- Weil, Elizabeth.
They All Laughed at Christopher Columbus.
New York: Bantam Books, 2002.
ISBN 978-0-553-38236-5.
-
For technologists and entrepreneurs, the latter half of the
1990s was a magical time. The explosive growth in computing
power available to individuals, the global interconnectivity
afforded by the Internet, and the emergence of broadband service with
the potential to make the marginal cost of entry as a radio
or video broadcaster next to zero created a vista of boundless
technological optimism. Companies with market valuations in the
billions sprang up like mushrooms despite having never turned
a profit (and in some cases, before delivering a product), and
stock-option paper millionaires were everywhere, some sporting
job titles which didn't exist three years before.
In this atmosphere enthusiasms of all kinds were difficult to
restrain, even those more venerable than Internet start-ups, and
among people who had previously been frustrated upon multiple
occasions. So it was that as the end of the decade approached,
Gary Hudson,
veteran of three earlier unsuccessful commercial space projects,
founded
Rotary Rocket, Inc.
with the goal of building a reusable
single-stage-to-orbit
manned spacecraft which would reduce the cost of launching payloads
into low Earth orbit by a factor of ten compared to contemporary
expendable rockets (which, in turn, were less expensive than
NASA's Space Shuttle). Such a dramatic cost reduction was expected
to immediately generate substantial business from customers such as
Teledesic, which originally
planned to launch 840 satellites to provide global broadband Internet
service. Further, at one tenth the launch cost, space applications
which were not economically feasible before would become so, expanding
the space market just as the comparable collapse in the price of
computing and communications had done in their sectors.
Hudson assembled a team, a mix of veterans of his earlier
ventures, space enthusiasts hoping to make their dreams a
reality at last, hard-nosed engineers, and seasoned test pilots
hoping to go to space, and set to work. His vision became known
as Roton, and evolved to be an
all-composite
structure including tanks for the liquid oxygen and kerosene
propellants, and a unique rotary engine at the base of the
conical structure which would spin to create the pressure to
inject propellants into 96 combustors arrayed around the
periphery, eliminating the need for heavy, complicated, and
prone-to-disintegrate turbopumps. The crew of two would fly the
Roton to orbit and release the payload into space, then make
a de-orbit burn. During re-entry, a water-cooled heat shield
on the base of the cone would protect the structure from heating,
and when atmospheric density was sufficient, helicopter-like
rotor blades would deploy from the top of the cone. These blades
would be spun up by
autorotation
and then, shortly before touchdown, tip jets powered by hydrogen peroxide
would fire to allow a controlled powered approach and precision
landing. After a mission, one need only load the
next payload, refill the propellant tanks, and brief the crew for the
next flight. It was estimated one flight per day was achievable with
a total ground staff of fewer than twenty people.
This would have been revolutionary, and there were many, some with
forbidding credentials and practical experience, who argued that it
couldn't possibly work, and certainly not on
Hudson's schedule and budget of US$ 150 million (which is closer
to the sum NASA or one of its contractors would require to
study such a concept, not to actually build and fly it).
There were many things to worry about. Nothing like the rotary
engine had ever been built, and its fluid mechanical and thermal
complexities were largely unknown. The heat shield was entirely
novel, and there was no experience as to how it would perform
in a real world environment in which pores and channels might clog.
Just getting to orbit in a single stage vehicle powered by LOX
and kerosene was considered impossible by many, requiring a structure
which was 95% propellant at launch. Even with composite construction,
nobody had achieved anything close to this mass fraction in a flight
vehicle.
Gary Hudson is not just a great visionary; he is nothing if not
persuasive. For example, here is a
promotional
video from 1998. He was able, over the history of the
project, to raise a total of US$ 30 million for the project from private
investors (disclosure: myself included), and built an initial atmospheric
test vehicle intended to validate the helicopter landing system.
In 1999, this vehicle made three successful test flights, including
a
hop up and down
and a
flight down the runway.
By this point in 1999, the technology bubble was nearing the bursting point
and perspicacious investors were already backing away from risky
ventures. When it became clear there was no prospect
to raise sufficient funds to continue, even toward the next milestone,
Hudson had no option but to lay off staff and eventually entirely
shutter the company, selling off its remaining assets (but the Roton
ATV can be seen on display at the
Mojave Spaceport).
There are any number of “business books” written about
successful ventures, often ghostwritten for founders to show how they
had a unique vision and marched from success to success to achieve
their dream. (These so irritated me that I strove, in my own
business book, to
demonstrate from contemporary documents, the extent to which those
in a technological start-up grope in the dark with insufficient
information and little idea of where it's going.) Much
rarer are accounts of big dreams which evoked indefatigable efforts
from talented people and, despite all, ended badly. This book is
a superb exemplar of that rare genre. There are a few errors of fact,
and from time to time the author's description of herself among
the strange world of the rocket nerds is a bit precious, but you
get an excellent sense of what it was like to dream big, how a
visionary can inspire people to accomplish extraordinary things, and
how an entrepreneur must not only have a sound technical foundation,
a vision of the future, but also have kissed the
Barnum
stone to get the job done.
Oddly, the book contains no photographs of this unique and stunning
vehicle or the people who built it.
October 2013 