The end of Excalibur Almaz?
Excalibur Almaz Capsule Sold in Auction, SpaceRef Business
“Commercial spaceflight services company Excalibur Almaz recently auctioned one of its assets, a Soviet era space capsule, the Vozvraschaemyi Apparat (VA), at the Brussels auction house Kunsthaus Lempertz KG for €1.26 million euros (US$1.72M).”
Certainly seems like Excalibur Almaz is withering on the vine.One could think the sale of this asset is to attempt to keep the company afloat. I feel that this is the beginning of the end and more assets will be auctioned off soon.
This is a surprise?
Admittedly, when I first read their name “Excalibur Almaz”, my mind accidentally (or perhaps in a Freudian prophetic way) mispronounced it as “Alaca-Zam!” Well, it now seems appropriate; as it looks as though they have been surviving mostly on smoke and mirrors.
So that image is from the auction house? I guess they see it as something for a museum in that image, but I laughed and immediately thought of 2001: A Space Odyssey with those suited guys in there.
I still remember the days people were telling me Excalibur Almaz would beat SpaceX to orbit. Lotta true believers jumped on that wagon.
Sell the hardware back to the Russians. If the Russians dump the ISS they may be needing a spacestation quickly.