OK, this time for sure.

Starting off with a thank you. This was his first conference in a couple years that he’s had time at the conference to actually see the conference and talk with old friends, because he wasn’t consumed with meetings.

XCOR turned a profit last year. A small one, but they’re still actively involved in the development of product lines, so all that means is that the money temporarily came in faster than they could spend it. Had about $3.7M in revenue last year, probably about the same this year for reasons to come later. About 34 employees.

They are building vehicles to help us go, but because they are the largest company that isn’t well funded, they “flip burgers for a living,” in that they look for customers who need problems solved that they also need solved, and have managed to turn R&D from a cost center to a profit center, but it’s still useful R&D for their goals.

Nitrous oxide/methane thruster in the fifty-pound class for an attitude control thruster. Customer’s application is different than XCOR’s, but it’s still good.

Pump-fed fueled, pressure-fed lox engine for the rocket racer. They turned out to be ahead of the rest of the schedule for the rocket racer activity, and they were asked to slow down to let the rest of the things catch up. Ramping back up now, though. They will be mass producing engines (a dozen in the first order), with a ten-minute turnaround, which will be an eye opener for the military, particularly in the ORS world. Sixteen sorties a day may change minds and careers.

7500 lbf thrust LOX/methane engine is being developed with ATK (for NASA). Theory was that NASA would talk to ATK and ATK would talk to XCOR, to maintain Jeff’s blood pressure. Hasn’t always worked out that way, but working with ATK has been surprisingly good, and hopes that it will continue, as a model of how to work with the big boys. Thinks that ATK recognizes the value of the smaller companies, and view them as asset rather than threat. Opportunities for synergy. New engine with propellants no one has considered for forty years and high performance requirements, and so far, so good. Playing video that shows the scale of the new (large) mobile test stand.

Showed the engine burn with a beautiful set of shock diamonds. Now showing a three-piston propellant pump, which runs for hours reliably. Finally showing lox/kerosene engine for rocket racer, in typical burn durations for racing.

“Barring some unforeseen event, by the time I come back next year, I will finally have my first ride.” Can’t say much about suborbital vehicle effort, but it’s progressing, and they’re past stage of wondering how they’re going to solve various problems. No schedule, but feeling good about it. Seeing some signs of interest from government customers, but can’t say much more than that right now. So much contract work, hard to keep track (which is a good thing).

Admires Masten’s public posture in terms of communicating technical road ahead without getting too deep in the technical weeds. Have to make it clear to the public that suborbital is by no means the last step on the road. Last year, they ran out of technology problems to solve, so are doing strategic thinking, refilling their plate of problems for getting to orbit, and will be looking for customers to solve those problems, so that they’ll be able to move on to the next step.

NASA is a challenging customer for XCOR. The reason is not that they’re stupid or incompetent. Have been impressed with competency and experience of the people they’re dealing with. The unpleasant surprise is that they’re like an alien race so alien that there’s no point of contact or ability to communicate, in terms of their culture. Fortunately, ATK acts as an interpreter. XCOR producing engine results that NASA didn’t expect to get. Instead of a technology hobby shop that they expected, there is now a place on the NASA product roadmap for methane to go, and all of a sudden this is becoming real (for lunar ascent stage). They have real hope that this engine will have a descendant that will lift astronauts from the moon, but this reality is putting new players in the game, and reexamining results to date.

Taking question now. Will NASA reports be publicly available? Not his department, but much of the high-risk work was done prior to NASA contract and is proprietary.

How about selling rocket engines to the private sector? Opens up lots of issues in terms of maintenance, ITAR, warranty violation, liability, etc. Not to the point of selling them off the rack, even if they were in production, and price can’t be estimated until insurance costs can be known.

Asked about relative virtues of various pumps (piston, pistonless, turbo, etc.). Saying that XCOR doesn’t subscribe to “magic bean” theory to space–that technologies have to be evaluated in context. Don’t see a path on their roadmap for pistonless pump, but that doesn’t mean that it’s wrong for someone else.

