Len Cormier (1924 – June 16, 2008) worked for many years in the U.S. aerospace industry, in government, large industry, and as a private entrepreneur. He developed many creative proposals for reusable launch vehicles, and was present at several key events of the early

Space Age The Space Age is a period encompassing the activities related to the space race, space exploration, space technology, and the cultural developments influenced by these events, beginning with the launch of Sputnik 1 on October 4, 1957, and co ...

Early life and career

Len Cormier was born in 1924 in Boston, Massachusetts. After learning to fly in the Second World War, he became a

U.S. Navy The United States Navy (USN) is the maritime service branch of the United States Department of Defense. It is the world's most powerful navy with the largest displacement, at 4.5 million tons in 2021. It has the world's largest aircraft ...

fighter pilot, and executive officer of an ASW patrol squadron. He obtained a B.A. in physics from

Berkeley Berkeley most often refers to: *Berkeley, California, a city in the United States **University of California, Berkeley, a public university in Berkeley, California *George Berkeley (1685–1753), Anglo-Irish philosopher Berkeley may also refer to ...

in 1952. "He joined the Navy Reserve in 1947 and achieved the rank of lieutenant commander in 1958. He retired from the reserves in 1966."; He spoke Russian and English.

Involvement with the International Geophysical Year

In 1956 he began work at the

National Academy of Sciences The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) is a United States nonprofit, NGO, non-governmental organization. NAS is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, along with the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) and the ...

(NAS) of the U.S.A. As a staff member there in 1957 he was involved in work on a satellite to be launched as part of the

International Geophysical Year The International Geophysical Year (IGY; ), also referred to as the third International Polar Year, was an international scientific project that lasted from 1 July 1957 to 31 December 1958. It marked the end of a long period during the Cold War w ...

(IGY), 1957–1958,; and on publication of IGY scientific results. He attended the October 1957 conference at which the

Soviet Union The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

hinted at the upcoming launch of

Sputnik 1 Sputnik 1 (, , ''Satellite 1''), sometimes referred to as simply Sputnik, was the first artificial Earth satellite. It was launched into an elliptical low Earth orbit by the Soviet Union on 4 October 1957 as part of the Soviet space program ...

. According to his family, this event "made a tremendous impression on him". In 1958 he was present at the Jan. 31 press conference at the National Academy of Sciences following the launch of the first US satellite,

Explorer 1 Explorer 1 was the first satellite launched by the United States in 1958 and was part of the U.S. participation in the International Geophysical Year (IGY). The mission followed the first two satellites, both launched by the Soviet Union duri ...

. While at the NAS he was also involved with the Moonwatch, Moonbeam and Phototrack volunteer groups supporting the IGY satellite program.

Later work

In 1959, he moved to

NASA The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agencies of the United States government, independent agency of the federal government of the United States, US federal government responsible for the United States ...

headquarters, where he was involved with the work of th
Space Science Board
Around 1960 he left NASA to work at

North American Aviation North American Aviation (NAA) was a major American aerospace manufacturer that designed and built several notable aircraft and spacecraft. Its products included the T-6 Texan trainer, the P-51 Mustang fighter, the B-25 Mitchell bomber, the F- ...

, where he was project engineer for space transportation systems at the Los Angeles Division for several years.

Private entrepreneur

In 1967 Cormier formed a company called TranSpace, marking the beginning of his work on a commercial approach to spaceflight, which continued for the remainder of his life. Later TranSpace became Third Millennium Aerospace, Inc. Other companies he set up included PanAero, Inc. However Cormier struggled to obtain sufficient investment for his Space Van (and other) concepts, which underwent many revisions over the years. Concerned with the economics of commercial space transportation with several papers on the topic published by the AIAA. Cormier was a charter member and a reappointed member of the Department of Transportation'
Commercial Space Transportation Advisory Committee
(COMSTAC), providing advice to the FAA. He designed and advocated many

reusable launch vehicle A reusable launch vehicle has parts that can be recovered and reflown, while carrying payloads from the surface to outer space. Rocket stages are the most common launch vehicle parts aimed for reuse. Smaller parts such as fairings, booster ...

