XCOR Lynx

[avmich]

Марк 1 до космоса не долетает, если считать космосом высоту в 100 км. Вроде бы только Марк 2 должен эту высоту брать...

[instml]

28.05.2012 / 00:05   Не дождался своего "звездного часа"

26 мая в Мельбурне (Австралия) в возрасте 84 лет скончался бизнесмен Найджел Пек (Nigel Peck), намеревавшийся стать первым австралийским космическим туристом. Несколько лет назад за 100 тысяч долларов он купил билет на ракетоплан LYNX компании XCOR. Полет намечался на январь 2014 года.
      Пек побывал на северном и южном полюсах Земли и мечтал увидеть лик нашей планеты с космической высоты. Но, увы, мечта его теперь не осуществится никогда.

     - К.И.

[G.K.]

28.05.2012 / 00:05   Не дождался своего "звездного часа"

26 мая в Мельбурне (Австралия) в возрасте 84 лет скончался бизнесмен Найджел Пек (Nigel Peck), намеревавшийся стать первым австралийским космическим туристом. Несколько лет назад за 100 тысяч долларов он купил билет на ракетоплан LYNX компании XCOR. Полет намечался на январь 2014 года.
      Пек побывал на северном и южном полюсах Земли и мечтал увидеть лик нашей планеты с космической высоты. Но, увы, мечта его теперь не осуществится никогда.

     - К.И.

Жаль его.... :cry:

[instml]

XCOR Aerospace Establishes New Commercial Spaceflight R&D Center Headquarters

On July 9, the Midland Development Corporation (MDC) and XCOR Aerospace jointly announced the establishment of XCOR's new Commercial Space Research and Development Center Headquarters.  The private rocket engine and spaceflight development company's new R&D center, which will be located on the flight line at Midland International Airport (MAF) in Texas, will be created over the next eighteen months in a newly renovated 60,000-square-foot hangar, with the work expected to be complete sometime in the fall of 2013.

XCOR is the designer, manufacturer, and operator of the Lynx – a high performance, winged, fully reusable suborbital space transport vehicle.  Lynx is designed to safely fly two people (pilot and passenger) and payloads (such a scientific experiments) on half-hour flights to the edge of space, and back, several times per day.  To date, 175 tickets on XCOR's Lynx have been pre-sold for future flights, at a price of $95,000.00 each.



"We are pleased to be establishing our R&D Center in Midland, Texas, where the weather, surrounding landscape, the airport, and the local & state government environment are ideally situated for the future growth and the ultimate realization of a fully reusable orbital system," said Andrew Nelson, chief operating officer of XCOR Aerospace.  "With future suborbital operational sites on the East and West Coasts of the United States and around the world, plus a manufacturing and test facility geographically separate from our R&D facility, Midland will truly be at the heart of XCOR's innovation engine."

"The decision to establish XCOR's Research and Development Center Headquarters in Midland came after intense competition from other locations," stated Pam Welch, executive director of MDC.  "Once the technical and operational needs of XCOR were met, the final factors influencing the decision to locate R&D to Midland included the friendly business climate, a predictable regulatory environment, and the State of Texas tort reform initiatives. These factors allowed XCOR to see a long term future happening in Midland."

In addition to XCOR's facility renovation, the City of Midland is applying for a Commercial Space Launch Site designation for MAF through the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA).  The licensing process is expected to take 12-18 months to complete.



"When our application is approved, the MAF will be the first "Primary Commercial Service Airport" to be granted this designation, and the combination of the two makes Midland attractive to other commercial space companies," said Marv Esterly, who is director of airports at MAF.  ""This new R&D facility has the potential to open the door to even more economic development at our airport and for our community."

"Visionary companies, like XCOR, continue to choose Texas because they know that innovation is fueled by freedom," said Texas Governor Rick Perry.  "Whether on the cutting edge of biotech, communications, commerce or privatized efforts to serve the needs of the next generation of space explorers, you can find Texas at the forefront of the movement."

To learn more about XCOR Aerospace and their Lynx sub-orbital space transport vehicle, please visit their website at www.Xcor.com

http://www.americaspace.org/?p=22621

[instml]

XCOR To Build, Fly Suborbital Ships in Florida

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — Lured by more than $5.7 million in state and local economic incentives and a skilled work force looking for jobs following the retirement of the space shuttles, XCOR Aerospace plans to manufacture and fly Lynx suborbital vehicles from the Kennedy Space Center (KSC) here.

