California Commercial Rocket Roundup
FYI,
"Notes from my California Rocket Trip"
by Jonathan A. Goff
http://www2.et.byu.edu/~jag42/Musings/Space/caltrip0703.html
: For the past several years I've been reading and hearing about
: several rocket start-up companies located in Southern California
: (especially in the towns of Mojave and El Segundo). After several
: unsuccessful attempts, I was finally able to organize a road trip to
: go and visit several of them (as well as visiting some friends and
: relatives) over the Pioneer Day weekend. Clark Lindsey of
: Hobbyspace.com asked me to do a small write-up on my experience, so
: I'm writing this at his request.
: Unfortunately, at the time several of the companies were unavailable
: for tours, including Bigelow, Retro Aerospace, and InterOrbital
: Systems (due to the sensitive nature of what they are working on).
: However, I was able to schedule possible visits with Space
: Exploration Technologies (aka SpaceX), XCOR Aerospace, the
: Experimental Rocket Propulsion Society (E.R.P.S.), as well as the
: Rocket Propulsion Engineering Company.
: Mojave is an interesting little town. Kind of a Mecca for rocket
: propulsion types and space access nerds such as myself. It probably
: has more rocket propulsion companies per capita than any other town
: in the world. In fact, it almost has more rocket companies than fast
: food restaurants (well, it's actually four rocket companies to eight
: restaurants, but it's close). We had originally hoped to visit four
: of the more prominent companies there, but only two of them had
: given us permission to visit.
: XCOR is an interesting company, and one that has done a consistently
: impressive job of making real progress off of very little funding.
: Many of the XCOR guys had previously worked at Rotary Rocket, and I
: knew several of them from my early days on sci.space.policy (back
: when the signal to noise ratio there was more tolerable). Their CEO,
: Jeff Greason, was in Washington DC that morning testifying before
: Congress about issues effecting the suborbital launch vehicle
: market, and the space tourism market. I have to give some well-
: deserved praise to the work Jeff's been doing. I met him at the
: Space Access Conference this last year, and was rather impressed. Of
: all the voices in the space access crowd, his was one of the most
: rational, level-headed, and charismatic. The work that Bahn,
: Carmack, Greason, and others have been doing at the Suborbital
: Institute is really starting to pay off, with some positive movement
: on the regulatory side there at the AST.
: They also seemed to be happy that the DARPA contract which had been
: unofficially "awarded" almost 6 months ago for $750,000 to work on
: piston pump development had finally been signed in the last two
: weeks. I can imagine it must have been quite frustrating waiting all
: that time for the people working on the paperwork to figure out how
: to do a Firm Fixed-Price Contract. It's kind of sad to see that the
: aerospace industry in general has become so addicted to cost-plus
: contracting that many government agencies (and many contractors/
: "SBIR Farms") don't even know how to do normal contracts anymore!
: However, now that the paperwork is finally signed, this is great
: news for XCOR as it will pretty much keep them running in the black
: for well over a year.
: So, after gathering a good group together, he decided that there was
: some significant market pain that could addressed by a newer,
: lower-cost and lower-hassle American launch vehicle, so he founded
: SpaceX in June of 2002. Their facilities is probably only about a
: mile south of LAX, and is within walking distance of the facilities
: of several other aerospace companies. Their building was relatively
: low-key for a rocket factory, and could likely be easily missed if
: you weren't paying attention. However, the inside is a whole
: different story.
: Their company is still quite small and lean, with only about
: 30 employees total (including technicians working in the shop), and
: their engineering area was small, but well organized. Their factory
: floor was a lot bigger than I had expected from looking at the
: outside of the building.
: Unfortunately most of the more interesting stuff (like the engines,
: pumps, etc) are down at their Texas site (the old Beal Aerospace
: test facilities), as was Tom Mueller, their VP of Propulsion
: Engineering.
: The pace as he said is quite intense, and the benefits might not be
: as good, but the ability to get good work done with a minimum of
: bureaucracy must be priceless. Anyhow, they're aiming for having a
: vehicle ready by December, and they have the room for ramping up
: production if needed.
