Free Republic

Aero-News has learned that Rocketplane Limited, Inc. and Kistler Aerospace Corporation have joined forces as a new space transportation team. This team -- to be named Rocketplane Kistler -- is made up of two companies with histories dating back to the start of the entrepreneurial space movement in the early 1990’s. "Dr. George Mueller and the Kistler team have developed a mature and technologically sound design capable of revolutionizing space transportation," said Rocketplane President and CEO George French, Jr. "Rocketplane Kistler has a unique chance of making commercial space viable by reducing the cost to orbit and by building a...

WASHINGTON -- Eager to find new ways to ferry cargo to and from the international space station, NASA plans to pay a U.S. company $227.4 million for the demonstration of a reusable rocket that has been in development since the satellite boom of the 1990s. NASA announced Feb. 2 that it intends to exercise a 2001 contract with Kirkland, Wash.-based Kistler Aerospace Corp. to buy pre- and post-flight data from demonstrations of the company’s K-1 reusable launch vehicle. The award, according to NASA, is not for actual launch services to the station, but for the data from a series of...