Page 157 - MY STORY

I had mentioned in an earlier vignette about NASA’s

desire for a very large single-stage-to-orbit launch vehicle
that could boost tons of payload into low earth orbit. That
desire was still in play.

The size of the necessary launch vehicle was so large that
the advanced design folk were looking for ways to launch

something of that size. These things would be of a
massive size, easily over 50’ in diameter and as tall as a
skyscraper. Ollie’s idea was to launch something of this

size in a unique way!

First, he had to find a broad valley between two very tall
10,000 foot high mountains. He would then build a
railroad track that started at the top of one mountain,
proceed across the valley, and go back up to the top of the

opposite mountain. The humongous booster would then
be launched from the top of one mountain, accelerate

down the track, across the valley and then make the
vertical turn up the opposed mountain to launch into
space. The idea was, of course, to take advantage of

gravity going down the first mountain to achieve
necessary launch velocity while going cross valley and up
to the high launch point under full thrust. Ollie found his

site somewhere, I believe in northern California.