Excalibur Almaz

[Capt. David]

Here's a thought for all of you that have questions about the money situation, hardware, or just have a general question about Excailbur Almaz Ltd. : Why not contact them yourselves? The Public Relation Officer is Rob Lazaro at [email protected] I'm sure he will be happy to answer your questions.

David L. Rickman

[Robotbeat]

Excalibur Almaz does seem very sketchy, much like Mars One, I don't think either are scams but both business cases seem to run off of optimism or denial.

That describes just about every startup too.

THIS.

[boinc]

https://twitter.com/spacextalk/status/438277066719764480

[Robert Thompson]

http://www.lempertz.com/fileadmin/pdfbulletin/BEIHEFTER__engl.pdf

"Race to the Moon
Lempertz S.A. auctions Soviet space capsule
The Soviet VA Space Capsule (Vozvrashchaemyi Apparat) with the serial number 1–11Φ71B-0320-0 No. 060 will be auctioned by Lempertz in Brussels in April 2014. The capsule has had its own remarkable history. To verify its reusability, the capsule has performed hundreds of orbits and apart from the US Space Shuttle, the VA Space Capsule is apparently the only type of spacecraft that has entered space twice as a specific item."

[Phillip Clark]

http://www.lempertz.com/fileadmin/pdfbulletin/BEIHEFTER__engl.pdf

"Race to the Moon
Lempertz S.A. auctions Soviet space capsule
The Soviet VA Space Capsule (Vozvrashchaemyi Apparat) with the serial number 1–11Φ71B-0320-0 No. 060 will be auctioned by Lempertz in Brussels in April 2014. The capsule has had its own remarkable history. To verify its reusability, the capsule has performed hundreds of orbits and apart from the US Space Shuttle, the VA Space Capsule is apparently the only type of spacecraft that has entered space twice as a specific item."

We have known since the late 1980s that the Vostok-derived Zenit re-entry modules were re-used on a routine basis - typically three times.

[simonbp]

apart from the US Space Shuttle, the VA Space Capsule is apparently the only type of spacecraft that has entered space twice as a specific item."

Not quite.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gemini_2

[JasonAW3]

I'll believe this company when I see them actually launch a test flight.

[Lars_J]

I'll believe this company when I see them actually launch a test flight.

Yes, the sham continues. Or is it petering out, if they are selling off the precious hardware that they aim to refly?

[Robert Thompson]

http://www.lempertz.com/fileadmin/pdfbulletin/BEIHEFTER__engl.pdf (bottom):
"
Bernd J. Höfer
Former Deputy Chairman of the Executive Board of the German Aerospace Centre (DLR)
...
http://en.wikipedia.org
"

http://www.excaliburalmaz.com/pdf/bio_hoefer.pdf

(The German auction program claims similarly.
http://www.lempertz.com/fileadmin/pdfbulletin/Lempertz_Einleger.pdf
http://www.lempertz.com/bulletin.html)

[Danderman]

Can anyone explain why this director of Excalibur Almaz would be selling their hardware at auction?

[billh]

Can anyone explain why this director of Excalibur Almaz would be selling their hardware at auction?

Going Out of Business Sale?

[ChrisWilson68]

A while back they were being sued for fraud by the widow of an investor.  If she won or they settled, they may have been forced to sell assets to pay her back the money her husband invested.

[Helodriver]

Well, it looks like the dissection of Excalibur Almaz has finally begun.  A million euros? More than I'd have expected it to go for.

http://www.newsdaily.com/article/3a4b540fa257125d4c403598440c5cec/soviet-era-space-capsule-fetches-1-mln-euros-at-auction

[ChrisWilson68]

The EA web site has a "Program Overview" link that goes to a PDF of a slide deck dated December 12, 2012.  That slide deck claims ownership of four re-entry vehicles.  So what's the status of the other three?

I clicked around a bit on the EA web site and couldn't find anything dated after 2012.  The copyright messages at the bottom of all the pages are 2005-2012.  Nothing about selling off one of their capsules.

So, no signs of life from Excalibur Almaz.

