Commercial Space: No Bucks, No Buck Rogers!

[Danderman]

An observation:  Kistler Aerospace had more funding than any previous or subsequent "New Space" launch firm.  SpaceX has had more cash flow, but only raised perhaps 1/3 the equity of KAC.

In fact, I think KAC spent more money than Pioneer Rocketplane, Rotary, Kelly, Beal, Amroc, SSI, SpaceX (to first F1 flight), Orbital (for Pegasus) and a few others combined.

This observation is worthy of its own thread.

IIRC, Beal Aerospace spent a boatload of  cash, perhaps a sizeable fraction of what Kistler went through.

[HMXHMX]

An observation:  Kistler Aerospace had more funding than any previous or subsequent "New Space" launch firm.  SpaceX has had more cash flow, but only raised perhaps 1/3 the equity of KAC.

In fact, I think KAC spent more money than Pioneer Rocketplane, Rotary, Kelly, Beal, Amroc, SSI, SpaceX (to first F1 flight), Orbital (for Pegasus) and a few others combined.

This observation is worthy of its own thread.

IIRC, Beal Aerospace spent a boatload of  cash, perhaps a sizeable fraction of what Kistler went through.

$200M is the number I have heard for Beal.  I spent $30M at Rotary.  Bevin and crew spent maybe $40M overall at Starstruck/AMROC.  Pioneer Rocketplane (pre-Kistler) maybe $5M?  Kelly Space & Tech, probably less than $10M.  SSI (up to the NASA contract) was maybe $10-20M.  Orbital is not quite "New Space" since they had the DARPA purchase contract, but I believe they spent about $80M. 

None of these numbers are adjusted for inflation, and I haven't included ventures that spent less than a few million, of which there were several. I also don't include any suborbital projects.

[Danderman]

  Kelly Space & Tech, probably less than $10M. 

Does that include the $8 million they received from NASA?

[HMXHMX]

  Kelly Space & Tech, probably less than $10M. 

Does that include the $8 million they received from NASA?

That is my guess, but it is largely a guess.  I thought it was $7M, myself.

[Prober]

An observation:  Kistler Aerospace had more funding than any previous or subsequent "New Space" launch firm.  SpaceX has had more cash flow, but only raised perhaps 1/3 the equity of KAC.

In fact, I think KAC spent more money than Pioneer Rocketplane, Rotary, Kelly, Beal, Amroc, SSI, SpaceX (to first F1 flight), Orbital (for Pegasus) and a few others combined.

This observation is worthy of its own thread.

IIRC, Beal Aerospace spent a boatload of  cash, perhaps a sizeable fraction of what Kistler went through.

$200M is the number I have heard for Beal.  I spent $30M at Rotary.  Bevin and crew spent maybe $40M overall at Starstruck/AMROC.  Pioneer Rocketplane (pre-Kistler) maybe $5M?  Kelly Space & Tech, probably less than $10M.  SSI (up to the NASA contract) was maybe $10-20M.  Orbital is not quite "New Space" since they had the DARPA purchase contract, but I believe they spent about $80M. 

None of these numbers are adjusted for inflation, and I haven't included ventures that spent less than a few million, of which there were several. I also don't include any suborbital projects.

You worked with Rotary?   That was a decent design.

[Danderman]

The figure I heard for Kistler was $750 million, although I have no idea where the money went.

[jongoff]

An observation:  Kistler Aerospace had more funding than any previous or subsequent "New Space" launch firm.  SpaceX has had more cash flow, but only raised perhaps 1/3 the equity of KAC.

In fact, I think KAC spent more money than Pioneer Rocketplane, Rotary, Kelly, Beal, Amroc, SSI, SpaceX (to first F1 flight), Orbital (for Pegasus) and a few others combined.

This observation is worthy of its own thread.

IIRC, Beal Aerospace spent a boatload of  cash, perhaps a sizeable fraction of what Kistler went through.

$200M is the number I have heard for Beal.  I spent $30M at Rotary.  Bevin and crew spent maybe $40M overall at Starstruck/AMROC.  Pioneer Rocketplane (pre-Kistler) maybe $5M?  Kelly Space & Tech, probably less than $10M.  SSI (up to the NASA contract) was maybe $10-20M.  Orbital is not quite "New Space" since they had the DARPA purchase contract, but I believe they spent about $80M. 