s (RLVs): * Space Van was intended to carry sixteen passengers, plus crew, to a 40-degree

low Earth orbit A low Earth orbit (LEO) is an geocentric orbit, orbit around Earth with a orbital period, period of 128 minutes or less (making at least 11.25 orbits per day) and an orbital eccentricity, eccentricity less than 0.25. Most of the artificial object ...

for $3,000,000 per flight in 1996 dollars. * Cormier's Bantam Boosters, Millennium Express. The smaller Bantam Van would carry a 400 kg payload. This reflected his belief a small RLV was essential to obtaining appropriate returns on investment. * Bear Cub using a

Tupolev Tu-95 The Tupolev Tu-95 (; NATO reporting name: "Bear") is a large, four-engine turboprop-powered strategic bomber and missile platform. Maiden flight, First flown in 1952, the Tu-95 entered service with the Soviet Long Range Aviation, Long-Range Avia ...

"Bear" bomber as the launch platform for a liquid-fueled rocket. * His PanAero company was an

Ansari X PRIZE The Ansari X Prize was a space competition in which the X Prize Foundation offered a US$10,000,000 () prize for the first non-government organization to launch a reusable crewed spacecraft into space twice within two weeks. It was modeled af ...

contestant, with their SabreRocket entry based on an existing Sabre-40 jet.X Prize, Inc
PanAero, Inc.
Retrieved 2008-07-31, 2003. * PanAero later unsuccessfully proposed Space Van 2010 in response to NASA's

COTS COTS may refer to: * Commercial off-the-shelf, products that are commercially available and can be bought "as is" * Commercial Orbital Transportation Services, a NASA program for delivery to the International Space Station by private companies * ...

proposals in March 2006. Cormier was a frequent poster to Usenet's sci.space.* and other newsgroups for more than 10 year

For his work towards low-cost reusable spaceflight he was nominated for the Heinlein Prize. Cormier died a well-respected member of the

private spaceflight Private spaceflight is any spaceflight development that is not conducted by a government agency, such as NASA or ESA. During the early decades of the Space Age, the government space agencies of the Soviet Union and United States pionee ...

community on 2008-06-16, aged 82.

Partial list of works

* Cormier, L.
''Millenium Express''
AIAA 2001-3962, 37th AIAA/ASME/SAE/ASEE Joint Propulsion Conference, 8–11 July 2001, Salt Lake City, Utah. * Cormier, L.
''X Van Economics''
AIAA-98-3954, 34th AIAA/ASME/SAE/ASEE Joint Propulsion Conference, July 13–15, 1998, Cleveland, Ohio. * Cormier, L.
''Bantam Boosters: The Key to Small RLVs?''
AIAA-97-3124, 33rd AIAA/ASME/SAE/ASEE Joint Propulsion Conference, July 6–9, 1997, Washington State Convention and Trade Center, Seattle, Washington. * Martin J.A. and Cormier L.
''Where profit drives RLV''
AEROSPACE AMERICA , Vol.35, Iss. 4, pp 40–42. April 1997. * Cormier, L
''The Economics and Technical Benefits of the Assist-Stage Concept for Space Launch''
AIAA-96-2773, 32nd AIAA/ASME/SAE/ASEE Joint Propulsion Conference, July 1–3, 1996, Walt Disney World Dolphin, Lake Buena Vista, Florida. * Cormier, Leonard N
''Simplified satellite prediction from modified orbital elements''
(Washington, National Academy of Sciences, IGY World Data Center A, Rockets and Satellites, 1959.) * Berkner, Lloyd V., Gilman Reid, John Hanessian Jr., Leonard Cormier
''Manual on rockets and satellites''
vol. 6, Annals of the International Geophysical Year. (Pergamon, 1958.) * *

Awards and honors

* Member of the

American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics The American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) is a professional society for the field of aerospace engineering Aerospace engineering is the primary field of engineering concerned with the development of aircraft and spacecra ...

. * Nominated for the Heinlein Prize.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Cormier, Len American aerospace engineers NASA people 1924 births 2008 deaths 20th-century American engineers United States Navy pilots of World War II University of California, Berkeley alumni United States Navy officers United States Navy reservists