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RocketShip Adventures:
The Team
We've
Got Space - Suborbital Space Flights
Jeff Greason, CEO XCOR Aerospace
 Jeff
Greason earned his engineering spurs not in aerospace, but in micro-space,
developing techniques to set up Intel computer chips for mass production.
Intel management presented Greason with a coveted Intel Achievement
Award for his work on BiCMOS technology, which later became the
basis for the Pentium processor.
Jeff left electronics and entered aerospace when he was hired
by the innovative startup Rotary Rocket to hire and manage its propulsion
team. He has been at the helm of XCOR since he and three others
founded the firm in 1999, and has overseen the development of its
different long-life reusable rocket engines, as well as two rocket-powered
aircraft.
Greason was cited by Time Magazine in 2001 as one of the
"Inventors of the Year" for his team's work on the EZ-Rocket and
currently holds 18 U.S. patents. He graduated with honors from the
California Institute of Technology in Pasadena.
Col. Rick Searfoss (USAF Ret.), Test Pilot
 A
fighter pilot, test pilot and astronaut, Colonel Rick Searfoss is
one of only seven people with more than 50 flights in rocket powered
vehicles. His first space flight in 1993 set the record for the
longest duration Space Shuttle mission. In 1996, he piloted Atlantis
to the Russian space station Mir. In 1998, he commanded the "Neurolab"
mission on Columbia, which was the most complex scientific
research space mission ever flown.
After graduating first in his class from the U.S. Air Force Academy,
Searfoss has made a career out of aviation. He is a distinguished
graduate of the U.S. Air Force Fighter Weapons School and U.S. Naval
Test Pilot School, piloted two Space Shuttle missions and commanded
a third, and earned the Distinguished Flying Cross. He has logged
more that 939 hours in space and 5,600 hours flying time in 70 different
types of aircraft.
Searfoss is also an accomplished engineer, having majored in aeronautical
engineering and later earned a graduate degree from the California
Institute of Technology on a National Science Foundation Fellowship.
Col. Searfoss is currently XCOR's chief test pilot, providing
the team with his unique blend of experience, skill and technical
expertise.
Dan DeLong, Vice President and Chief Engineer
 Dan
DeLong is an XCOR co-founder, Chief Engineer, and the leading designer
of hardware development. In 1997, Mr. DeLong co-founded Rotary Rocket
Company where he led an engineering team of 17 people in developing
a 5,000 lb thrust high pressure rocket engine, and the rotating
disc propellant pump/vehicle base heat shield assembly. Prior to
joining RRC, he was half owner and president of Eureka Design, Inc.,
and designed, built, and tested propulsion hardware for the Kistler
Aerospace K-0 rocket vehicle. From 1989 to 1994 he was a principal
engineer with Boeing's Missiles and Space Division, and was lead
engineer for Boeing’s Life Support Systems Internal Research and
Development program. He was Principal Engineer at Boeing Defense
& Space doing materials development work on a US Army missile program,
and served as an engineering analyst in the Life Support group developing
Space Station air and water recycling systems. Dan worked for Teledyne
Brown Engineering in Huntsville, Alabama, from 1984 to 1989, where
he developed the Spaceplane and Frequent Flyer air-launched orbital
vehicle designs. These two vehicles are the large and small embodiments
of a reusable winged orbiter from a subsonic airplane. Teledyne
awarded DeLong the ownership rights to these two vehicles. Other
accomplishments at Teledyne include layout design of the ground
fueling/defueling equipment for NASA’s reusable Orbital Maneuvering
Vehicle, and payload operations analysis for NASA’s proposed ‘Shuttle
C’ launch vehicle.
From 1978 through 1983, he was employed by Perry Oceanographics
in Riviera Beach, Florida as the company’s Staff Materials Engineer.
He was also lead mechanical engineer developing Perry’s RECON III
remotely piloted vehicle, its tether tender, and deck handling system.
From 1974 to 1978, DeLong was an underwater equipment designer
for Westinghouse Ocean Research & Engineering Division. He investigated
and solved strain rate sensitivity problems with FEP Teflon closed
circuit oxygen breathing apparatus. He also did detail design work
on the emergency life support equipment on board the U.S. Navy’s
Turtle and Sea Cliff submersibles.
