What happened to Andrew Beal?

[spacy600]

All the stuff online is from 2001.<br />I wonder what he thinks of <br />all the space tourist, and new space<br />compaies.

 

[MeteorWayne]

He's mad as hell and won't take it any more?<br /><br />Oh, sorry that's a different Beal <img src="/images/icons/smile.gif" /><br /><br />Who is Andrew Beal? <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><font color="#000080"><em><font color="#000000">But the Krell forgot one thing John. Monsters. Monsters from the Id.</font></em> </font></p><p><font color="#000080">I really, really, really, really miss the "first unread post" function</font><font color="#000080"> </font></p> </div>

 

[spacy600]

http://www.bealaerospace.com/<br />

 

[MeteorWayne]

Thanx for the link. Looks like they went out of business 5 years ago. What made you ask about them now? <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><font color="#000080"><em><font color="#000000">But the Krell forgot one thing John. Monsters. Monsters from the Id.</font></em> </font></p><p><font color="#000080">I really, really, really, really miss the "first unread post" function</font><font color="#000080"> </font></p> </div>

 

[spacy600]

Beal is still a Billionaire.<br />Billionaire's are big in space now.<br />Bigelow, SpaceX, Blue Origin, and all the others.<br /><br />He was the first, just wanted to know what he was up<br />too.

 

[MeteorWayne]

How do you know Beal is a Billionaire? <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><font color="#000080"><em><font color="#000000">But the Krell forgot one thing John. Monsters. Monsters from the Id.</font></em> </font></p><p><font color="#000080">I really, really, really, really miss the "first unread post" function</font><font color="#000080"> </font></p> </div>

 

[docm]

Just his 100% owned bank in Texas has holdings of ~$8 billion, a net worth of $1.7 billion as of the 2005 report and is the 7th most profitable bank in the US (out of 8,000), so what do you think? <br /><br />Beal could probably pay for the Hubble refit out of petty cash <img src="/images/icons/tongue.gif" /> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[lampblack]

Judging from his web page, it looks like he decided to cut his losses and stick with stuff that's less government-regulated -- and thus more predictably profitable. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <font color="#0000ff"><strong>Just tell the truth and let the chips fall...</strong></font> </div>

 

[nyarlathotep]

I think it's more likely that he figured out just how hard it is to build a 15MN thrust engine. It took both the Russians and NASA more than a decade and several billion dollars each to figure out, and he thought he could do it in three years. <br /><br />He should have started with the much easier BA-1 before tackling heavy lift. Looking at Soyuz and CZ2/CZ-3 manifests, it's clear that there is a larger market for Delta II sized vehicles than EELVs. At the very least it would have generated enough revenue to keep his business afloat while tackling the BA-2's first stage.

 

[lampblack]

In other words, he might have had better luck adopting the SpaceX model? <img src="/images/icons/wink.gif" /> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <font color="#0000ff"><strong>Just tell the truth and let the chips fall...</strong></font> </div>

 

[spacy600]

He wasn't reinventing it, just trying to build it.<br /><br />Would it still cost so much?

 

[rogers_buck]

Yes, Beale Aerospace went boobs skyward years ago. Beale had some hatefull words for NASA killing off small oeprations as he closed the doors as I recall. Seems like they had an ablatively cooled first stage engine and a smaller version for the second stage. They had tested the second stage engine on a test stand and there was some nice footage available of the test on their website back when. I also seem to recall some sort of controversy regarding a launch site. Somewhere in Central America as I recall, but its all fuzzy now.<br /><br />

 

[comga]

The proposed launch site was in the Carribean. A truly barren island, mined to death long ago. British territory. Beal claimed that the British would not even look at his environmental impact statement. <br /><br />About the time he got rolling, and switched to the larger BA-2 skipping over the BA-1, NASA started some multi-billion dollar program for commercial launchers. It would have directly competed with a BA rocket, and they were talking about ten times the money Beal had. Hence the nasty words. I believe they are still on the website.

