Advent Launch Services

[Danderman]

Although the company still has a web site:

http://adventlaunchservices.com/

I am putting them here in the Historical section, mostly because they aren't nearly as active as they were back in the day.

My recollection is that Advent generated a lot of publicity due to their plan to launch propane powered rockets from Galveston Bay. These were to carry multiple passengers. I believe that several dozen people made down payments on tickets, but Advent quickly collapsed when the money turned into nothing.

This was at a time when a decent web page was all a company needed to convince the world that they were real, in the middle of the "dot com" bubble.

The founders of Advent split when their passenger venture collapsed, but the web site indicates that at least one of them is carrying on the company.

[Danderman]

http://www.aero-news.net/index.cfm?do=main.textpost&id=db95e1c1-f136-4cf4-9afb-54e079248f40

Apparently, Jim Akkerman blew up a methane engine in 2008, and their web site went silent after that.

[RanulfC]

Interesting concept though there were both technical and operational questions all around. The engine and "wing/fin" surfaces were supposed to act in a similar manner to a linear aerospike for performance reasons. I understand the RC model was test flown but no details that I can find. Since this was based on the passenger model where the passenger section balanced out the engine mass for horizontal flight it was never made clear how this balancing would be accomplished for any "booster" application.

Randy

[leovinus]

A bit more information on Advent ALS here at
https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=63962.msg2738831#msg2738831