Realizing Tomorrow: The Path to Private Spaceflight by Chris Dubbs; Emeline Paat-dahlstrom; Charles D. Walker

Author:Chris Dubbs; Emeline Paat-dahlstrom; Charles D. Walker
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Development, Technology & Engineering, History, Space Tourism, Science, 20th Century, Modern, Space Flights, General, 21st Century, Astrophysics & Space Science, Space Industrialization, Astronomy, Business & Economics, Aeronautics & Astronautics
ISBN: 9780803216105
Publisher: U of Nebraska Press
Published: 2011-06-01T02:26:40+00:00

Gary Hudson

The winds blew fifty miles an hour in the desert of Mojave, California, on i March 1999, buffeting the thousand-strong crowd gathered at the airport. They had been drawn to this isolated Mecca of New Age space development to witness Gary Hudson, CEO of Rotary Rocket, Inc., roll out his Atmospheric Test Vehicle (ATv). When operational, the ATV would be able to deliver access to space faster and cheaper than the space shuttle. In the parlance of the space industry, it would achieve the dream capabilities of vertical take-off and vertical landing (vTOVL), single-stage-to-orbit (ssTO), and full reusability. And it was privately funded. All of that charged the debut with the portent of a bright new future.

"Welcome to the Revolution!" yelled master of ceremonies Rick Tumlinson, cofounder of the Space Frontier Foundation and of MirCorp. "The opening of space is about dreams," he told the crowd, "the dream that was written about by Heinlein, Clarke, O'Neill, and others."

Other notable speakers also marked the significance of the occasion. "This is America," charged Tom Clancy, author and Rotary Rocket benefactor. "We are the guys who change the world. We are the guys who don't know or don't care what `impossible' means." Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) associate administrator Patti Grace Smith explained how government regulations were evolving to support the development of innovative launch vehicles. NASA chief engineer Daniel Mulville drew a connection between NASA'S mission to explore space and the mission of private industry to exploit it.

Then, to the chords of Aaron Copland's Fanfare for the Common Man, the hangar door slowly opened. High winds blew away the expected dramatic effect of the fog machine as Rotary Rocket's staff rolled out of the hanger the innovative spacecraft known as Roton.

After the formalities and photographs, the crowd moved in for a closer look. The white, conical-shaped ATV stood sixty-four feet high and twentytwo feet wide, with a single huge side window near the base. Scaled Composites, the company of aviation visionary Burt Rutan, had been contracted to build the strange craft. It resembled a number of SSTO projects that had come before it, but with one notable helicopter-type propeller blades atop the nose cone.

It was estimated that when operational, the spacecraft would be capable of launching seven thousand pounds of payload into low Earth orbit for $1,ooo per pound. This would be quite a launch bargain for the booming wireless telecommunications satellite market. That lift capability would also allow it to carry a dozen people, making it wonderfully suited as well for the space tourism market.

The project had its genesis about three years earlier, when Hudson sat in a conference room at American Rocket Company, a firm cofounded by his friend Bevin McKinney. McKinney was enthusiastic about this wild idea to build a space rocket ship powered by a huge propeller. Hudson would later write about that pivotal moment in a Wired magazine article. His first reaction was to state the blunt truth: "Bevin, that's insane." His second reaction was to keep listening.

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