Rocketplane goes under

[rsnellenberger]

MSNBC cites a report today that they've filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy (liquidation).

http://cosmiclog.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2010/07/08/4639364-rocketplane-runs-out-of-gas

Now the Oklahoma Gazette reports that Rocketplane's owner, George French, has filed Chapter 7 bankruptcy papers in his home state of Wisconsin, covering Rocketplane as well as the Kistler and Global subsidiaries. French is also filing for personal bankruptcy. The documents show assets ranging from $108,000 to $287,000, and liabilities of more than $8 million.

edit: changing title

[neilh]

RIP. I wonder in what way things would be different today if they were on a cost-plus contract instead of a fixed-price milestone-based COTS contract.

[Chris-A]

I'm not sure if this is Rocketplane global, RpK, or all.

[Jim]

all

[FinalFrontier]

What was Kistler planning to do anyway?

[brtbrt]

They were building a kerolox TSTO RLV: http://rocketplanekistler.com/k1vehicle/k1vehicle.html

They were one of the two original COTS winners (the other one being SpaceX), but were kicked out for failure to meet financial milestones.

[Antares]

RIP. I wonder in what way things would be different today if they were on a cost-plus contract instead of a fixed-price milestone-based COTS contract.

The government would have lost more money on vaporware.

[mlorrey]

Well it's not like we didn't see this one coming for a while. Should be some good bargains in equipment at the bankruptcy auction...

[simonth]

What was Kistler planning to do anyway?

They were the SpaceX of the early 2000s...

[Lars_J]

What was Kistler planning to do anyway?

They were the SpaceX of the early 2000s...

Since SpaceX actually has put hardware in orbit (on more than one occasion), that statement is selling SpaceX a bit short.

[simonth]

What was Kistler planning to do anyway?

They were the SpaceX of the early 2000s...

Since SpaceX actually has put hardware in orbit (on more than one occasion), that statement is selling SpaceX a bit short.

I was more referring to what people said and thought about them back in the days. Many argued their rocket design will revolutionize the space launch business and in so doing the space-related market as a whole. Even NASA thought them worthy of a large COTS award.

[rsnellenberger]

Well it's not like we didn't see this one coming for a while. Should be some good bargains in equipment at the bankruptcy auction...

Did they still own the surplus NK-33 engines, or had Aerojet taken control of them at some point during Kistler's struggle?  I noted that on the RpK website, they are described using an Aerojet engine number rather than NK-33...

[Antares]

Aerojet has always owned those engines.

They were the SpaceX of the early 2000s...

Since SpaceX actually has put hardware in orbit (on more than one occasion), that statement is selling SpaceX a bit short.

I was more referring to what people said and thought about them back in the days. Many argued their rocket design will revolutionize the space launch business and in so doing the space-related market as a whole. Even NASA thought them worthy of a large COTS award.

The COTS awards should not be used as evidence of anything.  The politics of it prevent any sort of logic from being applied.  Kistler had a lot of ex-NASA and ex-usual suspects in their management team.  The Kistler architecture was horribly complicated - nothing like SpaceX.

[nooneofconsequence]

RpK is a perfect example of COTS failure.  Anyone doing simple DD could have seen that.

The point of them getting COTS was as a investment leverage scheme - e.g. that you could put 4-10x of "dumb money" against the 1x govt. This was considering "perfect execution' and believing that everything that Kistler had or done was gospel.  Not bloody likely.

It couldn't work, because the only "dumb money" they could get was foreign - which wasn't  allowed from the start. So it was beyond a  long  shot - from the start.

Kistler never made any sense as a business because its CAPEX was outrageous. And it always claimed a "70 % complete" prototype for decades. In general, "new space" businesses have been around for a long, long time as dubious propositions. Very glad to see when they prove to be otherwise, but just wanting them to be ... can't alone make them so.

[Danderman]

Did they still own the surplus NK-33 engines, or had Aerojet taken control of them at some point during Kistler's struggle?  I noted that on the RpK website, they are described using an Aerojet engine number rather than NK-33...

