June 27, 2017 at 06:53Losers and Forgotten
I won’t be surprised if many people think that the first private rocket into space was launched by Elon Musk with his SpaceX company. This is not so - the Falcon 1 was the first liquid-propellant rocket to be developed with private means and reached orbit. The first rocket developed by private means and launched into orbit was the solid-fuel Pegasus back in 1990. And the first rocket developed by private means and reaching outer space was Conestoga I back in 1982. On the side of the road of private space lie the wreckage of companies that once lost and were forgotten. Sometimes they have an interesting fate - for example, test stands for engines of the closed Beal Aerospace in McGregor bought SpaceX and use it for the same purpose. The history of failures of private space companies that have ceased to exist is instructive and worthy of preservation.
The place of the "icon of private rocket science" could take forty years ago Lutz Kaiser. He had everything necessary for this - a student of Senger , Kaiser attracted the legendary von Braun and Kurt Debuss as consultants . The money was provided by a consortium of six hundred investors. And the design of the rocket was revolutionary and promised a serious reduction in the cost of putting a kilogram into orbit.
In 1975, OTRAG (Orbital Transport and Rockets) was founded. The rocket of the same name should consist of unified simple, reliable CRPUs, which would be produced on an automated conveyor in hundreds and thousands and would cost a penny.
But all the sparkling dreams were crippled by politics. The territory of Zaire, selected for the cosmodrome (now the territory of the Democratic Republic of the Congo), raised concerns about the spread of dual-use missile technologies, and the existing missile companies did not need competitors. As a result, under pressure from the USSR, France and the United States, production in Germany and the launch site in Zaire were closed. Kaiser moved the equipment to Libya and conducted 14 successful tests there. In what happened, the sources diverge, but Kaiser’s equipment in Libya captured Gaddafi and unsuccessfully tried to make war missiles, and the last OTRAG missile launched from Esrange (Kiruna) in Sweden on September 19, 1983.
Last start of OTRAG
As a result, Germany joined the Ariane launch vehicle project, and Lutz Kaiser lived for a long time in Tripoli (Libya), engaged in "green energy" - solar towers with an upward flow . In 2008, he began working at Interorbital Systems , which is now developing the Neptune modular rocket, built on the same principle as OTRAG, and is engaged in nanosatellites. The CPM module (a descendant of CPRU) successfully launched in 2014, and now Interorbital is making the second version. Alas, she can only dream of $ 200 million collected from investors on OTRAG in the 70s (in today's dollars it’s 500-900 million).
CPM launch in 2014
The next attempt to privately conquer outer space is associated with the name of Gary Hudson and Space Services Inc. of America (SSIA). Having spent a year and $ 1.2 million, Hudson built the Persheron rocket. Here, the idea was also simplicity - instead of a complex turbopump, a pressurized feed of pressurized gas was used. In August 1981, the rocket was brought to a ranch in Texas and tried to launch.
Installing a rocket on the launch pad
And an unsuccessful launch
After the explosion at the launch of Percheron, the collaboration of SSIA, which provided funding, and Hudson, who made the rockets, ended. Hudson wanted to continue to deal with liquid rockets, and SSIA decided to switch to solid fuel.
The SSIA hired Dick Slayton, an astronaut from the legendary first seven, and came up with the idea of assembling a rocket from the second stages of the Minuteman intercontinental missile. In September 1982, Conestoga I successfully launched from one second stage and delivered a payload model weighing 500 kg to a height of 313 km, of which 40 kg was water.
Conestoga I at launch, the
rocket was actually geophysical and could not put the payload into orbit, but, nevertheless, it was the first private rocket to reach space. To launch the satellites, a heavier rocket was needed, and the SSIA came up with a simple method of genius - solid-fuel side blocks from the same second stages of the Minuteman were installed around the central one and switched on at different heights.
Blocks with wide nozzles turned on at high altitude.
Alas, the attempt to create a rocket in the best traditions of the Kerbal Space Program, before the release of which was still thirty years old, ended with an impressive destruction of the ligament at 46 seconds of flight, just like in KSP.
The first launch of Conestoga 1620 on October 23, 1995 was the last - in the early 90s, a large investor left SSIA, and there was no money left for a new attempt. To date, SSIA has dropped to the point that it sells the names of stars (the International Astronomical Union reminds that it is impossible to buy the name of the star) and launches anything from a souvenir to the deceased to the cosmos of a passing load on other people's rockets.
