Space Access 2010

Space Access '10
Space Access Society info

Overview
Thu April 8 afternoon
Thu April 8 evening
Fri April 9 morning
Fri April 9 afternoon
Fri April 9 evening
Sat April 10 morning
Sat April 10 afternoon

Other coverage
RLV News

by Ian Kluft

These are notes I took from the presentations at the Space Access 2010 Conference in Phoenix, Arizona.

Saturday afternoon April 10, 2010

Paul Breed, Unreasonable Rocket

* overview of Lunar Lander Challenge, with on-board videos
* after video of LLC attempt, I said out loud "It's still a great accomplishment Paul" - room erupted into agreeing applause
* looking forward:

composite H2O2 tank experiments
motors via 3D printing experimentation
- expects to be first to fire an entirely 3D-printed rocket motor
image with cluster of 4 of these motors
vehicle

* @unrocket on Twitter
* long term vision: looking how he can help us become a spacefaring species

Frank Smith, Copenhagen Suborbitals

* Danish rocketry group working on suborbital rocket with manned capsule
* finding a lot of support from Danish public and businesses because non else is doing this for Denmark
* one of the founders designed and built a submarine prior to this project
* expects to begin test flights by August if all goes well
* video of large engine test and cheering crowd
* launch site will be from a Danish military base

airspace/range only allows 40km for first unmanned test flight

* suborbital launch site planned for Iceland

initially 100km attempt will be unmanned, with a dummy for the weight

* goal is to get a person into space (100km) to avoid EU restrictions
* passengers won't be considered until volunteer team members who want to have had a chance

Tim Bendel, Frontier Astronautics

Tim Bendel and Christophe Richmond, Frontier Astronautics

Tim presents about Frontier Astronautics

* Tim explains, if you've been wondering where he's been, he was on an "Orbital diversion" (worked at Orbital Sciences for 2 years)
* owns an Atlas-E missile silo in Wyoming

indoor rocket engine test site

* vehicle design and assembly services, shows example done for SpeedUp
* H2O2 monoprop motor
* Viper engine - tested outdoors - 7500lbf thrust

patent awarded last month
injector designed for stable combustion over wide throttle range

* have a crane for lifting customer's vehicles over flame trench
* door to indoor test site used to be missile silo, so big enough to literally drive in
* concrete wall w/ porthole allows watching test from safety
* XL systems is a tenant at the site, produces rocket grade H2O2 in commercial quantity
* applying to FAA for space launch site license, which will make it the first licensed spaceport in Wyoming (and the second privately-owned spaceport in the US)
* access to Wyoming state business loans for customers of the site
* test site and shop on same site

Christophe presents about ENDURANCE project that he was involved in

* lander design for Jupiter's moon Europa (where liquid water is suspected to exist under surface ice)
* ENDURANCE was a NASA project
* goal was to test concept with a probe at a permanently ice-covered lake in Antarctica
* Christophe got to test his robot in Antarctica in the southern Summers of 2008 and 2009
* robot collected bathymetry data for bottom of lake
* probe drills a melt hole in ice
* once under the ice, uses inertial navigation, dead reckoning navigation and a beacon at the melt hole to find it again
* video of real-time view of probe data display when it was in the lake under the ice
* very successful mission, exceeded goals on coverage of lake
* will be shown on a National Geographic documentary on April 20 at 10PM ET

Bob Steinke, SpeedUp

* latest project is Hippogriff Mk I
* expendable upper stage for reusable suborbital vehicles

intends to make it refurbishable
minimum development cost - low cost, good price/performance
H2O2/polyethylene hybrid rocket motor
catalytic ignition
"almost as simple as a monoprop"
by not using silver, not limited to 90% H2O2, plans to use 99%

* SpeedUp will manufacture hardware
* first stage provider does launch operations
* multiple Hippogriffs may be staged for higher altitude
* recent progress

first hybrid firing was about a year ago, many more since
longest hybrid firing so far is 8 seconds
still need to fire subscale engine to fuel depletion
then following step will be full size engine

* observations

upper stages need less thrust/weight
propellant flow in the hybrid can be lower

* 2011Q2 subscale test flights from ground
* 2011Q3 find 1st stage partners for in-flight tests
* 2011Q4 ... (slide gone - will ask Bob)
* Laramie Rose status: test flew May 2009, not enough endurace for Lunar Lander Challenge, shelved project, still intends to fly it for experimentation

Chuck Lauer, Rocketplane Global

* start with historical overview

early artist concepts of Rocketplane
idea presented by Lauer at first FAA AST conference in 1997: suborbital cargo

