much less hesitation than one blessed by Saint Musk or Saint Bezos. Greason just seems to know those issues a heck of a lot better....

That would be incredibly ill informed.

I appreciate what Robotbeat wrote above, about which kind of hoofed mammal to avoid being!

SpaceX has certainly hired a ton of expertise in [the manned spacecraft safety] area.

I agree, they have. I've watched Hans Koenigsmann's appearances at many Dragon-related NASA press conferences. My opinion is not that of an expert, but I trust Koenigsmann more than Musk. (Consider as an example the wing-walking adventure of Musk's. What message about human safety decisions did that send?)

Let me ask this, though, related to current events at XCOR: if Koenigsmann (or some crew safety expert employee you admire) walked away from SpaceX to "pursue other opportunities", and all you had was Musk's assurance that no corners were being cut, would you still be just as happy to get on board a Dragon?

[QuantumG]

Let me ask this, though, related to current events at XCOR: if Koenigsmann (or some crew saftey expert employee you admire) walked away from SpaceX to "pursue other opportunities", and all you had was Musk's assurance that no corners were being cut, would you still be just as happy to get on board a Dragon?

You're asking the wrong guy.. I've gotten on the back of a friend's homebuilt gyrocopter, and I know he sucks at welding.

[CameronD]

Let me ask this, though, related to current events at XCOR: if Koenigsmann (or some crew saftey expert employee you admire) walked away from SpaceX to "pursue other opportunities", and all you had was Musk's assurance that no corners were being cut, would you still be just as happy to get on board a Dragon?

You're asking the wrong guy.. I've gotten on the back of a friend's homebuilt gyrocopter, and I know he sucks at welding.

Are you sure you're still alive?!?   (just had to ask..)   

[sdsds]

On the safety question, though: I would climb aboard a rocket blessed by St. Greason with much less hesitation than one blessed by Saint Musk or Saint Bezos. Greason just seems to know those issues a heck of a lot better....

But this I just don't get... Why? Because Greason made some very insightful comments during the Augustine committee? What has he actually developed that has been a successful aerospace product? Where does this belief in his ability to A) get things done and B) make them safe come from? I really want to know.

I think you've correctly identified the timing of this: "During the Augustine committee" (and in the time shortly thereafter) is when Greason's reputation grew so much.

But it was more than some very insightful comments that made him into an almost heroic figure. For me personally, he didn't stand out from the crowd until Augustine. But then: (a) he was selected for a truly "blue ribbon panel." That honor indicates he was seen as exceptional. And: (b) his service on the committee was top-rate. He delved into the question to such depth, that other aspects of his life and career must have suffered. And that's what enabled him to provide insightful analysis which greatly contributed to the spaceflight community's understanding of the issues at hand. (At least, his comments helped me understand the situation better!) Finally, though: (c) after the committee report was finished, Greason spoke out about what he had learned and what he thought the future held for human spaceflight.

Those things make it easy to trust his judgement; certainly it is easier to trust him than it is to trust a charismatic salesman like Sir Richard Branson!

That appearance of trustworthiness is what prompted my comment about climbing aboard a rocket "blessed" by Greason.
 

[Senex]

Those things make it easy to trust his judgement; certainly it is easier to trust him than it is to trust a charismatic salesman like Sir Richard Branson!

Greason is a very smart man, capable of thinking hard enough about "big things" to arrive at insights that ring so true, they seem obvious (. . . to the rest of us, often only in hindsight).  He is a self-described student of history and has developed an impressive ability to think strategically. 

This does not necessarily mean he also has the skillsets to daily manage a start-up, particularly in an endeavour as "near-impossible" as this.  Without more information, we can't know.

But as a strategist, he has been brilliant. 

[Robotbeat]

What I think is that the investors were very impatient to get to profitability (as we know from that video), Lynx was taking a while, but Greason realized that the first-mover opportunity for the first fully reusable orbital space launch vehicle was rapidly closing, and thus was starting to invest some resources (time, maybe some money, and mental bandwidth) on the orbital platform before Lynx is complete and flying.

Greason is NOT wrong in that realization, but it's understandable that the investors are more anxious to make something out of Lynx. If XCOR can't make Lynx work, it's quite unlikely they'd be able to get an orbital system to work. But Greason was trying to push the orbital timeline to the left, spreading XCOR thin. So I definitely can't really say the investors/board are wrong in their decisions, either.

Greason didn't start XCOR to make Lynx. Lynx was always only a stepping stone to fully reusable, orbital crewed transportation.


That's my take on it, anyway.

[jongoff]

On the safety question, though: I would climb aboard a rocket blessed by St. Greason with much less hesitation than one blessed by Saint Musk or Saint Bezos. Greason just seems to know those issues a heck of a lot better....

But this I just don't get... Why? Because Greason made some very insightful comments during the Augustine committee? What has he actually developed that has been a successful aerospace product? Where does this belief in his ability to A) get things done and B) make them safe come from? I really want to know.

In my case, my experience with Jeff goes way back before the Augustine committee. I've been interacting with Jeff since I was 16, initially via the internet, and also in-person at various conferences and professionally while I was at Masten (XCOR helped us out quite a bit during the NGLLC). Admittedly, I probably only interacted directly with Jeff a few times per year over the past almost 20 years, so we weren't super-duper close or anything. But I've seen his approach to engineering over the years, and while I can't say I agree with every design decision they've had (for instance I'm more a fan of VTVL and automation than wings and piloted control), I trust his engineering judgement as being solid. I've heard him and his team discuss their approach to 3rd party safety, regulation, reliability, and designing for reusability and safety over performance, and even seen a lot more of the details of how they do that than most people who haven't worked there at XCOR.

Had Jeff managed to get Lynx flying while he was there, I would've flown on it in a heartbeat (assuming I could've afforded the ticket). From a safety standpoint, I think where he was taking Lynx would've been a lot safer than where SS2 or Blue Shephard are likely going.

That said, XCOR is no longer in Jeff's hands. Personally, from what I'm hearing from Jay Gibson, he might yet be able to successfully drive Lynx to operational status, even minus Jeff. He definitely has more of a track-record in aerospace/aviation product development. I hope that he can maintain their focus on safety, operability, and reusability while doing so. Even without Jeff at the helm anymore, I'd still probably feel safer in Lynx than SS2, and probably just as safe as I would in Blue Shephard or Dragon V2, in spite of well over an order of magnitude more resources being thrown at the latter two developments.

~Jon

[Prober]

Let me ask this, though, related to current events at XCOR: if Koenigsmann (or some crew saftey expert employee you admire) walked away from SpaceX to "pursue other opportunities", and all you had was Musk's assurance that no corners were being cut, would you still be just as happy to get on board a Dragon?

You're asking the wrong guy.. I've gotten on the back of a friend's homebuilt gyrocopter, and I know he sucks at welding.

What no gopro video?
 

[Lars-J]

Thanks sdsds and Jon for your explanations, I appreciate them - even if I (from a more detached point of view) do not share all the conclusions.