Gary Hudson, on the other hand, was chasing the blue bird of accessible space on a different path. He was captured by the idea of SSTO- an apparatus that can reach the orbit in one step and be used repeatedly. And his brain gave birth to a completely insane design - a helicopter with a jet drive of the blades was supposed to go into space. At the same time, the blades solved several problems at once. The main thing was to create tremendous pressure by centrifugal force so that the rocket engines at the ends of the blades were effective. In fact, the vanes would work like a turbo pump of a conventional engine. In addition, they would create lift during take-off, work as a brake during descent in the atmosphere, and allow a controlled, precise landing. However, by 1999 they still decided to take off on a conventional rocket engine, and use the blades for landing. Hudson managed to raise $ 30 million and build a technology demonstrator, who looked like the pepelats from the movie "Kin-dza-dza" and could fly like a helicopter. On it stood a rotor taken from an S-58 crashed helicopter, which was spun up by hydrogen peroxide engines, similar to those that would be used on a spacecraft during landing.
Alas, for the work it was necessary at least another $ 120 million, which Hudson could not collect. Rotary Rocket filed for bankruptcy in 2001, and the pepelats is a monument at the airport in the Mojave Desert.
In the zero years, Hudson worked in various space companies, and now is the CEO of the non-profit Space Studies Institute, which is trying to come up with ways to make space more accessible.
A successful investor, the founder of his own bank, a mathematician who proposed a generalization of Fermat's theorem, which has not yet been refuted, - it seemed to Andrew Bill to handle any business. And in the late 90s he became interested in space. In 1997, he founded Beal Aerospace, which already two years later employed 200 people. The BA-2 rocket, which was developed by the company, was supposed to use high technology to maximize the simplification of the design and reduce the cost of a kilogram into orbit. The displacement flow has replaced expensive and complex turbopumps, the injection of fluid into the engine is a complex system for turning it to control flight. Even the fuel pair was chosen as affordable as possible - kerosene and concentrated hydrogen peroxide. The absence of cryogenic components simplified both the design and the starting equipment. The engine cooling was replaced by ablative components - a thick wall slowly evaporated, taking thermal energy with it. At the same time, the walls of the tanks had to be composite, which would make them light and strong. Even the issues of reusing the stage were worked out.
The engine of the third stage, maximum simplicity is visible to the naked eye.
The BA-2 rocket had to consist of three stages, each of which would have one engine. With an initial mass of 970 tons, it could put 17 tons of payload into orbit. The use of one engine per stage meant that the engine of fantastic power was supposed to be on the first stage. Indeed, the BA-3200 engine under development was supposed to have a thrust of 1,400 tons, which is comparable to the Space Shuttle side accelerator.
On March 4, 2000, Beal Aerospace successfully tested the BA-810 second stage engine with a thrust of 367 tons, which is comparable to the RD-180 thrust.
The size of the engine is clearly visible on the car in the photo.
It would seem that the success of Beal Aerospace is already close. But in 2000, NASA announced the Space Launch Initiative program, which allocated funding for, in fact, competing projects. And Andrew Beale decided that in such conditions there is no point in competing. October 23, 2000 Beal Aerospace was closed. I allow myself to quote a couple of paragraphs from a farewell letter .
According to the EELV program mentioned in the letter, Delta IV and Atlas V rockets were developed. It is difficult to say whether Musk read this letter, but he chose the second path - the state contractor and, becoming a dragon, gnaws at dragons of the past generation that Bill did not want to fight with.
It is claimed that Bill invested about $ 200 million in a space company. The previously created businesses allowed him not to go broke, and in 2001 he started poker. In 2004, he won one of the largest sums in one game - $ 11.7 million. In 2006, he won $ 13.6 million in three days, and then lost 16.6 in three days. 2013 Award to prove or refute Beale 's hypothesis(generalization of Fermat's theorem) was increased by him to one million dollars, and so far no one has received it. In 2016, he actively supported Trump by donating $ 2 million to his election campaign and another million to celebrate the inauguration.
26 companies fought for the Ansari X Prize, the condition of which was the launch of a manned vehicle into space twice in two weeks. Only a few managed to do at least something. One company won, but the SpaceShipOne winner was handed over to the museum, and the winning company still cannot start flights with tourists. But all these failures were not in vain. At a new level of technology, new companies will try to make space more accessible, and someone can do something. The main thing is not to forget about those who have walked this road before.