* Rocketplane planning to build suborbital winged HTHL manned vehicle
* not much has changed in the past year
* views from 100km suborbital flights will depend on what's within 1000km of the spaceport - becomes a regional marketing matter
* space tourism may not have as many repeat customers as education and commercial contracts
* spaceports

Oklahoma has 330 VFR flying days per year
Hawaii's attraction is an oceanic view of the world

* Jacksonville FL Cecil Field recently got spaceport license in small metro area and near tourist destinations

suborbital corridor is just off the Atlantic coast in the military area

* announcement: Rocketplane Global has signed a letter of intent with Cecil Field spaceport to become a suborbital spaceflight operator there

(This may sound like news - but I didn't tweet it as news because their similar announcements to fly out of Oklahoma never happened. I'll wait and see. Hope it works this time.)

* "wandering the wilderness of a global financial meltdown has not been a fun 2-1/2 years"
* Q: how many full time employees do you have right now? A: "not too many ... the COTS debacle damn near killed us"
* planning to resume operations in Oklahoma as well
* Q: when do you hope fo fly your first passenger? A: 2013
* free flights for student payloads during flight test program

Tim Pickens

Tim Pickens, "Orion Propulsion: The 5-Year Journey"

(ouch! no slides because he spilled coffee on his laptop 10 minutes before presentation)

* lessons learned from starting and running his own business
* always thought the best ideas would always win, smartest people would always win
* those aren't always the case
* better if you know the customer really well, what they need
* chased multi-million dollar programs - figured being a leaner operation would beat the big contractors
* wasted hundreds of thousands pursuing contracts that he ended up not getting
* "the most fun we ever had working was the Bigelow program"
* Sundancer planned to be an inflatable 3-person space station module
* delivered in December
* Tim preferred to work on the projects, so needed someone else to take president role
* he worked on SpaceShipOne before this
* taking the approach of "selling shovels to the miners" to contain risk
* impressive to have a startup company with 15 customer projects
* initial 10,000 shares of stock turned out not to be enough
* didn't want to work Capitol Hill - you quickly find out that all the prime contractors are working the Hill
* the president has to go handle all the roles that the engineers aren't willing to

"your liver can take only so many toxins"

* "be careful who you bring in your company"
* "be careful whom you divvy out stock to"
* the company's growth graph looks like step functions - contracts turning growth on and off
* when he looked for whom to sell the company to, he looked around his community first for who was hiring the right people and doing the right things

sold to Dynetics, defense contractor also in Huntsville AL

* From Q+A:

it's important to let workers do projects that get them excited (example was a rocket bike)

Panel: Newspace Startup Finance - Eva-Jane Lark, Stephen Fleming, Joe Pistritto

Panel: Newspace Startup Finance - Stephen Fleming, Eva-Jane Lark, Joe Pistritto

* Fleming: Angel investors are people investing their own money. Venture capitalists are investing someone else's money.

Angels were hit hard in the economic meltdown
used to be a stairstep for startups
- exhaust personal, family and friends
- angel investors
- VCs
caution... some choices of angels can prevent finding VCs; some VC arrangements can screw the angels who had previously invested

* Pistritto:

you must have a plan before looking for investment
VC reading your plan wants to know how it will help him succeed
hates to read "we have no competition" - interpreted as "we have no market"
everyone has competition
software companies have competition by other ways to customers do the same thing as their software

* Fleming:

most startups are not candidates for debt because they don't have revenue to make regular payments
so most will be looking for equity - selling stock in the company
the investors "will not plan to retire and die holding that stock" - they want to sell with return on the investment
stock ownership may conclude in...
- acquisition
- going public (harder to do in the US)
- redemption
- bankruptcy
if you have to be in control, don't sell equity

* Lark:

Chinese proverb/curse: "may you live in interesting times"
seems to apply to NewSpace right now

* Fleming:

not so much NASA-bashing at SA10
after trying every other possibility, they're trying the right thing
nevermind it's for the wrong reasons
"we've been talking a really good game and now they're handing us the ball - don't drop it"

* Pistritto:

NewSpace is much more in tune with where investors are coming from now
might not call it mature yet but "it's a teenager now"

* Lark:

There's a small clause in Sen Dodd's bill to address banks to raise the bar for accredited investors
- must stop this clause because it will crush angel investment
- would make it illegal for 3/4 of current angel investors to continue to make investments in private companies
- startups would have to register with federal gov't and all states they'll
- to be an accredited investor, would have to have $2.5M net worth or $450K annual income
doesn't think Dodd is evil, just stupid and uninformed

* Pistritto:

it's possible to make a much better product/service and win
but it's hard to attract investors if you're doing something someone else already does
probably need some business experience on staff to attract investors

* Fleming:

talk about revenue
if you have revenue, talk about it
if you don't, talk about how you're going to get it
no matter how good your company's purpose is, that isn't enough to attract most investors

* Lark:

terrestrial applications: what can you do to make revenue before your rocket flies?

