Possession of a capsule capable of orbit is great. Making it work is another. It's sort of like buying a cool bucket seat with a six-point harness, and saying you are on your way to the Indy 500. You are, but...

In any case, I wish these guys the best of luck.

I'm no lawyer, but looking at http://www.bitlaw.com/patent/requirements.html, if you publicly disclose the details of your inventions, the novelty requirement for a patent should be impossible to meet for anyone trying to patent your invention.

I guess the issue might be, what is sufficient to constitute "known to the public". Is this a blog? A website you set up to describe your inventions? I'm not sure.