I am not aware of Kistler actually taking possession of an NK-33.

[simonth]

The Kistler architecture was horribly complicated - nothing like SpaceX.

Depends on how you look at it. Back in the late 1990s and early 2000s, people went crazy over rationalizing how smart a "two stage, (partially) re-usable kerolox rocket is" and how smart RpK is for "following the new private 'lean company' model employed by dot.com and other hip tech companies".

The only real difference I can see in the RpK architecture from the SpaceX architecture is second stage reusability.

[Antares]

Then you need to do more research.

[kevin-rf]

Space Review article
http://www.thespacereview.com/article/1663/1

[mlorrey]

The Kistler architecture was horribly complicated - nothing like SpaceX.

Depends on how you look at it. Back in the late 1990s and early 2000s, people went crazy over rationalizing how smart a "two stage, (partially) re-usable kerolox rocket is" and how smart RpK is for "following the new private 'lean company' model employed by dot.com and other hip tech companies".

The only real difference I can see in the RpK architecture from the SpaceX architecture is second stage reusability.

SpaceX started off from the beginning controlling its engine technology and building an efficient and economical production facility.

RpK seemed to me to be vaporware from the start, and dumping money into OldSpace subcontractors like Aerojet and wound up controlling very little.

[antonioe]

Allow me my $0.02's worth:

To begin with, it is very important to separate the original Kistler from RpK.  The Kistler company (which by the time it got to designing the K-1 owed very little to Mr. Kistler except the name) was pursuing, indeed, a two-stage, NK-33/43 powered, fully reuseable TSTO with a thrustback first stage.  The system design was the brainchild of the famous George Muller (pronounced Miller!!!) of Apollo fame.

I must say that the K-1 design was one of the best examples of PROPER aerospace systems engineering I've seen in my entire life.  Twice I've had the opportunity to dig very, very deep into the design of the K-1 system, and I remain convinced that it would meet its technical specifications, astonishing as they may seem.

The K-1 project had only two flaws, neither of them technical:

First, like any fully reuseable LV, it suffered from the 50-60/Y syndrome: to pay back its much higher nonrecurring cost it would have to fly 50 to 60 times a year, just like the Shuttle, just like anything else that uses chemical propulsion and today's structural materials.  There is just no way around that.

Second, it required an multi-billion dollar investment and  there simply wasn't enough money around for it, even with the COTS $200M.

Now, the involvement with Rocketplane is a completely different story that I don't care to comment in public.

Having said that, my admiration for George Muller's engineering prowess remains undiminished.  I worship the very ground he steps on.

[Namechange User]

Antonioe,

Given you have had the chance to review the engineering, is this something Orbital could by the rights to?  Is it even something you would want to buy the rights to for sometime down the road or was it more just an interesting oppurtunity?

[Danderman]

IMHO, Kistler would have been better served to start off flying a non-recoverable variant of their system, and so get to revenue sooner. This would have reduced their investment requirements, although their operating costs would have been much higher. After a handful of test flights, they could have raised the capital for the recovery systems, starting with the first stage.

Or, they could have started off with only the first stage being recoverable.

[D_Dom]

Quoted from Antonioe;
"Having said that, my admiration for George Muller's engineering prowess remains undiminished."

That is high praise indeed, any of his systems engineering approach available to the general public?

[Downix]

IMHO, Kistler would have been better served to start off flying a non-recoverable variant of their system, and so get to revenue sooner. This would have reduced their investment requirements, although their operating costs would have been much higher. After a handful of test flights, they could have raised the capital for the recovery systems, starting with the first stage.

Or, they could have started off with only the first stage being recoverable.

Or even only the upper stage being recoverable.  In any case, they went for broke, and it broke them.

I am not crying over it, due to the Taurus II.

But I wonder, where did the NK-33's they purchase go, and who do I talk to to get one. 

[Antares]

They never purchased them.  They've always been Aerojet's.  RpK, IIUC, had first rights to them.

[N45deg]

Rocketplane assets go up for auction.

http://www.hgpauction.com/?auctionid=82