Rand Simberg posted the news that XCOR has closed a deal with Yecheon Astro Space Center to provide Lynx II flights. The Lynx I they have been working on will now only be used as a test article to work out design issues before moving on to the fully suborbital Lynx II. Previously their plans were to fly passengers in the Lynx I at a price and altitude somewhat comparable to adventure flights in advanced Russian fighter planes. The income was to have been ploughed into the development of the Lynx II, the true suborbital spaceship. Thus there will be at least two companies flying passengers into space in the near term, Virgin Galactic and XCOR.
If you are reading my posts in expectation that I am a neutral observer of this industry rather than a deep insider passing on tidbits of info then you must be a new reader. Lessee… Rand Simberg and I are in business together in Wyoming Aerospace. I know a bunch of the Virgin Galactic High Command and work with them through the National Space Societies ‘Space Ambassadors’ program. As to XCOR… well, not counting that I have known some of them for up to 30 years… I wrote software under contract to them which was used by their aerodynamics guy for the initial rough planform design of the Lynx.
So yeah, I have dogs in this race. All of them. And I am damned proud of whatever tiny contribution I have made to the industry over my lifetime and ecstatic that I am actually around to see it all come to fruition.
Ad Astra and Merry Christmas to all of my aerospace family. May you reverse the adage about aerospace and fortunes and break the surly bonds of gravity and self-induced poverty. And while we are at it… may a now minuscule Wyoming aerospace company also make a bloody fortune for its owners!
I am not yet sure myself who will be first, but I do know who offers the better view.
Merry Christmas, Dale!
And the same back at ye! Sorry I did not get a chance to talk in Mojave, but it was hectic and I just barely managed all the people on my critical list on business matters.
If this works out, perhaps Jim can have me (via Wyoming Aerospace) do some health monitoring systems or something. Bound to be something.
Regards to Robin as well… and was she *serious* about retrieving coats from the East Fence?
How the world changes! Yecheon Astro Space Center is a South Korean venture.
Who would have guessed in the days of Apollo that we would one day be looking to China, India, South Korea and the then Virgin Record Store to lead the human race forward into space? US government types really ought to hang their heads in shame.
Still, good luck to all of them. And may Wyoming become for a new generation what Cape Canaveral was to an earlier one!
Dale, can you go into a bit more detail about your company please? Do you just do consulting work or have you more ambitious plans?
All of us do consulting on whatever we can get to survive on (not always aero work: I do I lot of sysadmin and datacentre work. I don’t much enjoy it but one has to eat); we usually but no always do our aerospace work through our company. We do however have more ambitious plans which I am not free to discuss. Try Googling ‘Rethorst’ and ‘shockfree’. If Rand or Jim drops by and wish to add more they may.
I can tell you that we have done work for XCOR, Masten, Laramie Regional Airport and ‘other New Space ventures’ which I may or may not be free to name to anyone not under NDA.
Good fortune and every success to the project.
Both Mark I and Mark II are suborbital. But Mark II actually goes officially into space (i.e., achieves the necessary altitude).