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Goodman: Hope For The Dusty Desert Spaceport? Well...

Spaceport America

  Another week, another tidbit of desperate hope that the Dusty Desert Spaceport will pay off soon.

Start-up Exos Aerospace Systems and Technologies has bought Armadillo Aerospace's assets and supposedly will develop and launch its new gizmo from Dusty Desert.

Armadillo, founded and financed by video game honcho John Carmack, spent years building a sub-orbital craft, then went “into hibernation mode” in 2013 following a crash and other reverses. (Armadillo deserves credit for a game try and for its unusual honesty with the public about its failures.) One story was headlined “Pipe Dream Meets Reality.” But Exos COO John Quinn says that the craft was so near “commercial viability” that Armadillo would have succeeded with one more launch. (Carmack appears not to be involved in Exos.)

The new gizmo, SARGE, would be basically the old STIG-B with a few modifications. The STIG-B crashed last time they flew it; but Orville and Wilbur had plenty of early screw-ups too. Quinn says that the problem has been addressed and that a redundant backup system has been added to ensure success. If SARGE flies, we'll find out.

One report quoted Quinn that Exos “was examining both raising money from investors and seeking strategic partnerships with other companies to fund development of SARGE.” Exos's recent crowd-funding campaign to raise $125,000 to support design work raised only a fraction of that. Quinn acknowledges that that was as much for media relations and publicity as for funding, and says it helped. He says ample financing exists.

I'd read that SARGE would be ready for its first test flight as soon as March 2016, would launch monthly during 2016, then move to a weekly schedule in 2017. Quinn said that was “still the plan,” calling it “an achievable goal.” Exos's website (glowingly) describes its activities in the present tense. Quinn conceded that “maybe the present tense isn't literally true, in that we're not out there flying every day” but insisted that “the capability is there” and mentioned examples of Armadillo accomplishing things in very short time-frames.

David Mitchell, Exos's co-founder and president, is a fourth-generation Texas oil man and a Christian pastor. He runs both the family business, and “NeUventure on Wall Street,” a series of seminars that purport to teach beginners in two days how to make humonguous returns through the stock market. Most professionals would laugh at some of his basic advice, which reportedly includes avoiding diversification, buying stock in only one or two companies you know well, and “timing” the market.

Critics say the seminars mix familiar basic advice with a lot of upselling of additional training. For thousands or even tens of thousands of dollars you can become an “Insider” or even a “Top Gun.”

Quinn, who credits Mitchell with saving him after he lost much of his retirement money, says the program works, and that none of the critics are “Top Guns.” (He said it takes a lot of hard work to reach that level.) He adds that Mitchell, who wouldn't take a salary as a pastor, conducted the seminars free for church members for years before trying to help a wider audience.

I wouldn't sign up for NeUventure, and I hope Spaceport folks haven't fronted any money to Exos. I see a wide gap between present reality and promises. The gizmo crashed last time they tried it and we're halfway through 2015. I hear the promise of regular launches in 2016 in the context of ever-shifting Virgin Galactic's timetables. But I'm pretty ignorant, and will watch with interest.

But Quinn speaks passionately of his hopes for Exos.

Will Exos will help save the Dusty Desert Spaceport? Tune in next year.

 

Peter Goodman is a local writer, photographer, and sometime lawyer.   He initially moved to Las Cruces in 1969, holds two degrees from NMSU, and moved back here in 2011 with his wonderful wife.  This is his most recent Sunday column in the Las Cruces Sun-News.  His blog Views from Soledad Canyon contains further information on this subject, as well as other comments and photographs, and past newspaper columns.