[Danderman]

Japanese Investor Claims Houston "Space Law" Expert's Private Space Flight Company Was a Scam

http://blogs.houstonpress.com/news/2014/11/famed_japanese_businessman_horiemon_is_suing_a_houston_space_attorney_for_screwing_him_out_of_49_mil.php

Takafumi "Horiemon" Horie, the Japanese entrepreneur who founded the tech company Livedoor and later spent time in jail for securities fraud, is suing a Houston "space law" attorney, along with a number of related corporations, for allegedly duping him into investing $49 million dollars in a defunct space travel company, using Russian-made Almaz spacecraft as bait.

The lawsuit, filed in Harris County on Tuesday, alleges that Art Dula claimed he and his company could set up a commercial space flight program for Horie -- whose dba was "Japanese Space Dream" -- because Dula was a "space attorney" and had all the right contacts to get an orbital space transport business off the ground.

But ultimately, according to the suit, the whole space travel company turned out to be a "complex scheme" to take Horie's money.

While the lawsuit acknowledges that Dula did indeed buy some space equipment from the Russians -- four Almaz spacecraft capsules and two space stations, to be precise -- the purchase contracts for the spacecraft had to be approved by the Russian government. Those contracts, Horie alleges, explicitly barred Dula and his company from making any updates or alterations to the spacecraft, effectively rendering them nice museum toys that were useless for space travel.

[Danderman]

It would be interesting to learn if Horie had copies of those contracts, or can get them via the discovery process.

Even if the purchase contracts somehow forbid Excalibur from modifying those articles, there are probably other VA capsules in less developed condition that could be modified for flight.

My opinion is that this is a case where the company simply ran out of money and the chief investor wants his cash back.

Since most replies to this will be along the lines that the technical approach was infeasible in the first place I won't comment on that aspect of the case.

[Prober]

It would be interesting to learn if Horie had copies of those contracts, or can get them via the discovery process.

Even if the purchase contracts somehow forbid Excalibur from modifying those articles, there are probably other VA capsules in less developed condition that could be modified for flight.

My opinion is that this is a case where the company simply ran out of money and the chief investor wants his cash back.

Since most replies to this will be along the lines that the technical approach was infeasible in the first place I won't comment on that aspect of the case.

maybe somewhere in the middle.  Remember the proper documentation for making the craft "operational" was not provided.  This would backup the museum only theory.

Given much talked Metal fatigue problems.  Issues with the MLM, and issues of some old Russian engines.
It becomes very interesting if this goes very far, if some outside source investigates the condition of the spacecraft. 

[ChrisWilson68]

Even if the purchase contracts somehow forbid Excalibur from modifying those articles, there are probably other VA capsules in less developed condition that could be modified for flight.

My opinion is that this is a case where the company simply ran out of money and the chief investor wants his cash back.

Whether there are other capsules that could be modified for flight is irrelevant.  If Excalibur Almaz purchased these capsules under a purchase agreement that said they couldn't be modified for flight, why did they do so?  It clearly wasn't as part of a plan to fly them.  The only reasonable conclusion is that they made the purchase to give the impression they were taking action on a plan to fly them when in fact they were not.  In fact, they made public statements that they did intend to fly those very articles.  That sounds like fraud to me.

[Danderman]

Hmmm  ... here is a promo for use of the capsules for unattended science experiments, ie no crew.  The money quote is:

"We own four reusable reentry vehicles, each capable of making up to 15 trips to and from Low Earth Orbit", so the assertion that the company claimed to be able to modify the capsules is correct. I suspect that the case might come down to whether or not the actual contract with Russian authorities indeed contained a prohibition against modifications of the capsules. Given that it seems that one capsule was somewhat modified, Dula might simply argue that the provision in the purchase agreement was unenforceable.

Note the reference on page 6 to 'Nanoracks' payloads!   

[ChrisWilson68]

Dula might simply argue that the provision in the purchase agreement was unenforceable.

It will be very interesting to hear Dula's response.  I hope there is a public response.  He might argue, as you say, that the agreement was unenforceable.  Or he might argue that the characterization in the suit is incorrect and that it does actually allow modification for flight.  Or he might argue that his team didn't read the fine print carefully enough and didn't notice.  Or he might not really have any excuse at all.