What kind of results were NASA surprised to learn about methane performance? Can’t be specific without clearing room for ITAR. They set a high bar for performance to beat hypergolics, and XCOR exceeded them, along with smooth starts and stops. NASA was having trouble believing the data, because it is perceived to be too good. Original application for vehicle was backup for CEV SM, and was pressure fed for reliability, but now looking at a smaller engine for for lunar. However still, pressure fed, again because it has to start.

Ken Davidian asks which parts of NASA they’re working with. Langley propulsion, Marshall and another that I missed. Ken wants to make the point that NASA is not a monolith, and Jeff strongly agrees (says that even a center isn’t one). We have to consider that NASA seems to be seriously considering putting an entrepreneurial company on the critical path of a safety-critical system for their flagship program. If someone had told him that they would do this two years ago, he would have thought they were smoking something.

Asked about differences between NASA and Air Force. Answer: each customer has their own idiosyncracies and challenges. No one shows up at the door with a big pile of money and says “call me when it’s done.”

Has some comments on policy, because leaving and will miss policy discussion later. ITAR sucks, but reminds of Jerry’s comment about “building a golden bridge.” National security is critical: we live in a dangerous world. It is essential that US maintain technical advantage over our adversaries. ITAR is not currently doing that, it slows us down, and does nothing to hurt our adversaries. Alternative approach is to provide a new system that offers the State Department as they have right now, but will actually work. (Devil’s in the details, of course).

Second issue: what do we want NASA to be. Doesn’t know, but he does know what we want NACA to be. We want it to be existing: dual-use technologies of value to government and private sector. NASA is out, out, out of that business. The entire office that they used to work with on advanced technology is gone. Over turning ever couch cushion called “research” and pulling it out to feed the monster. Air Force and DARPA developing space technologies, but not necessarily dual use. No conscious decision to get out of the civil space R&D business, but that’s where we are, and Congress has never actually been confronted with that choice. It’s our job as constituents to make the choices clear. Retask NASA with that job, retask someone else with it, or create a new entity, but someone should be doing it, and Congress should be made explicitly aware that this has happened.

Jerry Pournelle pointing out that this situation won’t pertain forever–someone will figure out that we’re doing no long-term technology planning, and we’ll have more leverage if we know where we want to go, and can get them thinking about it early. Jeff points out that Congress does push back on a piecemeal basis (e.g., aeronautics) but not as part of any grand strategy of concern.

Talk over. Ken Davidian next.

Jeff Greason was scheduled to talk later this morning, but he had a situation come up that required him to leave earlier than planned, so his talk has been moved up, swapping with Masten Space. He’ll be starting in a few minutes, and I’ll be blogging.

[Update]

Oops! My mistake. Sam Dinkin is speaking first. He’s showing a video the CSI “Lunar Tour” concept, using Russian hardware for tourist trip around the moon. Three weeks, including a stay at the ISS, for a hundred million dollars. (Note: Robin Snelson tells me she’s offering it for fifty million–half price! That’s what we want to see: spacefare wars.)

Sam contines to see games as a means to expand the market for suborbital spaceflight, which few can afford on their own. Games are self-financing. Spaceshot is a media company, not a space company. Hope is that with success, will be acquired as a media company, valuation in the hundreds of millions or billions.

Originally thought that adults would be the big market, because they have the money, but it turns out that they’re jaded and the kids are the most interested, and they have enough money, if the game is properly repositioned. Expects interest to grow as flights and winners appear. Feels validated by his competition–Virgin/Volvo, Microsoft/Rocketplane/Vanishingpoint. Names were thrown away after games were over. His plan is sustainable, though, rather than a one-shot.

Flight to the moon will require millions of players. But Barbara Morgan has been waiting 22 years to fly on a government vehicle, so be patient. Notes that he is a little early to market, because Rocketplane XP is not yet flying, nor is Bigelow. Will be expanding to new languages (Spanish, Japanese) in the next couple years, new games and non-space prizes (cars, houses, cash).