The Aug. 23 announcement at KSC's Visitor Complex is the second expansion plan unveiled by XCOR in as many months. The privately held firm, currently based in Mojave, Calif., will relocate its headquarters and set up a research and development center in Midland, Texas, leaving only an operations center, and possibly some flight test activities, in Mojave.

Asked if XCOR was wooed away from California, company founder and chief executive Jeff Greason told Space News, "In short, yes."

"I love Mojave, and it's a fabulous place to do R&D and I expect it will be a fabulous place to operate, but ultimately we are running a business and where we decide to put different aspects of the business in the long term has to be based on where we find the best business conditions. It's a complicated weighing of all the factors involved but ultimately we decided it that it was time to move the R&D operation of the company somewhere and Midland is the place that we chose.

"For many, many years it has been our plan to establish the routine manufacturing operations, serial production of both vehicles and engines, at a site that was not the same site as where our R&D site was. For a number of reasons, Florida looked like a very good candidate for that," Greason said.

XCOR and NASA are working through Space Florida, a state-backed economic development agency, to iron out an agreement that would allow XCOR to build a manufacturing facility and fly from Kennedy Space Center's Shuttle Landing Facility (SLF).

"Up until now, Kennedy Space Center and Cape Canaveral have been known for launching rockets that carry satellites and NASA people. We want the Space Coast to be known as the place where any person who wants to launch in America comes here," NASA Administrator Charles Bolden told reporters during a tour of launch facilities and spacecraft processing hangars after XCOR's announcement.

XCOR would be the second commercial tenant at the shuttle's idled runway, joining Starfighters Inc., which provides high-altitude training and equipment test flights aboard privately owned Lockheed F-104 supersonic jets. Starfighters is based at the SLF's Reusable Launch Vehicle Hanger, originally built for NASA's X-33 and X-34 experimental spaceplane programs and now operated by Space Florida.

NASA earlier this month issued a request for proposals from companies wanting to make use of the 4,500-meter runway, part of the spaceport's ongoing transformation from a shuttle operations base to a mixed-use facility supporting government, commercial and military space and aviation programs.

"We're trying to work with the state of Florida and the various economic development councils to bring business back to the Space Coast. My hope is that we'll make it even more robust than it was before," Bolden said.

XCOR, like Virgin Galactic and a handful of other firms, intends to fly tourists, researchers and payloads into suborbital space, reaching altitudes of about 100 kilometers before returning through the atmosphere.

Both companies also aspire to fly orbital spacecraft as well, another factor in favor of Florida, which is well-positioned for orbital launches, Greason said.

XCOR expects to begin test flights of its two-seat Lynx Mark 1 prototype by early 2013 in Mojave and to fly in Florida a year later.

"We will be permanently basing our Lynx Mark 2 production vehicle in Florida," XCOR chief operating officer Andrew Nelson told Space News.

The company also plans to set up a second operations base at the newly created spaceport at Cecil Field in Jacksonville, Fla. By the end of 2018, XCOR expects to employ about 150 Lynx technicians and engineers in Florida. It already has reservations for about 200 flights, which cost $95,000 apiece.

Virgin Galactic, which has begun testing its six-passenger, two-pilot SpaceShipTwo suborbital vehicle, is charging $200,000 per seat and has more than 535 reservations.

XCOR intends to partner with companies and space agencies interested in providing suborbital spaceflights, providing "wet lease" agreements for vehicles, pilots and technical services.

"It's always been our business plan that there be many different operating sites," Greason said.

http://www.spacenews.com/civil/120824-xcor-suborbital-ships-fla.html

[SFN]

Planetfest 2012 Пасадена август 2012
http://communicatescience.com/zoonomian/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/IMG_7017_lynx.jpg

[instml]

На канадском туристическом рынке появилось новое направление - полет на орбиту Земли

ОТТАВА, 2 февраля. /Корр. ИТАР-ТАСС Александр Пахомов/. На канадском туристическом рынке появилось новое перспективное направление - полет на орбиту Земли. Продавать такие туры в Стране кленового листа калифорнийская компания "Икс-кор аэроспейс" и её голландский партнер "Спейс экспедишн" доверили квебекской фирме "Юниктур". Соответствующее соглашение было подписано в пятницу.