None of these numbers are adjusted for inflation, and I haven't included ventures that spent less than a few million, of which there were several. I also don't include any suborbital projects.

You worked with Rotary?   That was a decent design.

HMXHMX didn't just "work with" Rotary, he ran it.  :-)

~Jon

[jongoff]

The figure I heard for Kistler was $750 million, although I have no idea where the money went.

Yeah, Kistler was the only commercial RLV group that ever raised enough money to have a chance at failing technically. Unfortunately, they had management that made sure they failed at execution before they could run into actual technical problems...

~Jon

[Danderman]

The figure I heard for Kistler was $750 million, although I have no idea where the money went.

Yeah, Kistler was the only commercial RLV group that ever raised enough money to have a chance at failing technically. Unfortunately, they had management that made sure they failed at execution before they could run into actual technical problems...

~Jon

Wow, that was cold!

My understanding is that the funding source for Kistler dried up unexpectedly, so it wasn't really a case of a management failure.

[HMXHMX]

The figure I heard for Kistler was $750 million, although I have no idea where the money went.

Yeah, Kistler was the only commercial RLV group that ever raised enough money to have a chance at failing technically. Unfortunately, they had management that made sure they failed at execution before they could run into actual technical problems...

~Jon

Wow, that was cold!

My understanding is that the funding source for Kistler dried up unexpectedly, so it wasn't really a case of a management failure.

We should take care to separate the KAC of 1994-2004 time frame from the subsequent KAC managed by George French after he took over the firm. The less said about the latter, the better.

KAC's unique problems were the size of payload chosen, the flyback booster approach, and the insistence on using mainstream contractors.

KAC's payload was either too small or too large, depending on your point of view.  Smaller would have likely brought them to market, but with a thin market until payloads caught up with the launch capability.  Larger would have meant a major redesign of the LV, but could have opened the GTO market.  This leads to the flyback booster issue.  If you don't retro lob the booster, your payload is much larger and you can address the same markets SpaceX is currently going after.  Finally, the choice of Northrop Grumman was a mistake in my view.  More than once I suggested using Scaled, who was building structure for me at a few precent of what NGC was charging KAC.  But since NGC was an investor in KAC, it wasn't feasible to go that route.

The generic problem that all of us faced was the loss of the LEO constellation market.  Without that market, we were all participating in a  slow motion train wreck.

[Danderman]

The generic problem that all of us faced was the loss of the LEO constellation market.  Without that market, we were all participating in a  slow motion train wreck.

The LEO constellation collapse was pretty much the biggest private sector wrong guess that ever happened, and I don't blame anyone for betting on its chances in the mid-1990s. However, my understanding is that Kistler's money dried up before the LEO constellation market died.

[simonbp]

I stand by my comment that startups like Kistler, which spend large amount of other people's money (taxdollars in Kistler's case) without actually ever producing a product, are charlatans.

They give a bad name to the companies that actually deliver. The COTS funds to SpaceX and OSC are actually leading to useful rockets. All the public and private money spent on Kistler might as well have have been flushed down the toilet. They promised enormously more than they could deliver, and cheated investors and taxpayers in the process.

[HMXHMX]

I stand by my comment that startups like Kistler, which spend large amount of other people's money (taxdollars in Kistler's case) without actually ever producing a product, are charlatans.

They give a bad name to the companies that actually deliver. The COTS funds to SpaceX and OSC are actually leading to useful rockets. All the public and private money spent on Kistler might as well have have been flushed down the toilet. They promised enormously more than they could deliver, and cheated investors and taxpayers in the process.

Once again, just to clarify, the pre-2005/6 KAC didn't take taxpayer dollars (to any measurable degree, AFAIK).  KAC did win a $225M contract from NASA in an open competition that was later challenged and nullified by a SpaceX protest.  Only the merged KAC run by French took COTS money, and that was <$40M or so.  I'm not defending that incarnation of the enterprise.

And companies fail all the time without having the libelous term charlatan apply.  It's best not to use too much hyperbole in one's choice of words.

[Patchouli]

The generic problem that all of us faced was the loss of the LEO constellation market.  Without that market, we were all participating in a  slow motion train wreck.

