RpK fights back

NASASpaceflight.com has posted lengthy excerpts of a letter from Rocketplane Kistler to NASA's Scott Horowitz that asks him to cancel plans to terminate their COTS contract. The firm cites several agency actions that undermined its attempts to obtain $500M in private investement as required by a milestone in the contract : RpK protest NASA's COTS decision - NASASpaceflight.com.

RpK says many interested potential investors were discouraged by the following :
* NASA's decision not to guarantee an ISS servicing contract if RpK successfully demonstrated the capabilities required by COTS Phase 1.
* Opening up COTS Phase 2 to any outside contractor added more risk and meant that the major aerospace companies could team up and possibly, as one potential investor decided, turn COTS 2 "into just another cost-plus NASA program"
* NASA 's decision to "procure additional launches of the Russian Progress and Soyuz vehicles [through 2011] significantly reduced near term cargo requirements, and therefore potential revenues during the critical early years of operations".

The letter mentions a Canadian fund that would have invested at least $200M but withdrew because of NASA's restrictions on non-US ownership. As RpK notes, there is some irony in this considering the agency's funding of Russian competition.

Posted 10/02/07 | 21:13:49 by TopSpacer | Filed under: Commercial ISS Resupply

Comments

Yeah, Rrrright...

So let me make this straight:
RpK has failed to meet their milestones and now guess who is guitly - NASA!
It's like it was a sheep's fault that the wolf was hungry.

Now, speaking about "lack of commitment". Please correct me anyone, but as I recall the initial COTS arrangements, there were no obligations on NASA side to pick Phase 2 participants from the Phase 1 winners only. BTW, this is why NASA have several other, un-funded SAA's with other companies for the same thing.

In my view, it is pretty flat - Rpk failed, and there are consequences. This is real life, not JK playground, and there are risks involved. If Rpk is unhappy with that fact, the shouldn't have been sending their proposal in the first place.

Posted by fazha at 10/03/07 05:14:21

RIPK...
I can't let this one go without comment!

GF3 (George French the 3rd) as he likes to be known, is fresh out of excuses.

If you have a good excuse or know someone who dose. Please write RIPK
at...
RIPK
4300 Amelia Earhart lane
Oklahoma City, OK 73159

Please include the "new excuse" and a check for $300 million dollars payable to GF3.

:)

Posted by Ed at 10/03/07 05:48:42

Ed,

Right at the top I could see at least two extra "reasons". They are:

- Space Junk. The fact that NASA failed to specifically warn in their initial RFI that there is a lot of space debris up there and that it could be hazardous to any flight attempt. So it could be implied that now investors are seeing this fact as too much risk to any possible investment in their cause.

- UFO. They could step forward and enigmatically suggest that basing upon "very reliable internal sources", there is a very strong roumor that NASA is seriously considering re-fitting that Roswell-crushed flying saucer for ferrying crew to ISS. Or even go way beyond and say that they are in negotiation with aliens themselves for purchaising new UFO's.

And yeah, all these advises are free
:)

Posted by fazha at 10/03/07 06:13:01

This letter reads like "My dog ate my homework"
and "You never loved me enough". Truly a pathetic
performance.

NASA was offering RPK $200 Million of front money,
and they were screaming that they needed
Just a little bit more.

If The K-1 was all it was cracked up to be, it would
destroy anything Lockheed or Boeing would do.

If you want a true condemnation oft he K-1,
lookno further then The Taurus 2.

OSC sees a business case to build yet anothe ELV
aimed at this niche, flying 2 or 3 times per year
and they think it makes sense.

Wow, at least OSC thinks RpK is nuts.

If RpK can't even convince OSC to go with
the K-1, it's screwed

Posted by anonymous at 10/03/07 09:11:59

I guess this will give SpaceDev's Dream Chaser a shot at competing against SpaceX, although I am currently rooting for Elon (I'm a paypal fan, what can I say?).

Posted by Darnell Clayton at 10/03/07 10:16:28

duh. I a canadian fund really wanted to invest hundreds of millions in anything, they would find lots and lots of way more viable space launch startups, that would actually deliver tangible results, i.e. working hardware for a fraction of the money.
I dont buy it.

years of yakking about how your plans will revolutionize a market tends to erode away credibility in no time, especially if you have nothing at all to show for it.

Posted by reader at 10/03/07 11:09:38

RpK�s business & finance skills that have been so unbelievably, mind-boggling sucky. If RpK had used the money they already got to actually bend additional metal, they might have attracted more investors who�d see a company confident enough to move forward with what little they had. Instead RpK appears to have timidly sat on its hands, doing next to zilch, waiting to be �fully funded.� Filtering through all the weeping and wailing rhetoric in that letter, I did see a few valid points, but that W&W verbiage made it all read like a sad sack story � enough so that NASA posted it for our entertainment.

Honestly, I wouldn�t stomp on the K-1 concept too much. Technically, for an orbital (not �sub-�) and fully (not partial) reusable launch vehicle, it isn�t a bad approach to take, given the harsh to-orbit-&-back flight environment and high mission tempo it would have to go through. You�re just hauling freight after all, both up and DOWN (a NASA req't, and something an ELV like Taurus can�t do...well, okay it can, just not in one piece), and you're not weighed down by sexy things like wings/fins/pilots (I never believed K-1 would have been right for a passenger carrier).

Of course, this is all assuming you can afford to build the thing; and it is that painful lack of financial $avvy & management $kills that has been their Achille$� heel.

Well�, maybe someone (maybe from Canada) will buy up all the parts along with the design (but w/o the K-baggage), and actually get something to fly. Fly profitably, now that's another story.

Posted by BC at 10/03/07 11:57:52

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