Космических туристов будет доставлять на орбиту разработанный "Икс-кор аэроспейс" двухместный ракетоплан "Линкс-Марк", который проходит сейчас полетные испытания. Аппарат оснащен четырьмя ракетными двигателями, имеет в длину 8,5 метра и размах крыльев 7,3 метра. Взлетает и совершает посадку как обычный самолет, только ему нужна для этого полоса не короче 2,4 км.

Желающим посмотреть, как выглядит наша планета из космоса, предлагаются два пакета. Первый - суборбитальный полет на высоту примерно 60 км, который займет 45 минут. Туристу предстоит испытать состояние невесомости в течение 3 - 4 минут и четырехкратную перегрузку при спуске. За это надо заплатить 95 тыс долларов. Первые старты запланированы на третий квартал текущего года.

Второй - 60-минутный полет на высоту уже свыше 100 км, где начинается космос. Состояние невесомости продлится уже 5 - 6 минут. Обойдется это на 5 тыс долларов дороже. И придется подождать до 2014 года.

Взлет и посадка будут производиться с космопортов в пустыне Мохаве /штат Калифорния/ примерно в 100 км от Лос- Анджелеса и на карибском острове Кюрасао в 80 км от побережья Венесуэлы. Согласно нынешним планам, ракетоплан ежедневно станет совершать примерно 4 полета.

Как сообщил журналистам президент "Юниктур" Филип Бержерон, он забронировал себе место на ракетоплан на декабрь. "Я - 15-й в общем списке, в который включены желающие испытать новые ощущения со всего мира, - сказал он. - И я стану первым канадцем, который поднимется на орбиту на "Линксе".

"Юниктур" уже нашел первого покупателя орбитального тура - им стал исполнительный директор расположенного в Монреале космического музея "Космодом" Сильвэн Белэр.

http://www.itar-tass.com/c19/638264.html

[Salo]

http://www.xcor.com/news/founders-stepping-back-marks-new-phase-in-xcor-lynx-development/

FOUNDERS STEPPING BACK MARKS NEW PHASE IN XCOR LYNX DEVELOPMENT

 Mojave CA, November 23, XCOR Aerospace announced earlier today that two of its original founders, Chief Technology Officer Jeff Greason and Chief Engineer Dan DeLong, are stepping back fr om their current positions. With the first Lynx closer to completion, both want to turn their attention to pursue other interests.

The two stood at the cradle of the Lynx reusable launch vehicle and have been working painstakingly on the revolutionary spacecraft for the last years. Greason will maintain his position on the company's Board of Directors. CEO Jay Gibson: 'Both Jeff and Dan are true pioneers in our business. It's their vision and their perseverance that helped us getting to where we stand now. We owe both men a lot of gratitude for all the time, energy and groundbreaking ideas they have been contributing to our company and the industry and of course we look forward to possibly working together in the future. Lynx is now in the good hands of XCOR's highly capable and talented Technical, Engineering and program teams. 
 
 2016 Will be an exciting year in which we're about to reach some truly significant milestones. Lynx will be the world's first Instantly Reusable Launch Vehicle (I- RLV) and over 350 clients are as eager as we are to undertake the first trip into space. Next to that we will keep investing in our own facilities in both Mojave and Midland, wh ere Lynx's orbital successor will be one of the strategic focus points.'

Eva van Pelt 

Media Relations

[che wi]

Корабль для космических туристов испытают в 2016 году
http://www.interfax.ru/world/483826

Москва. 8 декабря. INTERFAX.RU - Американская компания XCOR намерена в 2016 году провести испытания нового космического корабля Lynx, который в перспективе будет использоваться для перевозки космических туристов передает сайт N+1 со ссылкой на Aviation Week.

Конкретная дата пока не определена, но летные испытания Lynx планируется начать во втором квартале будущего года.

Проверки корабля будут проводиться на специально подготовленной взлетно-посадочной полосе в пустыне Мохаве. Летные испытания пройдет первая из трех версий космического корабля - Lynx Mk.1. Во время испытательных полетов аппарат постепенно будут выводить на высоту до 60,9 тыс. м. После завершения испытаний Lynx Mk.1 будут использовать для подготовки пилотов.

Позднее XCOR проведет испытания второй версии туристического космического корабля Lynx Mk.2, построить который планируется в сотрудничестве с компанией Space Florida в Космическом центре Кеннеди. Этот аппарат сможет подниматься на высоту почти ста тысяч метров. При этом конструкция корабля будет рассчитана на четыре челночных полета в сутки.