 

[comga]

I used the term "commercial" loosely. It was called the Space Launch Initiative IIRC. I don't recall the uses to which NASA was going to put it.

 

[nyarlathotep]

Yeah, there were massive (thousands) protests by members of animal rights groups. They claimed that Beals project might have 'disturbed' the half dozen birds left on that long abandoned stripmined atoll that he was using as launch site. I suspect that a degree of foul play by Boeing and Lockmart was involved.

 

[comga]

One of Beal's responses to the environmentalists was to purchase ANOTHER island, one with vegetation, and turn it into a wildlife sanctuary.<br /><br />It is not obvious that Beal ever rose to a level where Boeing and Lockheed needed to notice him, let alone monkey with him. The main nontechnical problem was getting clearance from the Brits. My guess is that he couldn't get past that because it was not in anyone's personal interest, in whatever office was to grant approval, that he succeed.

 

[rocketman5000]

Does he still have hardware and machinary laying around? Or has BA been completely liquidated? Would be interesting if someone could come in purchase the intellectual property and tooling and to continue where he closed up shop

 

[spacy600]

Patent office says no IP for Beal Aerospace.<br />This is as much as I got.<br />http://assignments.uspto.gov/assignments/q?db=pat&qt=asns&reel=&frame=&pat=&pub=&asnr=&asnri=&asne=&asnei=&asns=Beal+<br /><br />I wonder what he thinks of <br />Bigelow, Benson, Spaceship2, <br />and all the others.

 

[rocketman5000]

That's interesting, how could you be running an Aerospace company and not file any patents??

 

[comga]

"That's interesting, how could you be running an Aerospace company and not file any patents??"<br /><br />Patents are only useful if you can defend them. Can you imagine another start-up rocket company trying to compete by mimicing Beal's technology? Can you see Boeing redesigning the Delta IV to include an inovation developed by Beal's people? Besides, his technology wasn't new. A cylindrical V2 with modern materials and controls. (Neither is SpaceX's technology to a great degree.)<br /><br />IIRC, SpaceX is using some of Beal's ground hardware, particularly the large test stand in Texas.

 

[nyarlathotep]

Beal at the time (he later bought a huge amount of post 9/11 airline debt and made a fortune) was only a single digit billionaire.<br /><br />He most likely thought he couldn't afford the derelict oilrig approach. Atleast at initial flight rates.

 

[rocketman5000]

From the classes I had to take while in college we were told to patent everything possible. Even if you don't plan on developing the technology you can still prevent your competition that route of development. BA was a large startup. It should have had patent attorneys or some legal council. After all they were making contracts with entire nations.

 

[comga]

I have a dozen US patents to my name, and have seen the great value of the hundred plus patents my father has. I have also seen the limited value in other cases, rights to technology that are just too hard to pursue.<br /><br />With all due respect to your professors, did many of them have successful businesses and profitable or strategically beneficial patents? Patent lawyers are the prime advocates of having a patent attorney in every firm. I am sure Beal had legal council. There are other business models that eschew patents as expensive exercises that post your technical solutions in public. There is a time to patent and a time for keeping things proprietary.

 

[rocketman5000]

No, not professors, I was privy to semeniars of people working in the public domain. Most startup entrepeneurs. Most professors that had patents would use them as a way to raise capital by liscensing them to investment capitalist or the like.

 

[vulture2]

Beal did run into some environmental problems, but they could have been overcome. All he needed was a good environmental impact statement, which an appropriate contractor could have produced. The main difficulty was the lack of a government contract for the critical initial demonstration. NASA wanted its own designs, the EELV programs were highly subsidized and competing for the same market, and commercial customers would not pay for an untested rocket. And even the EELV programs are losing customers to the Russian manufactured Sealaunch. <br /><br />Beal correctly determined that a new US built launch vehicle could not succeed without a government contract. (And this is still true.) Although his design was interesting and innovative, engineering-wise this was not enough to compete with Delta IV, Atlas V, Airane, and Sealaunch, proton, Long March, etc.<br />