X-Nico

5 unusual facts about Rotary Rocket


Rotary Rocket

Ultimately, the company did not attract sufficient funding –even though numerous individuals provided a total of $33 million of support, including writer Tom Clancy).

The pilot for these three flights was Marti Sarigul-Klijn and the copilot was Brian Binnie (who later gained fame as pilot of Scaled Composites' SpaceShipOne on its second X-Prize flight).

To many, the Roton represents the program that launched Mojave into the Space Age, and this theme was echoed during the dedication ceremony that took place during the Veterans' Day celebration on November 11, at which Brian Binnie was the keynote speaker.

Visibility in the cockpit was so restricted that the pilots nicknamed it the Batcave.

Sarigul-Klijn, Marti, "I Survived the Rotary Rocket." Air&Space/Smithsonian Magazine, March, 2002.


Jeff Greason

Jeff Greason is a founder of XCOR Aerospace, the Commercial Spaceflight Federation (formerly Personal Spaceflight Federation), was the team lead at Rotary Rocket for engine development, and previously worked at Intel.


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