Walter Kistler is the least likely person to be reasonably labeled a snake oil sales man.

He's a visionary and as with people like that they seem out on a limb. I think Hudson and others come to mind in this category. Don't get me wrong there are snake oil sales people in force in the new space community, but anywhere there is possible money there are those types and even some of them are honest. Remember the newsreel images of the various "planes" that could never fly in hindsight? Well, their the guys selling the machine that looked like a giant umbrella that pumped up and down so hard and now obviously could never have flown!

I think the whole airbags ideas is where you get the snake oil thing. They had the engines and lots of hardware just not enough money to build the whole K-1.