DeLong has an Engineering degree from Cornell University, with
a major in Materials Science and Engineering. He is a member of
the American Society for Metals (ASM), Society of Automotive Engineers
(SAE), the Experimental Aircraft Association (EAA, past president
of the Huntsville, AL chapter), and the Aircraft Owners and Pilots
Association (AOPA). He is currently building a twin-engine, four
seat composite airplane for personal use.
Doug Jones
 Doug
Jones is an XCOR co-founder, and our chief test engineer and rocket
engine design engineer. He is responsible for testing of all rocket
engines, pumps, feed systems, and fluid handling equipment, and,
as a consequence, has supervised thousands of tests of rocket engines
at XCOR. Mr. Jones handles test design and analysis of experimental
results for the liquid rocket engine development, as well as assisting
in the design and operation of rocket engine test stands. Jones
led the fabrication team that created the first fluoropolymer composite
material coupon samples for the oxidation resistant cryogenic tank
technology . Prior to joining XCOR, Jones was responsible for detail
design of the fluid injector elements in Rotary Rocket’s rocket
engine design. At Rotary Rocket, he coordinated the assembly, testing,
and inspection of 5,000 lbf kerosene-LOX engines, as well as playing
the leading role in interpreting test data to improve the following
designs. He also provided key analysis and trade study capabilities
to propulsion and guidance, including transverse cg shift for precessing
control of the Roton pitch and yaw axes. Prior to Rotary Rocket,
Jones designed, built, and tested a 400 lbf nitrous oxide-propane
engine, its test facility, and a 300,000 cubic foot balloon system
for Vela Technology. He designed, built, and tested a 150 lbf monopropellant
engine, created a radio theodolite navigation system, and did trajectory
analysis for Hummingbird Launch Systems, which he co-founded in
1988. At Alphatronics (a probe card manufacturer), he designed a
500+ channel probe card analyzer, performing analog and digital
circuit design for a precision data acquisition system. He also
did materials research for high temperature, high resistivity probe
cards, working with various resins and processing systems to eliminate
porosity, polymerization residues, and stress cracking.
Lt. Colonel Dick Rutan, USAF (Ret.) Founding Test Pilot
 XCOR
is proud to have Lt. Colonel Dick Rutan, USAF, Ret., as our pioneer
test pilot. Lt. Colonel Rutan is a world-renowned aviator, remarkable
adventurer, Vietnam War hero and accomplished lecturer.
Lt. Colonel Rutan has flown the EZ-Rocket seventeen times, most
notably on its first flights, in front of live network television
cameras, in front of the crowds at EAA AirVenture Oshkosh, in other
public demonstrations in Mojave, and for its record-breaking flight
from Mojave to California City.
He is most famous for flying the Voyager aircraft around the world
non-stop and unrefueled with Jeana Yeager in a plane designed by
his brother, Burt Rutan. Dick Rutan and Yeager broke the existing
flight distance record of 12,532 miles (20,168 kilometers) in nine
days, three minutes, and forty four seconds. They took off and landed
at Edwards Air Force Base, which is thirteen miles down the road
from Mojave. Rutan calls the Voyager story "one of tremendous courage,
of vision, and of adventure;" it is often referred to as "aviation's
last first." Four days following this world record-breaking flight,
Rutan was awarded the Presidential Citizen's Medal of Honor by President
Ronald Reagan at a special White House ceremony. The Voyager is
now ceremoniously suspended in the National Air and Space Museum's
"Milestones of Flight" gallery in Washington, DC.
On his sixteenth birthday he received both his solo pilot's license
and his driver's license--giving him free reign to explore the air
and roadways.
When he was nineteen, Rutan joined the Air Force Aviation Cadet
Program where he was given the commission of Lieutenant. During
the Vietnam War he served as a Tactical Air Command pilot, flying
325 combat missions over Vietnam with 105 of them as a member of
the high-risk classified operation known as the MISTY's. During
his last reconnaissance flight over North Vietnam in September 1968
his plane was hit by enemy ground fire, and he had to eject. Luckily,
he evaded capture and was rescued by the Air Force's "Jolly Green
Giant" helicopter team. By the time he retired from the Air Force
in 1978, Lt. Colonel Rutan had been given the Silver Star, five
Distinguished Flying Crosses, 16 Air Medals and the Purple Heart.
Rutan was born in Loma Linda, California, and now lives in nearby
Lancaster with his wife, Kris.
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