25 thoughts on “XCOR”

    1. You said it, bro. Having the guy who headed up ULA during the Stasis Years is no reason for cheering either. One has to wonder if, having now consolidated The Revolution, the new masters of XCOR intend to quietly bury Lynx, concentrate on being a good little engine subcontractor for ULA’s ACES and generally go over to being just another hopeful crumb-chaser outfit living on occasional bits of largesse from the legacy aerospace majors. The core competency of these new board members seems to be working their old-boy network and Congressional contacts, not doing innovative things in space.

      1. That seems unlikely, given that a major block of stockholders invested primarily because of their interest in operating Lynx.

        My guess would be that XCOR may have to make some tough choices balancing limited bandwidth between engines and Lynx, but both businesses have very large upsides – they’d be nuts to drop either.

          1. Woke up cynical today, did we? I wouldn’t be shocked if Gibson doesn’t give as much detail as we’d like – he has a rep for playing his cards close to his vest – but I seriously doubt he’ll make stuff up.

        2. I hope you’re right, Henry, and that the new guys don’t do anything nuts. But I’ve seen big company craziness close-up. Both of these new guys are from places where XCOR’s entire yearly operating budget wouldn’t cover the cost of re-doing their offices.

          The terrible object lesson I hope doesn’t get repeated – but which I very much fear will – is the one that played out at the late Rocketplane-Kistler. The original entrepreneur and outside-the-box engineering types were shown the door by a new crew with glittery credentials from the established aerospace world. These worthies then proceeded to execute a controlled flight of RpK into terrain. And face it, the late George Mueller and crew at RpK were light years ahead of the two schleppers XCOR just saddled themselves with.

          I’d like to be optimistic. I really would. But I have a very bad feeling about this.

          1. The terrible object lesson I hope doesn’t get repeated – but which I very much fear will – is the one that played out at the late Rocketplane-Kistler. The original entrepreneur and outside-the-box engineering types were shown the door by a new crew with glittery credentials from the established aerospace world. These worthies then proceeded to execute a controlled flight of RpK into terrain.

            My words exactly. I thought the exact same thing when I read the news.

            Not that I had great expectations of Lynx ever flying, to begin with, but at least back then they were better than zero.

          2. Coupla distinctions to draw here. Board members are not line management; comparing XCOR’s new Board members to George Meuller is apples ‘n oranges. Occasional advice, yes,, very loose oversight, well, technically yes, but a good CEO doesn’t let his Board get into day-to-day elbow-joggling (and an unpaid Board tends not to have the time anyway.)

            Not having a pipeline into the actual thinking involved either, I’d still say it’s fairly obvious that a major point of adding Gass and Burbage is to improve XCOR’s mainline-aerospace cred. Why? I’d be inclined to guess that reassuring both potential big customers and potential big investors might be involved.

            (I notice nobody’s nervous about Art Bozlee, who is a seriously interesting guy in his own right.) (But they should be! Just kidding… Hi, Art!)

            The other, MAJOR distinction is, well, Rocketplane-Kistler looked to me to have ended up as a world-class Charlie Foxtrot. Taking the Oklahoma incentive money specifically earmarked for Rocketplane then pivoting to spend it on Kistler on an all-or-nothing gamble that they could win a NASA cargo contract, well, words fail me.

            One, plausible but speculative reason for the RpK pivot I’ve heard is that the Rocketplane aerodynamics just weren’t there – that it needed far more additional work than they had time or money for to get to a vehicle that could actually fly the profile without burning, crashing, or both. So they rolled the dice on Kistler, and lost, the theory goes.

            FWIW, my understanding is that one of the major accomplishments of Jeff Greason et al on Lynx has been getting the aerodynamics to the point where it could actually fly the mission – NOT easy – this on what the mainline industry would regard as somehwere between a tenth and a hundredth of the budget required for such a feat.

            At that point, continuing the grinding detailed systems design-integration&test required to produce an actual flyable Lynx vehicle embodying those aerodynamics strikes me as a stunningly obvious decision. XCOR management would have to be barking mad not to finish developing that potentially hugely valuable asset as fast as their available resources and the current project state allow.

            As best I can tell, XCOR management is about as far from barking mad as it’s possible to get. FWIW, YMMV, etc.

  2. This makes me sad. It is not usually a good sign when the founders and creators of a company get kicked out. Sometimes I’ve seen it work when a good engineer is in over his head on the business side and calls in someone that knows how to run a larger company, but this looks more like hostile take over. If I was an employee, I’d be looking to leave, and right quick. All of which is too bad, I’ve always admired XCOR’s work.

    1. And sometimes – often, in fact – it’s what a company needs to move past being a single-team, single-project shop.

      As for what you think it looks like, I respectfully suggest you may be forming conclusions on insufficient data.

      1. XCOR was never a single-project shop. They always had multiple clients. In fact I suspect the new leadership will start dropping some of those smaller clients to focus on the supposedly more “important” business of servicing ULA. Which is a highly volatile thing to bet on considering Vulcan is a design of rocket designs.

        My only gripe was with their capabilities to develop the Lynx itself. XCOR had proven themselves highly capable of doing the rocket engine. The airframe and the integrated vehicle was another matter. It’s kind of like Scaled Composites in reverse. Scaled Composites is great at developing airframes and useless at developing engines.

