Rocketforge

Jim Muncy (t/space and polispace) is giving us an update on various policy issues. He has a handout concerning some policy issues that readers may be interested in helping out with. Here is an HTML version of it.

Right now he’s doing an ad for t/space: Airlaunch, t/Space, & a Fast Prototyping Path to Prompt Global Strike, Orbital Tourism and Maybe Even the Moon

or

Jim Muncy is working with Gary Hudson, NASA, Burt Rutan, & DARPA t odo WHAT?!

Airlaunch is a Falcon participant that does a drop from a back of a C-5 and does an air start under parachute.

t/space was setup directly in response to the President’s Vision for Space Exploration. Currently includes David Gump, Bret Alexander, Jim Muncy, Gary Hudson, James Voss.

t/space Goal: create a true lunar frontier. Commercial delivery of crew, cargo and fuel to LEO. CEVs launch on non-human rated vehicles. boosted without crew on EELV or new commercial vehicle) You turn over the job of getting to LEO to hte private sector.

t/space’s CEV is an upscaled airlaunch vehicle that uses either a 747 on stilts or Burt’s WhiteNight on steriods that would also be used for Virgin Galactic.

Now talking about NASA:

NASA publicly discussing ETO “non-traditional approach”. Means Rapid Prototyping, Hardware milestones, Fixed-price contracts.

NASA wants safe, reliable and responsive delivery of people to orbit at less than $20 million per flight
Near-term milestones tha timplement and sustain Vision
Eliminates the gap in US human spacefilight.
Avoids human rating a new vehicle, and Reduces risk to NASA.

It seems that Griffin is accelerates things to get rid of the gap by spinning stuff back in and not doing competitive multi-vendor bids. Jim doesn’t think its a bad thing but has no special knowledge to back that up.

David Masten on Masten Space System’s VTVL vehicle and progress with their igniter and engine flow tests.

Disclosure: I work for MSS on business development and marketing.

(Rand can type faster than I can)

Rick is giving an update on changes at NASA given his view from the roadmapping committee and other interactions. “We have good friends on the inside”. Now there’s a new Administrator and some of the people he’s bringing in are of the O’Neillean point of view. (Personally I find the O’Niel, Sagan, von Braun distinction insufficient due to O’Niel never getting into economics.)

Lots of people at NASA are satisfied just being part of space. Some of the new people are interested in opening it up.

Rick says, “I know things look like they’re going backward. Being centralized and going all ’60s’ on everything. But that’s just for the mandated items. Just the CEV. ” But he thinks that Griffin is going to create a “non-traditional programs office” for everything that’s not part of the short term mandates.

Rick sent Griffin (among other conversations) the SFF’s Frontier Enabling Test. Griffin’s response (and quoting) “I don’t disagree at all with your FET goal. “(Ed: sorry, I couldn’t type that fast). The gist of it was “I have to deliver a government program using government money. To do otherwise is malfeasance. The key is what kind of commercial sector is left behind once he’s delivered on what he must deliver. Rick thinks one of those things might be orbital fuel depots.

But Rick still says, “Dont’ trust and verify”.

His other comment: Pay your taxes! (refernece to the Walt Anderson issue)

Re: the margarita pump. It had a very good ISP….

Other points he tries to make: evangelize, but don’t oversell and use facts. And stop the trash talking about others ideas/capabilities. Let’s work on building each other up and work together where we can.

And we have to kill ITAR… (thunderous applause)

Rick is personally working on talking to politicos about “port authority” ways of thinking about ISS and lunar resources at the very beginning… Also the idea of prize based contracts where the prize is a lunar lease that can be sub-leased. “Catalytic contingency contracts”…

And lastly: build and fly! And make sure everyone knows about it.

Flowmetric’s piston pump being used to pump margaritas for the crowd at Space Access. Fun with green lasers illuminating the green margarita mix soon followed. Who says rocket scientists don’t know how to party!

Brooke Owens just gave an update on the XPrize Cup. Nothing new except that Peter Diamandis is so busy that he couldn’t be here. Brooke definitely turned heads….

Fleming, Olson, Pestritto on the funding process. Nothing really new here if you’re the least bit familiar with funding technology companies.

A combination of standup comedy routine, financial expose on Oklahoma tax credits, and rocket discussion. He’s talking about a new engine cycle type that uses the temperature difference to drive a heat engine. With LOX and kerosene you can create rotational work that can run pump to a few hundred psi. He’s filing patents…

Jeff Greason from XCOR gives an update on what they’ve been up to: the recent composite liquid oxygen tank contract. The award was notified in October but only signed in April. Painful….

They’re also working on staging work for their flight vehicles under some other contract work, planning on flying EasyRocket in an airshow in Mojave in the fall, and will be making some announcements soon on their follow-on vehicle.

Rand talks about the potential market around fuel delivery for on orbit fueling of CEV and Vision components…

Question: what effect does the halting of the roadmapping and integration bid have on this? Rand: “I don’t know. All I know is what I read on NASAWatch.” The room got a good laugh at that one.

Question: what is your opinion on the optimal size for orbital delivery? Answer: it depends on how what you’re doing but maximum flexibility is 10,000 lbs.

Flowmetrics doing their piston pump demo. Later the water will be replaced with margaritas.

Now we’re hearing from Stratofox about the operations of tracking and recovery of vehicles. Ian is specifically discussing the lessons learned from the CSXT launch.