Lynx Mk.1 и Mk.2 будут оснащены ракетными двигателями XR-5K18 с насосной подачей топлива и окислителя. В качестве топлива будет использоваться керосин, а в качестве окислителя - жидкий кислород. Вторая версия корабля получит легкий корпус, а также уменьшенного объема бак для жидкого кислорода.

XCOR также планирует построить третью версию космического корабля - Lynx Mk.3. Помимо перевозки туристов она сможет и выводить на орбиту микроспутники. Крепление микроспутников будет осуществляться к специальной штанге в носовой части планера. Предполагается, что все три версии космического корабля будут взлетать и садиться на аэродром на Земле.

[Salo]

Jeff Foust ‏@jeff_foust  11 ч.11 часов назад  
Jan Willem Storm: XCOR Lynx suborbital flights from Curaçao could start as soon as 2017.

[avmich]

Ну вот Лурио говорит, новое руководство XCOR решило сосредоточиться на сотрудничестве с ULA по двигателям, а делать крылья к Линксу "денег нет"... RIP?

Очень жаль . Из компании ушли почти все работавшие над Линксом... единственное, что радует - основатели компании основали следующую.

[Apollo13]

XCOR ‏@XCOR  33m33 minutes ago

Back to the design board!!

[Garixon]

на курьих ножках

[Salo]

http://spacenews.com/xcor-aerospace-files-for-bankruptcy/

XCOR Aerospace files for bankruptcy
by Jeff Foust — November 9, 2017  

XCOR Aerospace had been working for nearly a decade on the Lynx suborbital spaceplane, but technical and financial issues kept it from completing a prototype. Credit: XCOR Aerospace  
 
WASHINGTON — XCOR Aerospace, a company that for nearly 20 years had been working on rocket engines and a suborbital spaceplane, filed for bankruptcy Nov. 8 after it was unable to line up new investors.
The company filed paperwork with the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Eastern District of California, seeking bankruptcy under Chapter 7, which calls for liquidation of the company's assets. XCOR is headquartered in Midland, Texas, with facilities in Mojave, California. The filing was first reported by Parabolic Arc.
The company had, in recent weeks, been trying to line up investors or other partners that could keep the company alive. Michael Blum, a member of the board of directors of XCOR who took over as chief executive at the end of June, said in an Oct. 19 interview that the company had only a few weeks to reach an agreement or it would run out of money.
"By early November, either one of these deals pulls the trigger and saves XCOR, or we file for Chapter 7," he said at the time.
Blum, in a Nov. 9 email to investors and shareholders in the company obtained by SpaceNews, said time ran out on the company's efforts. "Today it is my sad duty to inform you that XCOR has failed," he wrote. "Our effort to find a financial future for XCOR has not succeeded."
Blum said the company had discussions with several potential partners, including one that involved joining a consortium led by a "large aerospace firm" working to develop space access systems in the United Kingdom. Another suitor, discussions with whom started just a couple weeks ago, was interested in XCOR's capabilities but lacked the financial resources needed for a deal.
Blum said that the company's senior secured creditor, not identified in the message, "became difficult to work with, necessitating a bankruptcy filing."
According to its bankruptcy filing, XCOR has more than 100 creditors, although none are identified as the senior secured creditor who reportedly triggered the filing. The creditors listed in the filing include a mix of individuals, companies and government organizations.
XCOR, in its filing, listed estimated assets of between $1 and 10 million, with estimated liabilities of between $10 and 50 million.
XCOR was founded by four former employees of Rotary Rocket Company in 1999 after that company, which was developing a reusable launch vehicle called Roton, changed propulsion systems. XCOR developed a number of engines, including versions flown on a modified Long-EZ airplane called EZ-Rocket.
XCOR is best known in the industry for Lynx, a suborbital spaceplane announced in 2008 designed to carry one pilot and one spaceflight participant. The vehicle was designed to take off from a runway under rocket power and fly a suborbital arc, gliding back to a runway landing.
The company, though, was never able to complete the initial prototype of Lynx. In 2016, the company announced it was laying off approximately half of its employees and shelving work on Lynx to focus on an engine project under a contract with United Launch Alliance.
At the end of June, the company said it was laying off the rest of its employees due to "adverse financial conditions," hiring a few back as contractors. Jay Gibson, the former chief executive of XCOR who left in June when nominated to a Defense Department position, told senators at his July confirmation hearing that a sudden termination of a contract from a larger, but unnamed, company led to those layoffs.
XCOR is not the first suborbital spaceflight company to go out of business. In 2013, John Carmack, the videogame developer who founded Armadillo Aerospace more than a decade earlier, announced the company was in "hibernation mode" after he ran out of money to fund its operations. Armadillo later ceased operations entirely, although many of its former employees now work for Exos Aerospace, another company working on suborbital vehicles.
Blum, in his note, thanked investors and shareholders who "supported XCOR financially and in so many other ways." He also sounded optimistic about the future of the industry in general despite the failure of XCOR itself.
"The advent of entrepreneurial endeavors has led to significant cost reductions in recent years," he wrote. "This trend will continue and with it low cost access to space for humans will arrive. I am certain of this."

