In the last year or so it's become almost commonplace to see SpaceX and
Blue Origin bringing rockets back after launch for refurbishment and reuse this
has been the goal for billionaires Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos backed by NASA
knowledge for well over a decade now. But over 40 years ago another man had the
same dream of a low-cost reusable rocket that very nearly came to fruition from
the unlikely source of a two-car garage in an ordinary Californian suburb and
could have made the world-famous daredevil Evel Knievel the world's first
private astronaut. That man was Bob Truax and he was much more than a backyard
rocket enthusiast. He had a track record making a name for himself designing the
Thor missile which will become the basis for a Delta launch family and the
Polaris launch system from the US Navy. He's also named on the patent number 3,029,704 for the steam-powered rocket and launch of dated April 17th for 1962.
After leaving a military he led a team at the American rocketry firm Aerojet
developing the design for the monstrous super heavy lift booster called the 'Sea
Dragon'. In 1966 Truex left Aerojet to set up his own company where he continue to
work on reusable rockets. To fund this research he designed some blisteringly
powerful propulsion systems such as the 'Thunderbolt' steam rocket engine that
created 5,000 pounds of thrust for Walt Afrons steam drag racer. It was this
technology that led him to work him with the daredevil Evel Knievel who was
planning to jump across the Snake River Canyon in Idaho on a motorbike with a
couple of flimsy wings and a fake rocket motor. The feat seemed like a recipe for
certain death but Truex knew but he could use a steam-powered rocket engine
to launch Knievel at terrific speeds high across the canyon.
Now a steam-powered rocket may seem something like the Victorians would have
thought of but it is actually a proven technology but can produce simple very
powerful yet very cost-effective reusable propulsion system. Truax sold
it to the daredevil on the 'wow' factor of a rocket making Knievel the 'Star
spangled Rocketman' and sure enough on September the 8th 1974 the steam-powered
X-2 Skycycle launched exactly as planned and almost made it.... except for the
parachute which deployed early on the ramp sending an Evel to an embarrassing
crash at the bottom of a canyon. As soon as Knievel was pulled from a wreck of X-2
he asked Truax "What else have you got up your sleeve?".
Truax told Evel Knievel that if he could raise a million dollars he could make
him the world's first private astronaut the rocket would be called the X-3, a sort
of successor to the skycycle and be capable of launching an everyman
astronaut above the Karman line 62 miles or 100 kilometers above the earth.
Knievel liked the idea and provided a research grant of $3000
but soon had to pull out when he was caught up in an expensive lawsuit for
attacking his promoter with a baseball bat. Truax needed a new backer and took
His X-3 now nicknamed the Volks rocket to the press he appeared on Johnny Carson's
'The Tonight Show' and placed two newspaper ads in the Wall Street Journal.
One looking for financiers which read "Wanted a risky capital for a risky
project" which not surprisingly went unanswered. The other was for would-be
astronauts and read "Man or woman interested in becoming the world's first
private astronaut, must be in reasonably good health unable to produce $100,000
in spending money" that one had 3,500 responses from all sorts
of people including an airline pilot, an elderly woman and a Buddy Holly
impersonator. For a long time little in the way of funds came in but Truex
pushed on with what he had part payments, small donations and his own passion for
the project. Luckily at the time surplus rocket parts could be found at scrap
yards in California with the Vandenberg Air Force Base being close by.
One day as he was wandering around his favorite rocket parts scrapyard, Truax
spotted some Rocketdyne LR 101 vernier thruster engines,
seven of them in all. Originally designed for making course corrections on Atlas
Rockets these had cost the government millions to develop and $70,000
each to produce but only set him back $25 a piece later he yoked four of
them together to be the power behind the x3.
Although the X-3 Volksrocket didn't get off the ground with private money, in
1988 Truax engineering got the big break they needed winning a contract with the
Naval Research Laboratory of the NRL for a reusable Satellite Launch System. To
fit the NRL specifications the X-3 was modified to take off from a sea launch
light tracks his previous designs for the Sea Dragon. Now with a designation x3-A
or SEALAR for SEa Launch And Recovery The ramped up project meant that Truax
could reassemble his team of engineers. The rocket was scheduled to begin flight
tests in 1996 but some amongst Truax's team were less enthusiastic. Helping the
navy with a new launch system seemed far from the democratic ambitions of the
Volks rocket, in any case the navy funding was cut off just a month before
the first scheduled flight. Bob Truax died in 2010 aged 93 but since his death some
of his ideas have become more widespread and relevant his simple, scalable and
reusable rocket designs were as it turns out, well ahead of their time. Bob's son
Scott Truax in particular felt the call to 'cure history' by proving that the
Skycycle would have worked. So 40 years after the Evel Knievel Snake River Canyon
jump he moved to Twin Falls, Idaho with a mission to build and launch his father's
invention once more. Like the X-2 Scott Truax's 'Evel Spirit' was made from the
same surplus parts as the original X-2. The fuselage was made from a fuel tank
from a Grumman albatross seaplane and the oxygen tank from a B-50 bomber.
Inside the steam was pressurized to 500 psi using a propane boiler from a steam
cleaner and as on the original 10,000 horsepower of thrust was
released with nothing more than the lid of a can of dog food. The moment of truth
finally arrived on September 16th 2016 when stuntman Eddie Braun strapped
himself into the seat at the base of the 10 story ramp. With a rush of steam the
'Evel Spirit' soared into a clear blue sky after 26 seconds of flight and 42 years
of history the bullet shaped shadow deployed its parachute and touched down
in the fields on the other side. As Knievel said in 1974, Bob Truax's
inventions are a tough act to follow but the Snake River Canyon is unlikely to be
the last victory to rise from these blueprints. So thanks for watching and I
would also like to put out a special thanks to Scott Truax for his
invaluable help in not only suggesting but also in helping make this video
possible. I would also like to say that this episode shirt is bleep the Zig Zag
trip by madcap England and is available from Atomretro.com with worldwide
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