Rocketplane Global, which went under two years ago, is out of bankruptcy and searching for about $100 million in investment to build its six-passenger suborbital space vehicle.
Speaking at the Next-generation Suborbital Researchers Conference in Palo Alto, Calif., Vice President of Business Development Chuck Lauer said the firm came out of bankruptcy last year under a new Wisconsin-based holding company called Space Assets, LLC. Original backer George French is involved in the new venture.
Parabolic Arc’s readers are not optimistic about Chuck Lauer’s latest space tourism venture. Last month, the Rocketplane Global veteran resurfaced in Holland with a new plan to build a suborbital space plane under a new name, Spacelinq, with European partners. It’s the same design and basic plan, only without Rocketplane Global, which declared bankruptcy last year.
Asked about the outcome of this effort, voters in our very unscientific poll were clear:
| Outcome | Votes | Percent |
| Putter around for a couple of years before resurfacing somewhere else | 45 | 54.88 |
| Fail | 22 | 26.83 |
| Succeed | 15 | 18.29 |
| TOTAL | 82 | 100 |
I would like to thank everyone for participating. And please cast your votes in our new poll on who has bought the first space tourism ticket around the moon. And remember: Vote early! Vote often!
The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel has an account of George French’s odyssey from billboard king to bankrupt NewSpace entrepreneur. His Rocketplane Global and Rocketplane Kistler ventures were once in prime positions to capture large shares of both the suborbital space tourism market and commercial cargo delivery to the International Space Station. And yet both efforts collapsed amid funding woes, multiple bankruptcy filings, and a flood of lawsuits from unpaid employees and vendors.
For NewSpace advocates, this is a sad story. But, it’s really not unusual. A vast majority of start ups fail, for a whole host of reasons ranging from mismanagement to simply bad timing. Rocketplane is certainly not the first — nor will it be the last — NewSpace company to fail.
Rocketplane Global Vice President Chuck Lauer said today that the company expects to begin flying space tourists on suborbital rides out of Cecil Field in Jacksonville by 2013. Rocketplane has signed a letter of intent with the Jacksonville Aviation Authority to become the first commercial space operator to use the former Naval air base turned spaceport, Lauer told attendees at Space Access ’10 in Phoenix.
Lauer said that that Rocketplane would fund development of its six-person space plane as part of a $300 million project that would also create a Spaceport Visitor’s Center at the Jacksonville site. The center would include full motion 3D/HD suborbital flight simulators that would allow visitors to experience a 4-minute version of the 45-minute spaceflight that well-heeled passengers will fly aboard Rocketplane’s suborbital vehicle.
Saying his state is losing money, an Oklahoma legislator wants to place tighter restrictions on a type of tax credit that Rocketplane Global and other companies have received, the Oklahoma Gazette reports:
Trip to space in aisle 4
MinnPost
Some scoff at Penny Markt customers’ prospects of even getting airborne. “I saw the story and laughed my head off,” said Scott Cooper, a reporter at the Oklahoma Gazette who has been following Rocketplane’s activities since it first landed in Oklahoma. “In the 10 years they’ve been going they have never built a ship, and they have broken promise after promise after promise.”
Rocketplane Global’s snake bitten efforts at launching a suborbital tourism business have taken another curious turn.
When we last left the story, Rocketplane had laid off most of its employees, abandoned its base in Oklahoma for Wisconsin, and needed in excess of $100 million just to get to the first flight of its prototype.
This week, it emerged that the company is selling tickets for its non-existent space plane in an Austrian discount supermarket:
Despite Rocketplane Woes, Oklahoma Spaceport Remains Operational
Oklahoma Gazette
“We’ve really been concentrating on the aerospace side,†said Bill Khourie, executive director of the Oklahoma Space Industrial Development Authority (OSIDA), which operates the Spaceport. “I made a presentation to Boeing Commercial Aircraft last year. They would like to have us on their list to test flights.â€
Okla. lawmakers study tax breaks to risky ventures
Associated Press
Businesses and many economists say Oklahoma needs to offer corporate tax breaks to expand its economy and remain competitive with other states hoping to lure new jobs. “For us to be able to bring the quality jobs that Oklahomans long for and deserve, we must have these tools,” said state commerce secretary Natalie Shirley.
Aerospace Company Says It’s Far from Finished in Oklahoma
News9.com
“When you run out of money, you lay people off. That’s what we’ve done. A lay-off does not mean we’re dead, it means that we’re on hold,” said Lauer. “We’re in suspended animation until we get more money.”
In a move that has left Oklahoma lawmakers furious, space tourism company Rocketplane has pulled out of Oklahoma City and relocated most of its remaining operations to Wisconsin due to lack of investment and high costs.
Hawaii seeks to launch space tourism initiative
Associated Press
Space pioneers envision launching high-end Hawaii tourists from the sand to the stars, taking island-hopping to new heights.
Unlike its brethren in California, New Mexico and Sweden, the Oklahoma Spaceport has been keeping a low profile. So low, in fact, that the last update on its website’s News page is dated June 1, 2007 – nearly two years ago.
With its major tenant, Rocketplane Global, struggling to find financing for its suborbital spacecraft, things have been quiet. Far too quiet for at least one member of the Oklahoma House of Representatives, NewsOK reports:
Space fashionista Misuzu Onuki — organizer of a recent space fashion show in New York — has published what is being billed as the first book about NewSpace that has ever been published in Japan.
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Rocketplane Global CEO Chuck Lauer raised a really interesting question during his presentation at Space Access ’09 on Saturday: Does it make sense to launch space tourists from a place with notoriously bad weather?