: Originally, we had been planning on visiting their "Rocket Ranch"
: near Livermore. However, a recent forest fire in the area forced
: them to change venues to their CDI facilities in Santa Clara.
: After thinking about what I would say in this write-up, it dawned on
: me that the groups we visited on this road trip are actually quite
: representative of the three main business approaches that I think
: can work in commercial space access. XCOR epitomizes the the
: "Slow-and-Steady Bootstrapping" method. SpaceX is representative of
: the "Wealthy Space Enthusiast" method. And E.R.P.S. is a good
: example of the "Non-Profit Space Club" approach, kind of like the
: old VfR in pre-WWII Germany. I think each approach has benefits and
: drawbacks, but I also think that it is a good thing that all are
: being tried.
: Unlike many of the other start-up companies that have died along the
: way, XCOR is taking a much more savvy and incremental approach.
: To paraphrase something I heard, they said their goal was to
: maximize reliability, and minimize the operational costs, even if it
: hurts performance, or requires the vehicle to be more complex, or
: even if it is harder to manufacture.
: Airplanes are often more complex than rocket systems, but their
: reliability is much higher. This is because they get tested much
: more thoroughly, and they are designed with lots of built-in safety
: features. These safety features do add complexity, but they reduce
: the overall risk of losing a vehicle. And by saying that they prefer
: operations cost to simplicity, I do imagine that they intend to
: simplify the system down the road, just that reliability and
: operations costs come first. At the end of the day, I think their
: approach is very likely to succeed. All the employees need to be
: paid, so it does take substantial skill and effort to keep the cash
: flowing enough to stay afloat, which is likely to force a much
: slower and more incremental development process than might be
: possible if they were more adequately funded. The good news though,
: is that when the market takes off, they'll be in a great position to
: receive a lot of the investment money that will start flowing into
: the market.
: Compare their approach with the one that Musk is taking at SpaceX.
: Their approach is probably higher risk, and maybe even more
: expensive, but definitely quicker. There are some real advantages to
: having a company run by a space enthusiast who actually has the
: money to properly fund the whole project from start to finish. No
: worrying about pleasing other shareholders or investors, no need to
: do constant reports to others, and the ability to keep things small
: and focused. Their vehicle approach is also an interesting
: combination of simplicity and performance. They're trying to
: aggressively attack not only operations costs and reliability, but
: complexity too. By using systems that are derivative from well-
: proven technologies (such as their use of pintle injectors,
: composite ablative chambers and nozzles, spun-form aluminum
: structures, and low-cost simple turbopumps), they can save a lot of
: time, while still keeping things simple and low cost. They have
: enough money to hire on some really talented people in the industry
: who have brought a lot of experience on what to do and more
: importantly what not to do. By going with a cleansheet design
: though, they could look at the best practices ways of reducing costs
: and avoiding unreliable techniques.
: They're doing an excellent job trying to grow the market, and find
: customers that previously didn't buy launch services due to the cost
: and hassle factor. I think that the work SpaceX is doing will really
: help a lot in opening up commercial space access in the near term.
: Lastly, E.R.P.P.'s approach is also interesting. The key benefit to
: being a non-profit rocket club is that you don't have to pay your
: workers. However, this also leads to the key drawback too. Since
: they aren't getting paid, you are at the mercy of their day-jobs. As
: anyone who's worked with a volunteer group can attest, getting real
: progress done in a volunteer organization is not easy. They often
: don't have access to as good of manufacturing equipment, they
: usually don't have access to anywhere near as good of engineering
: software (especially FEA and CFD systems), and they usually don't
: have a lot of time per week that they can afford to spend on the
: project. However, all that said, rocket clubs can have a very long
: endurance, and can often tap into a lot of knowledge base without
: having to raise a lot of capital. Their incremental build-and-test
: style fits well with this approach. If you don't have to pay your
: employees, don't have to have an official "office" to pay rent on,
: and can borrow use of other peoples' equipment, you can really keep
: costs down, even if you're restricted a bit on what you can do.
--
Mark Reiff e-mail: markreiff@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
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