Pioneer Rocketplane
   HOME
*





Pioneer Rocketplane
Pioneer Rocketplane was an aerospace design and development company intent on developing affordable crewed space flight. The company is most famous for advocating a horizontal takeoff, turbo-jet and rocket propelled, aerial-refueled, rocket plane concept called the Pathfinder. The company still exists, but is no longer in operation. Pioneer's intellectual property is now owned by Rocketplane Limited, Inc., however Rocketplane Limited does not employ any of the principals of Pioneer Rocketplane. History The "Black Horse" study The "Black Horse" study began with a bar napkin at the White Sands Missile Range Officers’ Club on May 12, 1993. The original concept was developed by then United States Air Force, Air Force Captain Mitchell Burnside Clapp, who envisioned an aerial refueled, rocket-powered single-stage to orbit (SSTO) vehicle using jet fuel and hydrogen peroxide. This concept seemed a natural match for the Air Force's TransAtmospheric Vehicle (TAV) mission and studies ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


Private Company
A privately held company (or simply a private company) is a company whose shares and related rights or obligations are not offered for public subscription or publicly negotiated in the respective listed markets, but rather the company's stock is offered, owned, traded, exchanged privately, or Over-the-counter (finance), over-the-counter. In the case of a closed corporation, there are a relatively small number of shareholders or company members. Related terms are closely-held corporation, unquoted company, and unlisted company. Though less visible than their public company, publicly traded counterparts, private companies have major importance in the world's economy. In 2008, the 441 list of largest private non-governmental companies by revenue, largest private companies in the United States accounted for ($1.8 trillion) in revenues and employed 6.2 million people, according to ''Forbes''. In 2005, using a substantially smaller pool size (22.7%) for comparison, the 339 companies on ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Burt Rutan
Elbert Leander "Burt" Rutan (; born June 17, 1943) is a retired American aerospace engineer and entrepreneur noted for his originality in designing light, strong, unusual-looking, and energy-efficient air and space craft. He designed the record-breaking Voyager, which in 1986 was the first plane to fly around the world without stopping or refueling, and the Virgin Atlantic GlobalFlyer, which in 2006 set the world record for the fastest (342 mph/551 km/h in 67 hours) and longest (25,766 miles/41,466 km) nonstop non-refueled circumnavigation flight in history. In 2004, Rutan's sub-orbital spaceplane design SpaceShipOne became the first privately funded spacecraft to enter the realm of space, winning the Ansari X-Prize that year for achieving the feat twice within a two-week period. With his VariEze and Long-EZ designs, which first flew in 1975 and 1979 respectively, Rutan is responsible for helping popularize both the canard configuration and the use of moldless c ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Space Tourism
Space tourism is human space travel for recreational purposes. There are several different types of space tourism, including orbital, suborbital and lunar space tourism. During the period from 2001 to 2009, seven space tourists made eight space flights aboard a Russian Soyuz spacecraft to the International Space Station, brokered by Space Adventures in conjunction with Roscosmos and RSC Energia. The publicized price was in the range of US$20–25 million per trip. Some space tourists have signed contracts with third parties to conduct certain research activities while in orbit. By 2007, space tourism was thought to be one of the earliest markets that would emerge for commercial spaceflight. Russia halted orbital space tourism in 2010 due to the increase in the International Space Station crew size, using the seats for expedition crews that would previously have been sold to paying spaceflight participants. Orbital tourist flights were set to resume in 2015 but the planned ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


Kistler Aerospace
Rocketplane Kistler (RpK) was a reusable launch system firm originally based in Oklahoma. It was formed in 2006 after Rocketplane Limited, Inc. acquired Kistler Aerospace. NASA announced that Rocketplane Kistler had been chosen to develop crew and cargo launch services. However, having missed financial milestones NASA terminated funding for the project. It filed for chapter 7 bankruptcy in 2010. K-1 launch vehicle Rocketplane Kistler's primary project was the K-1 (rocket), K-1, a reusable launch vehicle which was intended to get as high as geosynchronous orbit, and was hoped to compete with relatively expensive, one-shot rockets for servicing of the International Space Station. Corporate history Kistler Aerospace was founded in Kirkland, Washington by Walter Kistler and Bob Citron in 1993 as a private company attempting to develop fully reusable vehicles capable of earth orbit at a minimal price. Rob Meyerson, who later went on to become President of Blue Origin, was a Senior ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Rocketplane XP
The Rocketplane XP was a suborbital spaceplane design that was under development c. 2005 by Rocketplane Kistler. The vehicle was to be powered by two jet engines and a rocket engine, intended to enable it to reach suborbital space. The XP would have operated from existing spaceports in a manner consistent with established commercial aviation practices. Commercial flights were projected to begin in 2009. Rocketplane Global declared bankruptcy in mid-June 2010. Their assets were auctioned off in 2011. Design and development As envisioned, the Rocketplane XP would carry a pilot and five passengers on a flight profile from a runway using jet engines like a conventional aircraft. It would then climb to about 12 km (40,000 feet). At this point, a reusable rocket engine would power the XP on a suborbital trajectory reaching altitudes of over after burnout. The XP was to then reenter Earth's atmosphere and land at the same spaceport under conventional jet power. The relativel ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


Merrill A
Merrill may refer to: Places in the United States *Merrill Field, Anchorage, Alaska *Merrill, Iowa * Merrill, Maine *Merrill, Michigan *Merrill, Mississippi, an unincorporated community near Lucedale in George County *Merrill, Oregon *Merrill, Wisconsin *Merrill (town), Wisconsin *Merrill Township, Michigan *Merrill Township, North Dakota *Merrill College at the University of California, Santa Cruz People * Merrill Moses (born 1977), Olympic water polo player *Merrill (surname) *Merrill Cook, Utah politician *Merrill Garbus, musician behind the experimental indie project Tune-yards *Merrill Ashley (born 1950), American ballet dancer and ''répétiteur'' Other uses *Merrill (company), a division of Bank of America *Skidmore, Owings and Merrill, architectural firm * USS ''Merrill'' (DD-976) *Nine men's morris, a strategy board game also called ''Merrills'' * Merrill (crater) Merrill is a lunar impact crater. It is located in the high northern latitudes, on the far side. Less than ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  




