Engineering Colloquium Home
Schedule including this lecture.
Goddard Space Flight Center Engineering Colloquium
Date: Monday, October 23, 2000
The emerging commercial space launch industry has experienced a tumultuous ride over the past decade, with the promise of inexpensive reusable launch vehicles offered by programs such as DC-X dashed with the failures and delays of numerous private and NASA ventures. The speaker has thirty years of management and engineering experience in the commercial space launch industry, and will offer commentary and insight into the trials and tribulations of these ventures. A brief history of commercial space launch programs will introduce the lecture, followed by the speaker's experiences as retired CEO of Rotary Rocket Company, which was one of the most promising of all the new ventures. With the downturn in the market for LEO launch opportunities, the fate of the industry will be dependent upon taking radical new steps to reach the goal of low cost space flight for humans and cargo. Some opportunities and means to achieve this goal will be discussed.
Gary C. Hudson is a founder and former Chairman of the Board of Directors and CEO of Rotary Rocket Company, where he was responsible for raising $33 million of private financing and managing 70 people and 150 contractor personnel during the nearly four year Roton development program. He is the designer of the Phoenix VTOL-SSTO family of launch vehicles. He built two pressure-fed "big dumb booster" type launch vehicles in the 1980s. He has also published extensively on the topic of space vehicles and systems and has authored several studies on low cost and advanced propulsion systems. In 1994 he co-founded HMX, which designs and develops innovative aerospace propulsion systems. In 1995 HMX developed, for only $1.4 million, a rocket engine propulsion system, including engines, tankage and support systems, for Kistler Aerospace Corporation of Kirkland, WA. He also shares the Roton patent issued in 1998 with Bevin McKinney, assigned to HMX.
In 1982 he co-founded Pacific American Launch Systems, Inc. As President and CEO of PacAm he was directly responsible for financial and strategic planning as well as oversight of engineering, marketing, and operations during design and development of the Liberty, a small expendable launch vehicle, which underwent prototype engine testing for the US Army Strategic Defense Command on behalf of SDIO at Edwards Air Force Base, California. During this period he also served as a consultant to the United States Air Force "Project Forecast II." He is a Board Member of the Space Transportation Association, a member of the Board of Advisors of the Space Frontier Foundation, and he has presented testimony before the U.S. Congress on several occasions.
He has taught at the US Naval Postgraduate School and the Institute for Space and Astronautical Sciences of Tokyo University, and he taught graduate-level launch vehicle design at Stanford University. In January 1994 he received the Laurel Award from Aviation Week & Space Technology "for the vision, drive and competence that have pushed [single-stage-to-orbit and reusable launch vehicles] to the front of the US launcher agenda."
Colloquium Committee Sponsor: Dave Beyer
Engineering Colloquium home page: https://ecolloq.gsfc.nasa.gov