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The Learning Kingdom's Cool Fact of the Day for May 17, 1999
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What kind of rocket has a spinning motor and lands like a helicopter?
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The Roton Rotary Rocket not only has blades at the top, like the
blades of a helicopter, it also has a rocket motor at the bottom that
spins. It's a design for a fully reusable, manned, Earth-to-orbit
spacecraft that only uses one stage.
The spinning rocket motor is more efficient than an ordinary rocket
because no complicated, heavy fuel pumps are needed. The spin of the
rocket motor causes the fuel to flow out toward the nozzles, where it
mixes and burns.
On re-entry, the helicopter-like blades at the top are deployed. At
first they spin passively, slowing down the craft as it enters the
atmosphere. But later, small rockets at the tips of the blades are
ignited, and the rotary rocket becomes able to hover and make a
delicately controlled soft landing, tail first.
The Roton Rocket is expected to fly in 2000:
http://www.rotaryrocket.com/
More about new designs for reusable spacecraft:
http://www.discovery.com/stories/science/entrepreneurs/rockets.html
More Cool Facts about new kinds of spacecraft:
http://www.cool-fact.com/archive/1998/12/08.html
http://www.cool-fact.com/archive/1999/02/12.html
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