OTRAG
The place of the "icon of private rocket science" could take forty years ago Lutz Kaiser. He had everything necessary for this - a student of Senger , Kaiser attracted the legendary von Braun and Kurt Debuss as consultants . The money was provided by a consortium of six hundred investors. And the design of the rocket was revolutionary and promised a serious reduction in the cost of putting a kilogram into orbit.
In 1975, OTRAG (Orbital Transport and Rockets) was founded. The rocket of the same name should consist of unified simple, reliable CRPUs, which would be produced on an automated conveyor in hundreds and thousands and would cost a penny.
But all the sparkling dreams were crippled by politics. The territory of Zaire, selected for the cosmodrome (now the territory of the Democratic Republic of the Congo), raised concerns about the spread of dual-use missile technologies, and the existing missile companies did not need competitors. As a result, under pressure from the USSR, France and the United States, production in Germany and the launch site in Zaire were closed. Kaiser moved the equipment to Libya and conducted 14 successful tests there. In what happened, the sources diverge, but Kaiser’s equipment in Libya captured Gaddafi and unsuccessfully tried to make war missiles, and the last OTRAG missile launched from Esrange (Kiruna) in Sweden on September 19, 1983.
Last start of OTRAG
As a result, Germany joined the Ariane launch vehicle project, and Lutz Kaiser lived for a long time in Tripoli (Libya), engaged in "green energy" - solar towers with an upward flow . In 2008, he began working at Interorbital Systems , which is now developing the Neptune modular rocket, built on the same principle as OTRAG, and is engaged in nanosatellites. The CPM module (a descendant of CPRU) successfully launched in 2014, and now Interorbital is making the second version. Alas, she can only dream of $ 200 million collected from investors on OTRAG in the 70s (in today's dollars it’s 500-900 million).
CPM launch in 2014
"Percheron" who gave birth to "Konestoga" and "Roton"
The next attempt to privately conquer outer space is associated with the name of Gary Hudson and Space Services Inc. of America (SSIA). Having spent a year and $ 1.2 million, Hudson built the Persheron rocket. Here, the idea was also simplicity - instead of a complex turbopump, a pressurized feed of pressurized gas was used. In August 1981, the rocket was brought to a ranch in Texas and tried to launch.
Installing a rocket on the launch pad
And an unsuccessful launch
After the explosion at the launch of Percheron, the collaboration of SSIA, which provided funding, and Hudson, who made the rockets, ended. Hudson wanted to continue to deal with liquid rockets, and SSIA decided to switch to solid fuel.
The SSIA hired Dick Slayton, an astronaut from the legendary first seven, and came up with the idea of assembling a rocket from the second stages of the Minuteman intercontinental missile. In September 1982, Conestoga I successfully launched from one second stage and delivered a payload model weighing 500 kg to a height of 313 km, of which 40 kg was water.
Conestoga I at launch, the
rocket was actually geophysical and could not put the payload into orbit, but, nevertheless, it was the first private rocket to reach space. To launch the satellites, a heavier rocket was needed, and the SSIA came up with a simple method of genius - solid-fuel side blocks from the same second stages of the Minuteman were installed around the central one and switched on at different heights.
Blocks with wide nozzles turned on at high altitude.
Alas, the attempt to create a rocket in the best traditions of the Kerbal Space Program, before the release of which was still thirty years old, ended with an impressive destruction of the ligament at 46 seconds of flight, just like in KSP.
The first launch of Conestoga 1620 on October 23, 1995 was the last - in the early 90s, a large investor left SSIA, and there was no money left for a new attempt. To date, SSIA has dropped to the point that it sells the names of stars (the International Astronomical Union reminds that it is impossible to buy the name of the star) and launches anything from a souvenir to the deceased to the cosmos of a passing load on other people's rockets.
Gary Hudson, on the other hand, was chasing the blue bird of accessible space on a different path. He was captured by the idea of SSTO- an apparatus that can reach the orbit in one step and be used repeatedly. And his brain gave birth to a completely insane design - a helicopter with a jet drive of the blades was supposed to go into space. At the same time, the blades solved several problems at once. The main thing was to create tremendous pressure by centrifugal force so that the rocket engines at the ends of the blades were effective. In fact, the vanes would work like a turbo pump of a conventional engine. In addition, they would create lift during take-off, work as a brake during descent in the atmosphere, and allow a controlled, precise landing. However, by 1999 they still decided to take off on a conventional rocket engine, and use the blades for landing. Hudson managed to raise $ 30 million and build a technology demonstrator, who looked like the pepelats from the movie "Kin-dza-dza" and could fly like a helicopter. On it stood a rotor taken from an S-58 crashed helicopter, which was spun up by hydrogen peroxide engines, similar to those that would be used on a spacecraft during landing.