Star (rocket Stage)
The Star is a family of US solid-propellant rocket motors originally developed by Thiokol and used by many space propulsion and launch vehicle stages. They are used almost exclusively as an upper stage, often as an apogee kick motor. Three Star 37 stages, and one Star 48 stage, were launched on solar escape trajectories; fast enough to leave the Sun's orbit and out into interstellar space, where barring the low chance of colliding with debris, they will travel past other stars in the Milky Way galaxy and survive potentially intact for millions of years. Star 24 The Star 24 (TE-M-640) is a solid fuel apogee kick motor, first qualified in 1973. It burns an 86% solids carboxyl-terminated polybutadiene (CTPB) fuel. ; Thiokol Star-24 family Star 27 The Star 27 is a solid apogee kick motor, with the 27 representing the approximate diameter of the stage in inches. It burns HTPB fuel with an average erosion rate of 0.0011 inches per second. When used on the Pegasus air-launch r ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


Robert Zubrin
Robert Zubrin (; born April 9, 1952) is an American aerospace engineer, author, and advocate for human exploration of Mars. He and his colleague at Martin Marietta, David Baker, were the driving force behind Mars Direct, a proposal in a 1990 research paper intended to produce significant reductions in the cost and complexity of such a mission. The key idea was to use the Martian atmosphere to produce oxygen, water, and rocket propellant for the surface stay and return journey. A modified version of the plan was subsequently adopted by NASA as their "design reference mission". He questions the delay and cost-to-benefit ratio of first establishing a base or outpost on an asteroid or another Apollo program-like return to the Moon, as neither would be able to provide all of its own oxygen, water, or energy; these resources are producible on Mars, and he expects people would be there thereafter. Disappointed with the lack of interest from government in Mars exploration and after the ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


Martin Marietta
The Martin Marietta Corporation was an American company founded in 1961 through the merger of Glenn L. Martin Company and American-Marietta Corporation. In 1995, it merged with Lockheed Corporation to form Lockheed Martin. History Martin Marietta formed in 1961 by the merger of the Glenn L. Martin Company and American-Marietta Corporation. Martin, based in Baltimore, was primarily an aerospace concern with a recent focus on missiles, namely its Titan program. American-Marietta was headquartered in Chicago and produced paints, dyes, metallurgical products, construction materials, and other goods. In 1982, Martin Marietta was subject to a hostile takeover bid by the Bendix Corporation, headed by William Agee. Bendix bought the majority of Martin Marietta shares and in effect owned the company. However, Martin Marietta's management used the short time separating ownership and control to sell non-core businesses and launch its own hostile takeover of Bendix (known as the Pac-Ma ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


Aerial Propellant Transfer
Aerial may refer to: Music * ''Aerial'' (album), by Kate Bush * ''Aerials'' (song), from the album ''Toxicity'' by System of a Down Bands * Aerial (Canadian band) *Aerial (Scottish band) *Aerial (Swedish band) Performance art *Aerial silk, apparatus used in aerial acrobatics * Aerialist, an acrobat who performs in the air Recreation and sport *Aerial (dance move) * Aerial (skateboarding) *Aerial adventure park, ropes course with a recreational purpose * Aerial cartwheel (or side aerial), gymnastics move performed in acro dance and various martial arts *Aerial skiing, discipline of freestyle skiing * Front aerial, gymnastics move performed in acro dance Technology Antennas * Aerial (radio), a radio ''antenna'' or transducer that transmits or receives electromagnetic waves ** Aerial (television), an over-the-air television reception antenna Mechanical * Aerial fire apparatus, for firefighting and rescue * Aerial work platform, for positioning workers Optical * ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  




Daniel Raymer
Daniel P. Raymer is an aerospace design engineer widely recognized as an expert in the fields of aircraft conceptual design, design engineering, aircraft configuration, and layout. Career Dan Raymer was born in 1954 at the Fort Ord US Army base. His father is Gordon Raymer, a US Navy pilot then attending the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California. While growing up, his family lived in Patuxent River, Maryland, where his father attended test pilot school at the Naval Air Station Patuxent River. Later, his family lived in Taiwan, where his father served as a Lockheed P-2 Neptune instructor pilot and mission planner with the Black Bat Squadron. After leaving the navy, his father went to work in the Advanced Design Department at Lockheed and Dan ended up graduating from Royal High School in Simi Valley in 1972. While in high school, he started flying lessons at the Santa Paula Airport. After graduating, he attended Purdue University on a US Air Force ROTC scholarshi ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


Phillips Laboratory
Phillips Laboratory was a research and development organization operated by the United States Air Force Materiel Command. In 1997, the Laboratory was merged into the Air Force Research Laboratory as the Space Vehicles and Directed Energy Directorates. It was located at Kirtland Air Force Base in Albuquerque, New Mexico ) , population_demonym = New Mexican ( es, Neomexicano, Neomejicano, Nuevo Mexicano) , seat = Santa Fe , LargestCity = Albuquerque , LargestMetro = Tiguex , OfficialLang = None , Languages = English, Spanish ( New Mexican), Navajo, Ke .... The Laboratory was named after Gen Samuel C. Phillips, a former Director of the Apollo Manned Lunar Landing Project. See also * Starfire Optical Range (SOR) References Military units and formations in New Mexico {{USAF-stub ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]