[avmich]

http://space-access.org/updates/sau148.html

Space Access Update #148 11/9/17 copyright 2017 by Space Access Society
__________________________________________
Since announcing my retirement fr om organizing Space Access conferences last winter, I've given serious thought to walking away fr om this field altogether. At least compared to most of the last thirty years, things are in fairly hopeful shape.
However, the field's ever mounting total of bad policy, wasteful foolishness, and occasional outright knavery begging to be written about has recently been convincing me otherwise. (There are also a lot of good things happening, too often completely overlooked.) The only remaining question was, where to start?
The question then unfortunately answered itself this morning. It's a relatively small matter, but ties directly into some of the larger issues of the moment. It's also something quite personally important to me, fr om a number of different angles.
What follows is an expanded and lightly rewritten version of my initial comment at Parabolic Arc this morning to the news of XCOR Aerospace's bankruptcy filing.
Henry Vanderbilt Executive Director, Space Access Society (Chief of Staff, XCOR Aerospace, 2006-2009)
__________________________________________
Contents This Issue:
- XCOR Intellectual Property Opportunity - For Someone
__________________________________________
XCOR Bankrupt, IP On The Block
Today's news: Parabolic Arc: XCOR Files for Chapter 7 Bankruptcy
(For a quick chronology of public info on the company's downfall, scan down the headlines listed at Space News for search "XCOR".)
OK. I've been keeping my mouth mostly shut while this all played out. But in order to head off the most common public misconceptions I've seen in previous discussions of this:
The company's technology was not the problem. Quite the opposite.
- The (patented) rocket engine configuration has a remarkable combination of high reusability with inherent extremely high combustion efficiency and combustion stability. (Usually, it's pick one: Trade away efficiency to get enough stability.) Also, (patented) cheap efficient piston pumps at a small-to-medium size wh ere turbines don't scale well. Also, the package applies really well to hydrogen and thus high-energy upper stages.
- Regarding Lynx, meanwhile, a quick refresher: The basic mission is, fly from a normal runway to Mach 3/300,000 feet with a payload, then either send the payload on its way or return it intact to the runway - multiple times per day, at costs comparable to (other) high performance aircraft.
The key thing about Lynx is, the aerodynamics close. IE, from takeoff through Mach 3 climb through vacuum coast, reentry, high-performance glide, and landing, the configuration has been thoroughly wind-tunneled and is flyable and controllable throughout.
And the company's expertise at flying winged rockets at ridiculously high op rates and low op costs was very real, and is thoroughly embedded in the design.
And the fly-from-an-airport operational concept scales up very nicely to medium-airliner size, with ability to put tens of thousands of pounds of payload out of the atmosphere, then either bring it back again to a soft landing, or send it on its way downrange or (with sufficient propulsion) on to orbit. The minimal size (two seats) of the initial Lynx was a development cost choice, not a technical constraint.
Yeah, I was never that impressed with the (announced target) suborbital tourism market either. But there were other, considerably larger markets for larger, more capable versions. (Not least the various obvious theater defense applications.) But enough on all that for the moment.
The problem was management.
There is a tech-startup phenomenon that's happened often enough before that there's a name for it: Founder's Syndrome, wh ere as a company grows the tech visionaries who began it are too slow to recognize that they're not as good managers as they are techies and that they're running beyond their management limitations. Some companies survive it. Some don't.
My opinion: This whole mess has been a particularly prolonged, painful, and peculiarly convoluted example of Founders Syndrome. (More detail? Maybe some other time. It'd take a book. But as an employee, then stockholder, and with an ongoing personal investment in the company's goals, I've followed this matter quite closely.)
(For what it's worth, it looks to me like Jeff & Dan, bless their brilliantly difficult souls, eventually learned their limitations and are now implementing a characteristically ingenious workaround for these at Agile Aero. Meanwhile, it's a major shame that the numerous other extremely talented people still at XCOR after they left never got either the credit they deserved or the chance they'd earned.)