        1. A lot of people over the years have lamented that Scaled’s airframe and XCOR’s propulsion expertise were never teamed up. But, oh well, I was there one day when Burt dropped by the hangar, looked at the X-Racer’s propulsion plumbing (complicated, but no more so than, say, a current auto engine with the covers off) and pretty much said, no, too complicated, he preferred far simpler rocket engines.

          FWIW, what I saw while there was that XCOR indeed could handle a few small side-projects going on, but that the central organizational focus tended to be one major project at a time.

          It is a standard hurdle for tech startups to get past. Many never do, and either settle down to being steady-state small shops (nothing wrong with that if you don’t care about changing the world) or die. It’s regrettable that XCOR’s transition wasn’t smoother, the hypotheticals about other ways it might have been handled could be endless, but one way or another it’s a necessary transition.

  3. XCOR may have become an anchor holding Greason back. I’d keep an eye out for his next project.

  4. I would be somewhat surprised if Lynx ever flies.
    I would be completely stunned if any derivative of lynx ever gets across the 62 mi line to space.

    The concept of a gas and go suborbital vehicle with airplane like operations is somewhat compelling, but watching Xcor from afar for the last 7 years or so seems like they are not the team to pull this off.

    1. Heh. I’m so tempted… No, small stakes among friends. Betcha a good dinner you’re wrong on the first point, and an evening’s good beer you’re wrong on the second.

      Could be a while before I collect on the beer, mind, because that will take a second-gen Lynx – the first was never expected to be light enough to make 100 km.

      We’ll see.

      Anyway, we’ll see.

      1. Indeed we will.

        While we’re waiting, let me particularize my concerns a bit; I realize “a bad feeling” may be reasonably construed as a being a tad vague.

        First, consider Burbage and Gass. Why bring them aboard?

        Cement ties with ULA? Sure Gass was the guy who originally gave XCOR its slow-walk development deal for an RL-10 replacement engine, but he’s also the guy who was defenestrated in order to make way for the guy currently running ULA. Not really seeing how giving Gass a job is likely to curry more favor with Bruno.

        Burbage? Just to prove blowing out the budget and schedule on the F-22 was merely a warm-up act, this tool felt it necessary to really make his bones by upping his game on the F-35. Talk about failing upward!

        The only obvious asset either of these guys bring with them is their Rolodexes (I know nobody uses actual Rolodexes anymore, but the world of smartphone technology has yet to offer up a comparably tidy term to reference the modern digital equivalent).

        If they’re on the board mainly to work the phones as celebrity crumb-chasers, it would be reasonable to suspect Jay Gibson intends to diversify XCOR’s current book of business. But doing that by being the low bidder on a lot of fiddly little dull-as-ditchwater legacy aerospace subcontracts isn’t likely to keep the current line troops happy.

        Said troopies have other options. Many such options are likely findable elsewhere on the Mojave flight line. If Lynx gets de-emphasized, at least some of the rank and file will pull their ripcords. It wouldn’t take many departures of key staff to put Lynx so far behind the eight ball it never claws its way back to daylight.

        1. Many such options are likely findable elsewhere on the Mojave flight line.

          For many of them, that means moving back to Mojave from Midland. A prospect to which many of them wouldn’t be averse.

        2. See my long reply above to your “I’ve got a bad feeling about this” for what I think is actually going on.

          Short version, taking counsel from your fears because data is really sparse is understandable, but generally an error.

          Mind, as a minor (very) stockholder I think Mr. Gibson could have done a better job of getting the appropriate data out. It’s a different, more connected world down here on this end of the industry. (IE, we all gossip like mad, whether we have data or not.) But then, he did agree to come speak at the conference I’m running in Phoenix next week, so we’ll see.

          Speaking of the conference – plug time! Space Access ’16, Phoenix AZ April 7-9, http://space-access.org/updates/sa16info.html for the details.

          There’s a few other interesting people speaking as well. Guys named Greason, Clapp, Hudson, Sponable, a minor launch outfit called ULA, some longtime internet space maven named Henry Spencer, and oh yeah, there’s this blogger (no doubt pajama-clad) called Simberg…

        3. This seems to have gotten lost; apologies if it shows up twice…

          See my long reply above to your “I’ve got a bad feeling about this” for what I think is actually going on.

          Short version, taking counsel from your fears because data is really sparse is understandable, but generally an error.

          Mind, as a minor (very) stockholder I think Mr. Gibson could have done a better job of getting the appropriate data out. It’s a different, more connected world down here on this end of the industry. (IE, we all gossip like mad, whether we have data or not.) But then, he did agree to come speak at the conference I’m running in Phoenix next week, so we’ll see.

          Speaking of the conference – plug time! Space Access ’16, Phoenix AZ April 7-9, http://space-access.org/updates/sa16info.html for the details.

          There’s a few other interesting people speaking as well. Guys named Greason, Masten, Clapp, Hudson, Kare, Sponable, a minor launch outfit called ULA, some longtime space maven named Henry Spencer, and oh yeah, there’s this blogger named Simberg…

    1. Done. Though just to be kind to you, let’s set a deadline: End of next year, if Lynx has produced daylight under the gear, you buy me a decent dinner next time we’re in the same town; failing that, I buy.

  6. On a lighter note… given the ways people manage to misspell my first and last names, I usually emphasize: “Stephen with a P-H, Fleming with one M.”

    More than once, I’ve received mail to “Steven Phleming”. 🙂

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