I’m sure that Sam will correct/expand this report of his talk.

The problem, Sam, with the cost numbers to orbit are that it’s not clear whether or not they’re cost numbers to come back from orbit. Yes, the first two stages are presumably recoverable, but does the third one contain enough propellant to deorbit and get all the way back down to the ground, propulsively? There’s no TPS in this concept, as far as I can see. If he has to come back down the same way he went up, there has to be a lot of propellant left in the vehicle in orbit for return. It’s a question that I didn’t ask John yesterday, but I may today.

I know that he has been talking a lot to Lutz Kayser, but I hope he didn’t drink too much of the koolaid. OTRAG was, after all, expendable.

Tim Bendel is head of the company, based in Chugwater, Wyoming (they bought an old Atlas missile silo and set up shop in it, including housing).

They provide attitude control systems, engines, and test facilities to other startups. Describing their use of “state-space” controllers that solve a simultaneous set of differential equations, rather than classical ones, that allow a rapid seek/find of an optimal solution in real time. Had a demonstration at the X-Prize Cup last fall, using cold-gas thrusters, using it to balance a cone on end with air pulses. Showing a video of the demo. “Like balancing a broom on your finger.” They gave the kids nerf balls to try to knock it over, to demonstrate its ability to respond to unexpected disturbances. Supplying systems to Masten Space for their attitude control.

Other company is “Speedup” which is building a Lunar Lander Challenge vehicle, which is a prototype for what they call a “flying motorcycle.”

Also developing a 7500 lbf engine, and capabilities to design whole vehicles. In addition, they have engine test facilities. Sorry, I’m distracted by other things, but they do seem to have some interesting capabilities to other entrepreneurs. They seem to be one of the companies trying to make money by selling picks and pans to the miners.

Applying for spaceport license out of their facility, which has the support of the Wyoming Economic Development Council. It has a mile radius of empty space, so could provide a good test range for small vehicles that can’t exceed that distance.

John Carmack is showing a video describing all of the testing they’ve done, and how all the progress they’ve made is two days a week with an all-volunteer team. Describing the switch from peroxide to lox/methanol, and how they built the two vehicles capable of entering the Lunar Landing Challenge. Time constraints didn’t allow them the test time, so they had vehicles that “couldn’t land as well as they could fly.” Vehicles kicked up so much dust out in the desert, it “looked like a tornado approaching the landing pad.” Hard to capture all of the testimonials and desciptions of the flights from the various participants. Presumably this video will appear soon at the Armadillo web site. Showing a computer graphic of assembling a theoretical modular orbital vehicle (influenced by Otrag concepts). Video ends with an NVidia logo, thanking them for sponsoring attempt.

Spent three million dollars over six years. Half a million dollars a year, with most still in volunteer positions. Had to pay Neil, because getting permits doesn’t qualify as “fun” like the rest of the stuff. Thinks they’re on the right track to get them all the way to orbit, eventually. Have much more robust legs in the vehicles now, has improved guidance to eliminate drift, increased deadbands to waste less RCS. Have experimental permit to go up to Oklahoma Spaceport and do some testing next month. Think they’re ready to win, but know they have to wait until October. Vehicle “looks a little funny,” but has more capability and performance than either SpaceShipOne or DC-X.

Has a theory that roll-thruster deadband may have been too tight on the Falcon second stage, based on many similar experiences with their own vehicles. Flown half a dozen times since LLC, and they always launch in a “go to space” configuration, including fuel and burn duration, but keep it low. Overall the regulatory burden has been light, and they’re expecting to apply for a commercial launch license this year–doesn’t expect it to be that bad, though worse than permit.

