Comments on: Report: Northrop Grumman buys Scaled Composites http://www.newspacejournal.com/2007/07/20/report-northrop-grumman-buys-scaled-composites/ Tracking the entrepreneurial space industry Fri, 12 Sep 2014 14:33:32 +0800 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=4.0.38 By: Thomas Matula http://www.newspacejournal.com/2007/07/20/report-northrop-grumman-buys-scaled-composites/comment-page-1/#comment-180097 Fri, 20 Jul 2007 22:48:02 +0000 http://www.personalspaceflight.info/2007/07/20/report-northrop-grumman-buys-scaled-composites/#comment-180097 Interesting. But my guess is this has far more to do with Northrop-Grumman UAV ventures then space tourism.

Its important to remember that athough space advocates only see Burt Rutan and Scaled Composites in terms of SpaceshipOne and SpaceshipTwo, those projects are only one product line of Scaled Composites.

The USAF has been interested in a military version of the Proteus called Model 395 that Scaled Composites has been working on with Northrop-Grumman for a while. This merger would serve to strengthen Northrop-Grumman’s bid in the USAF Hunter-Killer competition as well as future competitions for advanced UAVs.

All in all I would say its a good move for both firms. As for SpaceshipTwo, the impact is basically netural as the real driving force for that is Richard Branson and VG. As long as VG keeps the money flowing SpaceshipTwo will move forward.

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