Xref: utzoo sci.space:29012 sci.space.shuttle:7502 Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!titan!heskett From: heskett@titan.tsd.arlut.utexas.edu (Donald Heskett) Newsgroups: sci.space,sci.space.shuttle Subject: Re: I want to go to orbit... Message-ID: Date: 9 Apr 91 12:33:55 GMT References: <1991Mar25.174621.3905@cs.mcgill.ca> <33015@edsews.eds.com> <1991Apr8.164602.1@dev8a.mdcbbs.com> Sender: news@titan.tsd.arlut.utexas.edu Organization: Applied Research Laboratories, University of Texas at Austin. Lines: 20 In-reply-to: rivero@dev8a.mdcbbs.com's message of 8 Apr 91 16:46:02 GMT >[stuff deleted]... may I ask if anyone has seen of or heard from >Robert Truax lately. He is the ex-NASA rocket scientist who was >building his own 1 man orbital rocket a few years back. Last I heard, >he had the booster completed, and was trying to fund the actual >vehicle. If I remember correctly, Truax had built a vehicle, based on surplus Atlas vernier engines, to loft a person to 100km (about 62-miles), the IAF's definition for the threshold of space, thus qualifying that person as an astronaut. Recovery was to be via parachute. Last I heard, the vehicle was complete, ready to carry the first person with the $1,000,000 ticket price. Truax claimed, at one time, that he would put an American woman into space before NASA could. Truax had earlier built a steam powered rocket that Eveil Kneivel (spelling?) used for a widely publicized, partially successful (premature parachute opening), crossing of the Snake river canyon. I haven't read anything about Truax in perhaps five years and am also curious about what he is up to these days, if anything.