By the end of this year, space-capable vehicle, with insurance already in hand, at least permits and probably launch licenses at that time. Thinks that if the technology is right, the business issues are solvable. They’ve learned a lot about manufacturing, and tradeoffs in solutions space for materials, and tank shapes, and they aren’t spending that much money, and are flying many more test flights than anyone else is doing. Doesn’t expect to go to space the first time. Expects to have many failures, some of them catastrophic. Their philosophy is not to make things perfect on first attempt by spending lots of money (NASA approach), but making things perfect over time with a lot of build and test.

It’s been nice to have a growth curve from tee-shirts, appearance fees, sponsorship. Not profitable yet, but can see it ahead. They were rushed last year, but think that this year they have plenty of time, and it will take “really bad luck” for them not to come away with something this year. Program is sustainable with his funding, “as long as the bottom doesn’t drop out of the videogame market.” Could cost-effectively get to perhaps twice their development rate, but can’t speed up much more by throwing lots of money at it. Happy with the rate they’re going, and “absolutely going to carry people into space.” Making steady progress toward that next year, but not promising. Believes that when the vehicles have been demonstrated, the business case will take care of itself. They expect to have spent five million in development, whereas Virgin will spend ten times that much. They will have much bigger windows and better view. Sees multiple market niches, with some people wanting to take off like and airplane, and some who want to ride a “real rocket ship.”

He thinks that a vehicle with “dozens of engine modules” can be reliable. Most look at this with skepticism, but he thinks it’s unjustified. May want to have a bigger base module when he gets to large vehicles (Falcon 5 class). Will be adding three-axis GPS, whose price has dropped to ten grand, which will allow recovery from tumbles. Thinks that he is ahead of his competitors because he accepts failure, whereas others still work too hard to get it right the first time. If he wins money, they’ll be flying straight up early next year, and think they will get close to a hundred kilometers if not all the way, but there are market opportunities even at a hundred fifty thousand feet. They’re getting better at building these vehicles, and they can get more productive at higher rates. Still believes that it’s possible to build something that can go all the way to orbit with something built in a garage, or at least a small section of a warehouse. And he thinks he may make back his investment in the next couple years.

Talking about how a year ago he propounded a strategic deal that we could and should cut with NASA–if NASA was going to invest in COTS and technology, and fund Centennial Challenges and buy suborbital rides, and reach out to New Space, then why not let them (instead of fighting with them) do Ares? Why fight about Orion, or capsules versus wings. If we could find a way to get enough money out of them over the next few years to do the things that we needed to get done, then go ahead and let them do what they were going to do to get to LEO, because we were going to beat them to the moon. He was not saying we should support Constellation, or Ares or Orion–he was simply saying, “Why fight it?”

He was wrong. Not that we should get into fights over designs, but he was wrong to think that NASA wouldn’t screw it up. But the way they seem to be going about it is internally logical and consistent, and predictable with the circumstances they face, but Orion and Ares are eating up many things in the agency, including the things we thought we hoped we’d get. So the truce is over.

Notes that it’s easily as much Congress’ fault. NASA had the original idea of letting a lot of people try a lot of things, but because Congress couldn’t figure out which district the money would get spent in, or when it would get spent, they didn’t understand, or have any interest in prizes. Their job is politics, and you pass bills based on getting 51%. Decisions are made on both substantive and political grounds, and when the appropriations committee doesn’t know who’s going to win the prize, they don’t know who’s going to come to the fund raiser. They don’t see the lobby. It’s hard to get federal funding for some set aside that someone might win or might not. He’s not a great fan of prizes as a cure-all, but they can be a useful mechanism. And NASA never explained to Congress that if the prizes work, there would be lots of jobs in lots of districts, and if NASA was seen to be responsible for this, it would make it easier for NASA to win support. And now NASA has stopped asking for money for them.

He’s concerned that NASA is more interested in cutting deals with foreign partners than nurturing commercial US industry, and they are setting themselves up for having station eat them alive because they won’t be able to afford to service it. They gave Marshall the easiest, low-tech rocket to design, and they gave JSC the easiest low-tech crew vehicle to design, and it’s going to take until 2015, and cost a lot of money. They have cut Advanced Capabilities, and don’t think they need it because they don’t seriously expect to do much research at ISS. But it also involved with coming up with better ways to do things in exploration. They are not designing any infrastructure to be commercially owned and operated.

