Jul 23 1981
From The Space Library
Press reports said that a Texas-based firm called the Percheron project was preparing to launch the first U.S. privately owned space rocket into a 50-mile suborbital flight from Matagorda Island northeast of Corpus Christi.
Backers of the project, named for a breed of large French draft horses, hoped to launch their rocket powered by kerosene and liquid oxygen at the end of July, but had run into trouble with the FAA, which said they must seek waiver of air-traffic rules preventing "nonconventional" use of U.S. air space above 12,500 feet. An FAA spokesman said that an application for waiver could take more than two weeks to resolve and could end by restricting Percheron to a flight no higher than 14,500 feet and no further out to sea than the three-mile limit over which FAA had jurisdiction. A flight would also call for extensive coordination with the Coast Guard to protect shipping and oil rigs in the area.
Percheron was the idea of Gary C. Hudson, a "self-taught engineer" seeking to head a company pioneering corporate space ventures. In 1979 he met a fellow enthusiast, Houston developer David Hannah, described as "a disciple of Dr. Gerard K. O’Neill," the Princeton physics professor famous for his ideas about the commercial and social possibilities of space colonies. Hannah, a supporter of the U.S. space program, had developed a slide show on commercial uses of a cheap, privately owned space vehicle; to launch Percheron, he raised $1.2 million from a number of investors including an oilman and rancher who owned part of Matagorda Island.
Hudson rounded up a crew of engineers, scientists, and technicians, some from NASA's JPL, others from private aerospace firms. So much information and so many plans were available that production of Percheron took only six months from final design. The 55-foot single-engine rocket used in clusters might one day orbit a 5,000-pound geosynchronous payload with a conical module able to withstand reentry heat and return reusable components to Earth. (W Star, July 23/81, A-1; July 28/81, A-7; W Post, July 29/81, A-1)
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