* Pistritto:

investors starting to understand NewSpace
huge moments: when tourists flew to ISS, X-Prize/SpaceShipOne, Lunar Lander Challenge/Masten

* Fleming:

most of the general public are just starting to learn that the space shuttle program will end later this year

* Lark:

Centennial Challenges brought a lot of attention to NewSpace

* Pistritto:

strongest part of your rationale must include how customers will use your company
your presence in the room is a factor - practice your presentation

* Lark:

a business plan is an evolving thing
often see assumptions - investors will question them
if you say you need X launches to make a profit, they'll ask if there's a market for that many

* Fleming:

used to be that NASA people would talk down non-NASA projects
now they might ask for help finding a job when investors ask them about a company

* Pistritto:

investors must perform due diligence on your company
but not at the first meeting
you need to tell that you have a secret sauce, but not expose unnecessary detail

* Fleming:

SBIR program requires spending a small percentage on qualified small businesses
- most startups would qualify, but...
federal grants (not loan) available for specific problems the gov't wants solved
if you get a loan, you need the ability to make the payments

* Fleming:

"debt kills startups"
payments must be made consistently once accepted
until you have multiple revenue streams or other significant resources, don't look for loans

* Lark:

wonders how many space tourists will become space angels as flights become available
don't want to see companies using investments to buy buildings

* Fleming:

don't want to see it to buy out founders (and list of other things)

* Pistritto:

smart use of money affects getting more money

* Lark:

re: question about international investors
Canada just dropped restrictions that makde if difficult for US investors to exit
US ITAR laws make it difficult for foreign investors to make any investment

* Pistritto:

Clean Tech is growing - 15% of VC money - was 0 in 2005
there is no reason why NewSpace can't also bcome a bandwagon

* Fleming:

"we're going to replace the shuttle with commercial space" coming from DC is the kind of thing that can create an investment bandwagon effect

Panel: Politics of the New NASA Policies - Michael Heney, Jeff Foust, Jim Muncy, Henry Vanderbilt

Panel: Politics of the New NASA Policies - Jeff Foust, Michael Heney, Jim Muncy, Henry Vanderbilt

Foust:

joke: "hopefully this panel will not drive you to drink" referring to announcement that Flometrics margarita machine is operating with one of their rocket pumps
don't think many people were surprised that Ares I was cancelled
thinks that all of Constellation's cancellation took many by surprise
makes commercial operations a political lightning rod for those who were surprised, i.e. calling NewSpace companies "rocket hobbyists"

Muncy:

clarified the ancient Chinese curse mentioned earlier... the whole thing is "may you live in interesting times and come to the attention of powerful people" (laughter)
some people say "you've lost the moon"
- response #1: but Constellation was never going to get to the moon
- response #2: but now you've got the whole solar system
"It is not the end of US human space flight. It's the end of socialist space flight in America."

* Vanderbilt:

"observations on the structure of the problem we're facing"
Constellation was never going to work without major (unrealistic) increases in funding, and it was likely to be a train wreck even if it got everything it asked for
new management at NASA sees opportunity to free up billions from budget (formerly on shuttle) for science and exploration - it would be a revolution
decision to shut down space shuttle was made 6 years ago in previous administration, and was a good decision
flying in space less than 4 times per year is dangerous because the people doing the work get rusty
opposition to commercial space is mainly coming from representatives of states which get a lot of NASA money

* Heney:

"If you just get the 800 lb gorilla out of the room, we can make a lot of progress."
We've won that.
But winning doesn't mean you're done - now NewSpace industry has to stand and deliver.
We need to decouple the idea that NASA is space flight in the public mind and on Capitol Hill

* Rick Tumlinson comments that we haven't won the war - it's just about to begin with the President's speech in Florida.
* Vanderbilt:

many lobbying efforts gearing up in DC

* Munch:

come help us with the lobbying effort

* Vanderbilt:

"destinations and deadlines are a code" for an Apollo era space program

* Heney:

take a card, keep in touch, we'll let you know when we need help

* Muncy:

the enemy has thrown everything they have at us, and will continue
we need to keep writing our CongressCritters
we need a building crescendo through the year
"Let's go win this fight for Tom" referring to tireless NewSpace supporter who passed away a year and a half ago

SA10 ended with standing ovation for Henry Vanderbilt for organizing the conference.