Criticism of The Design
Rotary Rocket failed due to lack of funding, but some have suggested that the design itself was inherently flawed.
On one hand, Rotary Rocket demonstrated its technical ability by flight testing of actual hardware. The ATV flew three test flights and a composite propellant tank survived a full test program. As Jim Ransom, Rotary Rocket consultant, pointed out at the demise of the company, this was more than could be said for Lockheed Martin's X-33, which had a budget 30 times larger.
On the other hand, these tests revealed problems. For instance, the ATV demonstrated that a landing of the Rotary Rocket would be tricky, even dangerous. Test pilots have a rating system, the Cooper-Harper rating scale, for vehicles between 1 and 10 that relates to difficulty to pilot. The Roton ATV scored a 10 — the vehicle simulator was found to be practically unflyable by anyone except the Rotary test pilots, and even then there were expected to be short periods where the vehicle was out of control.
Other aspects of the flight plan remained unproven. It is not known whether Roton could in practice have developed enough overall performance to reach orbit with a single stage, and return –although on paper this might have been possible. These doubts led some of the aerospace community to dismiss the Rotary Rocket concept as an impossible pipe dream.
Whether a flight-article vehicle would have worked successfully remains open to speculation.
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