NASA trying to rush Orion in order to get to ISS. The “gap” isn’t a national security gap, or a human spaceflight gap, or an American spaceflight gap. It’s simply a US government human spaceflight gap. Are we really so cynical about US capitalism and innovation that we don’t believe that private enterprise could do the job if given incentives? Griffin himself admitted there was no schedule pull for going back to the moon–the only schedule pull for political support was the gap. The notion was that Congress would care so much about space station that they would fund NASA to fill the gap. “If they wanted it so badly, why didn’t they just put out a few billion-dollar prizes to accomplish it”? Because they didn’t know where or when the money would be spent. Democracy is the worst form of all the others, but he’s not very happy with its results in space policy right now.

There are other bad ideas. Like United Launch Alliance. How could they let this past the anti-trust statutes? They’re adding additional oversight, and SETA contractors, and FFRDCs and other “powerpoint shops,” as though that would solve the problem.

Now that he has that out of his system, he feels better.

Now for the good news.

Dynamic leadership at the FAA that helped with the passage of the revolutionary legislation a couple years ago. AST is now a star in the FAA for the work they’re doing in nurturing this industry. There’s now ten million dollars in the airport improvement program this year that can be used to convert/expand airports to spaceports. Spaceport insfrastructure is now recognized as strategic and is funded by the federal government.

Operationally-responsive space is now getting attention from the Air Force, something we’ve been preaching for years. Transitioning from large, expensive infrequent satellites to small, cheaper, often satellites, with surge capability. And there’s a private industry that needs vehicles that can do this for their own needs (providing passenger transport). Even Congress has gotten on board, because they know that the war fighter in the field actually wants to have intelligence when he needs it, not months later. It could make sense to spend a few millions dollars on a Tascat/Falcon launch to get something into place that can make a difference in a battle, and the Chinese ASAT test woke them up, because these “gold plated satellites can’t be armor plated as well.” There’s now eighty million dollars for ORS, though the Air Force was fighting against having anything in their budget for it a few months ago. The relevant new chairman in the House recognizes the need to invest more in “PC” satellites and less in “mainframe” satellites. Cautions that we don’t know how successful this will be, but there are opportunities there.

Mike Griffin continues to fund COTS at half a billion, and he’s doing other things with other private entities, but Jim is afraid that it’s too little, and that Congress won’t continue to support it. Doesn’t know how things will turn out–not as good as he thought they would last year, but there are good things happening. This industry is encouraging, and despite his “downcast eye,” he is happy to see us, and happy to be with us and not in DC.

Ending on (what he thinks is) a positive note. One of the accomplishments that Mike Griffin has accomplished is that Shuttle will not fly much past 2010 or 2011. There are only tanks left for seventeenish more flights, and it costs four billion dollars a year. If they don’t end by then, they won’t get to the moon.

Jim Dunstan is giving a talk on acceptable levels of risk for various transportation modes. Case in point, we could reduce our forty-thousand traffic deaths but aren’t willing to pay the cost. We accepted significant loss of life for early aviation. It was recognized in developing the Warsaw Convention that we had to “do for law what the engineers were doing for machines,” which meant we needed a liability regime. Aviation has strict liability, with a cap per the convention. Space currently has an uncapped liability, driven by the 1967 Outer Space Treaty and the 1972 liability convention.

He thinks that he’s perhaps found a loophole in the liability convention for spaceflight participant, though it’s not clear whether “participant” means “crew” or “passengers” (or both). Unfortunately there’s enough wiggle room for plaintiff’s lawyers to have a field day.

