While various government funded programs to replace the
shuttle or to otherwise find a way to cheaply access space, private,
entrepreneurial companies were attacking the problem. One of the first such
attempts was the Otrag project, conducted in the mid 1970s by a German company
and funded by Libya.
The Otrag launch vehicle conducted a series of flight tests from Zaire
and then Libya.
The project was eventually ended under pressure from the American, German, and
Soviet governments as it was seen as a means to build a military ballistic
missile.
A company called Space Services Inc., based in Houston,
Texas, was the next to try its hand at a
privately developed, privately operated launch system. Their first attempt was
a rocket called the Percheron, developed by long time space entrepreneur Gary
Hudson. The Percheron failed in a flight test in August, 1981. Space Services
was more successful in flight testing another vehicle, the Conestoga, made from
old Minuteman rocket parts. This rocket was successfully flight tested in
September, 1982. Unfortunately, Space Services venture to become the first
private space launch firm failed due to lack of investors and customers.
Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, a series of entrepreneurs
tried and failed to develop cheap launch systems privately. For a time it
looked like that satellite cellular systems, which would have required the
launch of constellations of hundreds of small satellites, might be the market
that would get a private space launch industry started. Some of the more
prominent companies were Pioneer Rocket Plane, Kistler Aerospace, Rotary
Rockets, and Beal Aerospace. Rotary developed a prototype of their Rotan space
craft, which lifted off like a rocket and landed like a helicopter, and flight
tested it. Beal Aerospace static tested several rocket engines that would have
powered their planned BA-2 launcher. These ventures tended to fail due to the
collapse of the satellite cellular market, the lack of investors, and, in some
cases, insurmountable technical challenges.