Alas, for the work it was necessary at least another $ 120 million, which Hudson could not collect. Rotary Rocket filed for bankruptcy in 2001, and the pepelats is a monument at the airport in the Mojave Desert.
In the zero years, Hudson worked in various space companies, and now is the CEO of the non-profit Space Studies Institute, which is trying to come up with ways to make space more accessible.
Beal aerospace
A successful investor, the founder of his own bank, a mathematician who proposed a generalization of Fermat's theorem, which has not yet been refuted, - it seemed to Andrew Bill to handle any business. And in the late 90s he became interested in space. In 1997, he founded Beal Aerospace, which already two years later employed 200 people. The BA-2 rocket, which was developed by the company, was supposed to use high technology to maximize the simplification of the design and reduce the cost of a kilogram into orbit. The displacement flow has replaced expensive and complex turbopumps, the injection of fluid into the engine is a complex system for turning it to control flight. Even the fuel pair was chosen as affordable as possible - kerosene and concentrated hydrogen peroxide. The absence of cryogenic components simplified both the design and the starting equipment. The engine cooling was replaced by ablative components - a thick wall slowly evaporated, taking thermal energy with it. At the same time, the walls of the tanks had to be composite, which would make them light and strong. Even the issues of reusing the stage were worked out.
The engine of the third stage, maximum simplicity is visible to the naked eye.
The BA-2 rocket had to consist of three stages, each of which would have one engine. With an initial mass of 970 tons, it could put 17 tons of payload into orbit. The use of one engine per stage meant that the engine of fantastic power was supposed to be on the first stage. Indeed, the BA-3200 engine under development was supposed to have a thrust of 1,400 tons, which is comparable to the Space Shuttle side accelerator.
On March 4, 2000, Beal Aerospace successfully tested the BA-810 second stage engine with a thrust of 367 tons, which is comparable to the RD-180 thrust.
The size of the engine is clearly visible on the car in the photo.
It would seem that the success of Beal Aerospace is already close. But in 2000, NASA announced the Space Launch Initiative program, which allocated funding for, in fact, competing projects. And Andrew Beale decided that in such conditions there is no point in competing. October 23, 2000 Beal Aerospace was closed. I allow myself to quote a couple of paragraphs from a farewell letter .
While NASA and the US government choose and subsidize launch vehicles, there will be no private launch industry. Despite the fact that Boeing and Lockheed are private companies, their systems and components are an offshoot of military projects. Very little effort is made without significant government subsidies, participation and control. We are confident that we could compete with launch vehicles developed under the state-subsidized EELV program, but the volume and depth of subsidies from NASA, as well as the characteristics of these missiles, cannot be determined or calculated.
When it became known that NASA and Congress were going to develop their own launch vehicles, our only remaining choice was to close the business or turn into a state contractor like Boeing or Lockheed and look for government contracts to develop NASA systems. We chose to close the business.
According to the EELV program mentioned in the letter, Delta IV and Atlas V rockets were developed. It is difficult to say whether Musk read this letter, but he chose the second path - the state contractor and, becoming a dragon, gnaws at dragons of the past generation that Bill did not want to fight with.
It is claimed that Bill invested about $ 200 million in a space company. The previously created businesses allowed him not to go broke, and in 2001 he started poker. In 2004, he won one of the largest sums in one game - $ 11.7 million. In 2006, he won $ 13.6 million in three days, and then lost 16.6 in three days. 2013 Award to prove or refute Beale 's hypothesis(generalization of Fermat's theorem) was increased by him to one million dollars, and so far no one has received it. In 2016, he actively supported Trump by donating $ 2 million to his election campaign and another million to celebrate the inauguration.
Conclusion
26 companies fought for the Ansari X Prize, the condition of which was the launch of a manned vehicle into space twice in two weeks. Only a few managed to do at least something. One company won, but the SpaceShipOne winner was handed over to the museum, and the winning company still cannot start flights with tourists. But all these failures were not in vain. At a new level of technology, new companies will try to make space more accessible, and someone can do something. The main thing is not to forget about those who have walked this road before.