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Oops....<br /><br />IMO it's better for everyone if they don't let this drag out.<br /><br />Aviation Week article....<br /><br /><blockquote><font class="small">In reply to:</font><hr /><p><b>COTS Funds May Shift If RpK Fails</b><br /><br />Jul 16, 2007<br /><br />By Frank Morring, Jr./Aerospace Daily & Defense Report<br /><br />NASA may shift seed money for private rocket development to another company under its Commercial Orbital Transportation System (COTS) program if Rocketplane Kistler (RpK) can't meet its financial milestones, according to Scott Horowitz, the agency's outgoing exploration systems chief.<br /><br />At a July 13 press conference to discuss his planned Oct. 1 departure from NASA (DAILY, July 12), Horowitz stressed that it is far from certain that RpK won't be able to meet its milestones. The company missed a May 31 deadline to raise $500 million and has asked for more time.<br /><br />"It's not black and white," Horowitz said. "There are shades of gray -- what if they get 90 percent of the money? What they have to come forward to us with is a viable plan to continue development of the vehicle."<br /><br />Horowitz said NASA's COTS funding -- about $500 million in total to divide between RpK and SpaceX -- will be spent on spurring a commercial route to the International Space Station and other low-Earth orbit destinations regardless of the outcome of the RpK effort. That could mean shifting it to one or more of the five companies -- Constellation Services International, PlanetSpace Inc., SpaceDev, Spacehab and Transformational Space Corp. -- that have signed unfunded Space Act agreements with NASA to compete for COTS transportation contracts without the benefit of government help in developing their vehicles.<br /><br />"We're looking at what are all the options out there," Horowitz</p></blockquote> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>