[FPSPACE] Re: FPSPACE digest, Vol 1 #86 - 4 msgs

[KEITH GOTTSCHALK]

> Unfortunately, at the AIAA meeting in Long Beach
>Calif a few weeks ago, there were rumors of the departure
of the top three
>officials from Roton, as well as of at least one of the
test pilots?  Any
> additional insights?

   To my knowledge, behind all the brash bragging, all that
Roton has done is to partly build
    - a helicopter.  It is a point Dwayne & I raised:
start-up capitalization is astronomical
    to build, & R&D, & test-fly  to human-rating, a space
launch vehicle.

         I doubt if Roton or Kistler have Dennis Tito's cash
in the bank.

   I know a South African (now a naturalized American in
LA), who only had to support himself while
     successfully writing a software payroll programme that
gets him enough corporate
     customers to live comfortably.  The key point is that
if his software crashes, he needs only enough
      capital to support himself for a few days until he
writes out the bugs.

      But you can't build a SLV in your backyard. And when
any space free marketeer SLV crashes, that is ten to the six
or seventh  power dollars.  Even the Douglas Clipper, for
want of five legs instead of four, wrote off its budget, &
wrote off itself, & the whole project.

     Lockmart no doubt commands ten to the tenth or eleventh
power dollars in assets & venture capital. But even with
those resources, its management will only vote on 
  VentureStar AFTER the X-33 &  X-33A tests, which are 50%
funded by taxpayers. Similarly, Boeing must also command ten
to the eleventh power dollars in capitalization. But its
60-ton thrust hydrogen peroxide engine, developed entirely
through its own funds, is not rushing in where shareholders
fear to tread.  If Boeing & Lockmart cannot yet build a
profit-making RLV without R&D paid by the taxpayer,
certainly Roton & Kistler are dead in the water - unless
NASA will pay a share of R&D costs, & pay for test flight
models (which might well be a sound investment).