To sum up, XCOR getting all this technology done, including about 2/3rds of the system integration and construction of the first Lynx prototype, plus the previous flight vehicles, plus the various engine developments (including Lynx engines running closed-cycle at reduced power ((full power was cash-limited, not tech-limited)) plus a subscale hydrogen engine demonstrator running closed-cycle at full power) for a total burn over the years that I'd estimate at about $50 million, is nothing short of a miracle of technical vision and skill by a LOT of very smart dedicated people.
The IP Opportunity
Which all begs the question: What happens to that XCOR technology now? Who will end up with all that intellectual property - "IP" - the collected patents, prototypes, engineering drawings, design data & notes and other company proprietary info - now that it'll presumably be up for auction?
It's my understanding that a considerable amount of company effort over the last year went into getting the IP organized and recorded. It is not, after all, as if this outcome has not been one of the obvious possibilities for a while now.
Many of the people involved are also no doubt hireable. Probably not cheaply, after the roller-coaster ride they went through to gain their expertise, but hireable.
I see two major chunks of XCOR IP that may be of interest out there: The mass of data that defines and enables Lynx-type vehicles, and the patents and data that enable XCOR-type engines. (There are other useful bits - a non-toxic storable high-performance RCS system here, a low-noise lightweight electronic igniter there... Far too many smaller slices of good design to list here.)
Engines
ULA could obviously use the engine IP, to get them away from (I've heard) paying more for upper stage engines from the Aerojet monopoly than they do for main booster engines. (Do they already have "march-in" rights to the tech from their development association with XCOR? I've heard conflicting stories on that. I don't recall them getting that in the original cryo piston-pump demo contract I negotiated with them back in '08, but I can't say what might have happened since.)
Aerojet might also bid for the engine IP, if only to deny use of it by others to compete with existing Aerojet products. (Aerojet's performance as the sole remaining major US dedicated rocket engine house has been less than stellar, with negative effects across a wide range of US space activities - but that's a different piece.)
SpaceX could undoubtedly develop pump-fed restartable hydrogen upper stage engines for themselves, providing a significant enhanced capability in an area that's one of ULA's remaining competitive edges. But they don't have unlimited development bandwidth and the XCOR engine IP would be a significant shortcut. (Hydrogen engine usefulness to them aside, they also might be interested merely to deny the IP to others, if they wanted to play hardball.)
Orbital-ATK or Sierra Nevada might also be interested in a pre-packaged head start on their own hydrogen upper stage engine capability.
Lynx
As for the Lynx IP, any of the three major US government aerospace airframe houses - Boeing, Lockheed-Martin, Northrop-Grumman - might well be interested. Routinely-reusable fast-turnaround medium-lift from runway to Mach 3/300,000 feet and (maneuverably) back to runway is a niche mission, but it could well be a useful and profitable niche. The initial conceptual and aerodynamic heavy lifting is done, and much of what's left is exactly the sort of nitpicking-detailed integrating-complex-systems-into-constrained-packages work these companies specialize in.
Others?
And then the wild-card: Someone with deep pockets and a strong interest in getting a fast start into the rocket propulsion and/or airport-ops reusable first stage business, who'd been put off till now by all the apparent baggage that came with investing in XCOR as it was. The baggage is shed now. Could be the time to make a move.


 
It'll be interesting to see who comes away with the IP when the auction ends.
Me, I hope it ends up somewh ere it can be useful to the country's space interests and industries, rather than just being squatted on. We'll see, possibly quite soon. Chapter 7 proceedings, as I understand them, can move fast.


 
DISCLAIMER: I own a modest amount of XCOR Aerospace common stock, from my time there as Chief of Staff 2006-2009 (CoS was an experiment in expanding XCOR's management bandwidth, highly successful in a number of particulars but ultimately rejected by the organizational immune system) and from an opportunity arising out of that afterwards. I consider it highly unlikely anything I say here will positively influence the (now effectively zero) value of that common stock (but you never know.)
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