Perhaps the most exciting of these projects was my clone of the Orbital Transport. In 1969, Estes released this design, which was based off of the current designs for NASA's new space shuttle. A winged booster carrying a winged orbiter would take off vertically with solid rockets. At the proper speed, it would pitch over and fly on ram- or scram-jet power (greatly conserving fuel, of course). Once the booster's fuel was depleted, it would seperate and coast back into the atmosphere, landing on a runway at the base from whence it started. The orbiter would fire its liquid fuel engine, giving itself the required extra orbital velocity. Historically, this design was rejected by Congress because of its fabulous initial cost (rivaling even the Apollo program). However, had our legislators had the foresight to make the large investment then, the cost of frequent space travel may have been lowered to acceptable levels, bringing the dream of "easy access to space" into reality.
The Estes design of the Orbital Transport would have a far less elaborate flight path. The Orbiter would become a parasite glider, coming down in a graceful sweeping pattern after launch. The ramjet-powered booster would simply drop down to Earth on a parachute. The solid rocket boosters, I assume, were completely ingored.
The Orbital Transport was hard to build, but it wasn't too hard. It had just the correct level of difficulty that it would be a signifigant challenge, but also would not be laborious. It required no special parts (like elaborate vacuum-formed or injection-molded plastic parts). The only special items it would require were the decals (and I found my own solution for that eventually). It was a clever design, since it used readily-available rocket parts to create complex shapes (such as the ramjet engines).
When I had nearly completed the rocket, I forgot about it for a while. I didn't feel like painting it, I guess. It sat, unnoticed, on my workbench for quite some time. Every so often, I would come by and make some modification to it. But, I would never strive to complete it.
About two years later, I finally got around to painting it. I gave it a few coats of white paint, and called it quits. I assumed that I would buy some specialty decals made by one of the aftermarket suppliers (such as Tango Papa Decals). But, I had better things on which to spend my money, such as a movie my brother and I were co-directing, The Worst Sci-Fi Prequel Ever! For a time, I considered test-flying it unpainted, but that never came to pass, since I didn't have an engine of the proper size.
Finally, at Christmastime of 2002, my family was about ready to depart to Rome for the next week. It was a place that I had wanted to go for years and years. I had had vivid dreams about going there, and gazing in rapt awe at the Pantheon, the most magnificent, and best-preserved building of antiquity. All of it did come to pass. But, it was the waiting before hand, the few days prior to our departure, that almost killed me. I was out of school, and I didn't have anything monumental to do. I could just sit around at home, study Roman history, and work on projects. One such means of occupying myself, I found, was to paint, in high detail, a 1/72 Apollo astronaut figure. This included painting the stripes onto the flag he was holding. If I could do that freehand, I reasoned, couldn't I paint the decorations on the Orbital Transport just as well? I did it in a few hours, and the end result was excellent.
By the end of February 2003, I was ready to launch Orbital Transport, long after I had started work on it. My planned launch date of February 26 was scrubbed though, since it started snowing when I had planned to launch. I rescheduled this at the next Sunday, March 2. Conveniently enough, that was the 70th anniversary for the release of an awesome motion picture, King Kong.
Orbital Transport was the fifth of six rockets launched that day. Under the power of a B6-4 engine, it whooshed skyward. Its separation was clean, and both pieces started coming down. My friend Jani (WAEC#013) tracked the booster, while I tracked the orbiter. My brother Ted (WAEC#003) filmed it with our digital video camera. The orbiter, it seems, was not properly trimmed, as it pitched up and down as it glided towards Earth. Both pieces landed near each other, with the booster even leaving a print of its back end in the snow.
Such was the first and only flight of Orbital Transport. It was a challenging project, which spanned over two and a half years. But, I believe, the end results were worth it.