Robert Truax

Robert Truax was an American rocket engineer, born in Gary, Indiana, who served in the United States Navy from 1939 to 1959 and led its early rocket propellant development work, including a project that identified hypergolic propellant combinations, fuels that ignite spontaneously on contact with an oxidizer such as nitric acid without needing a separate ignition system, later used in the 1945 WAC Corporal sounding rocket. From 1955 to 1958, working under General Bernard Schriever alongside engineer Adolf Thiel, Truax headed the initial design studies and intermediate-range ballistic missile specifications that led to the PGM-17 Thor missile. After retiring from the Navy he founded Truax Engineering in 1966 to pursue low-cost rocket designs, and his Skycycle X-2 rocket, built for daredevil Evel Knievel's attempted 1974 jump across Idaho's Snake River Canyon, brought him wide public attention; he later designed the X-3 Volksrocket as an early concept for low-cost commercial suborbital space tourism. He died in 2010 at age 93.