He is still amazed that we won the battle a couple years ago in getting the FAA to keep hands off passenger safety regs for now, but the battle isn’t over. It established a “Informed Risk Regime” for spaceflight participants. Implication for this is that, since there is no federal tort law, it will be matter for state laws (at least in the states in which people operate, if not in all fifty, just to be safe). This is the “next frontier” for space lawyers. Gaol is to provide immunity for operators who have FAA licenses and have obtained “informed consent,” based on extreme sports, such as helicopter skiing.

Virginia has passed such a law, though it needs to have a governor’s amendment with help from the space lawyers, because original law was based on an agricultural tourism bill to protect farmers on historical farms. Tractors and spaceships aren’t quite the same thing, so they took the existing language and tied it back into the FAA regulations as much as possible. Virginia needed to do this early, because they have a spaceport at Wallops, and they also have a common law that says that citizens cannot waive right to sue in prospect. The law had to be amended to override this. It has been submitted to the governor, who accepted the amended language, and it’s hoped that it will be repassed in April. He is giving credit to Jack Kennedy to make this happen (in the face of opposition from the Trial Lawyers Association). Still problems with the bill–could be better from a clean sheet of paper, but it’s good enough for now.

Next targets–Oklahoma, New Mexico, and California (which might require a state constitutional amendment).

Another concern is if someone comes down with cancer after flying and attempts to blame it on the flight. Need to characterize environment of vehicles during testing to help fight this.

And somehow, it seems appropriate to point to this article that describes how lousy the human mind is at assessing risk. This may be one of the biggest problems with this industry.

[Update at 5 PM MST]

Jack Kennedy checks in in comments with a link to the latest version of the bill.

Jim Dunstan is giving a talk on acceptable levels of risk for various transportation modes. Case in point, we could reduce our forty-thousand traffic deaths but aren’t willing to pay the cost. We accepted significant loss of life for early aviation. It was recognized in developing the Warsaw Convention that we had to “do for law what the engineers were doing for machines,” which meant we needed a liability regime. Aviation has strict liability, with a cap per the convention. Space currently has an uncapped liability, driven by the 1967 Outer Space Treaty and the 1972 liability convention.

He thinks that he’s perhaps found a loophole in the liability convention for spaceflight participant, though it’s not clear whether “participant” means “crew” or “passengers” (or both). Unfortunately there’s enough wiggle room for plaintiff’s lawyers to have a field day.

He is still amazed that we won the battle a couple years ago in getting the FAA to keep hands off passenger safety regs for now, but the battle isn’t over. It established a “Informed Risk Regime” for spaceflight participants. Implication for this is that, since there is no federal tort law, it will be matter for state laws (at least in the states in which people operate, if not in all fifty, just to be safe). This is the “next frontier” for space lawyers. Gaol is to provide immunity for operators who have FAA licenses and have obtained “informed consent,” based on extreme sports, such as helicopter skiing.

Virginia has passed such a law, though it needs to have a governor’s amendment with help from the space lawyers, because original law was based on an agricultural tourism bill to protect farmers on historical farms. Tractors and spaceships aren’t quite the same thing, so they took the existing language and tied it back into the FAA regulations as much as possible. Virginia needed to do this early, because they have a spaceport at Wallops, and they also have a common law that says that citizens cannot waive right to sue in prospect. The law had to be amended to override this. It has been submitted to the governor, who accepted the amended language, and it’s hoped that it will be repassed in April. He is giving credit to Jack Kennedy to make this happen (in the face of opposition from the Trial Lawyers Association). Still problems with the bill–could be better from a clean sheet of paper, but it’s good enough for now.

Next targets–Oklahoma, New Mexico, and California (which might require a state constitutional amendment).

Another concern is if someone comes down with cancer after flying and attempts to blame it on the flight. Need to characterize environment of vehicles during testing to help fight this.

And somehow, it seems appropriate to point to this article that describes how lousy the human mind is at assessing risk. This may be one of the biggest problems with this industry.

[Update at 5 PM MST]

Jack Kennedy checks in in comments with a link to the latest version of the bill.