The LEO constellation collapse was pretty much the biggest private sector wrong guess that ever happened, and I don't blame anyone for betting on its chances in the mid-1990s. However, my understanding is that Kistler's money dried up before the LEO constellation market died.

One big issue I think was the fact Kistler went to a full sized vehicle vs a smaller technical demonstrator first.

This caused them to stay suck at the analyses stage for a long time.

One thing that Spacex did differently is they built Falcon 1 before Falcon 9 this allowed them to get to building and flight testing.

Falcon 1 allowed Spacex to be able to afford a few failures while they worked out the worst of the engineering issues.

I do wonder if Beal regrets having pulled out of aerospace as he could be in Musk's position today.

[HMXHMX]

The generic problem that all of us faced was the loss of the LEO constellation market.  Without that market, we were all participating in a  slow motion train wreck.

The LEO constellation collapse was pretty much the biggest private sector wrong guess that ever happened, and I don't blame anyone for betting on its chances in the mid-1990s. However, my understanding is that Kistler's money dried up before the LEO constellation market died.

One big issue I think was the fact Kistler went to a full sized vehicle vs a smaller technical demonstrator first.

This caused them to stay suck at the analyses stage for a long time.

One thing that Spacex did differently is they built Falcon 1 before Falcon 9 this allowed them to get to building and flight testing.

Falcon 1 allowed Spacex to be able to afford a few failures while they worked out the worst of the engineering issues.

I do wonder if Beal regrets having pulled out of aerospace as he could be in Musk's position today.

For what it was worth, I tried to make a similar case to Walt Kistler and Bob Citron in 2000, on a visit to Kirkland.  My suggestion was to focus on a partly-reusable single-engine NK33-powered vehicle module.  The tank would be expendable, the engine capsule and engine reusable, and the orbital stage would be used primarily for circularization (and also might be recovered with avionics since it was quite small).  The NK33 t/w and Isp were both good enough to allow once-around near-orbital performance from one large stage, using propellant mass fractions already achieved by Delta II or Titan.

Clustering would increase the payload from Taurus 1 class to F9 class and even larger.  While not a full RLV, it would get them to market quickly, since they already had the engines, avionics and a systems engineering team that could have easily developed the capsule and recovery elements.  But I believe they felt that the confidence of investors would be shaken by a change of corporate direction away from K1.  The "sunk cost fallacy" may also have played a role.  Regrettably, that meant they missed an opportunity that they could have easily afforded and for which they were well-positioned.

[Danderman]

Or, Kistler could have gone to a non-recoverable initial prototype, got that off the ground and maybe flown a few customer payloads, and then moved on to the fully recoverable system.

Hindsight is really great to have.

[HMXHMX]

It's twenty-twenty indeed.

[NotGncDude]

I stand by my comment that startups like Kistler, which spend large amount of other people's money (taxdollars in Kistler's case) without actually ever producing a product, are charlatans.

They give a bad name to the companies that actually deliver. The COTS funds to SpaceX and OSC are actually leading to useful rockets. All the public and private money spent on Kistler might as well have have been flushed down the toilet. They promised enormously more than they could deliver, and cheated investors and taxpayers in the process.

I am sorry but this is simply false. Kistler never delivered the final rocket but there were a lot of finished components and research that went on to other projects. I agree there's a lot that can be criticized about Kistler but it's false that *nothing* came out of it.

[Danderman]

I stand by my comment that startups like Kistler, which spend large amount of other people's money (taxdollars in Kistler's case) without actually ever producing a product, are charlatans.

They give a bad name to the companies that actually deliver. The COTS funds to SpaceX and OSC are actually leading to useful rockets. All the public and private money spent on Kistler might as well have have been flushed down the toilet. They promised enormously more than they could deliver, and cheated investors and taxpayers in the process.

I am sorry but this is simply false. Kistler never delivered the final rocket but there were a lot of finished components and research that went on to other projects. I agree there's a lot that can be criticized about Kistler but it's false that *nothing* came out of it.

Its very likely that Kistler funded the initial acquisition and transport of dozens of NK-33 engines from Samara to Sacramento, which paved the way for Taurus II.

[Nate_Trost]

I wonder when Bezos hits a billion sunk into Blue Origin, 2015? 2018?