Kern County Seizes Rotary Rocket Property

The property of a company based at the Mojave Airport that planned to build a reusable spaceship and included writer Tom Clancy as an investor, was seized by Kern County for failure to pay property taxes.

The Rotary Rocket Co. property and other company assets, including a low-altitude test craft described as looking like a six-story traffic cone sprouting helicopter blades, will be put up for auction Jan. 10.

“Something like this is our last resort,” said Dwight Richardson, an investigator for the county Treasurer-Tax Collector, after Tuesday’s seizure.

The minimum bid of $55,917.48 will cover the property taxes owed for 2000 and 2001 plus the county’s expenses for the seizure and auction, county officials said.

Rotary Rocket spokesman Richard Stockman said last week that the company was struggling financially and work at the Mojave plant ceased earlier this month.

“Financing is very grim. It’s not the lack of talent. There are fundamental problems with the industry,” Stockman said.

The Rotary Rocket plant in Mojave includes two hangars, a high-bay hangar that housed the low-altitude test vehicle, and a smaller facility.

In March 1999, the company rolled out its 64-foot-tall low-altitude test vehicle before a gathering of 1,500 people. Among the throng of onlookers was Clancy, who said he invested $1 million in the company.

The company spent about $5 million building and testing the low-altitude vehicle, designed to prove the concept of using helicopter-like rotors to slow and land a spacecraft returning to Earth.

The company had planned two more vehicles--a higher-altitude test vehicle and, ultimately, an actual reusable spaceship dubbed Roton. The company was looking to raise an additional $150 million or more to complete the work.

Rotary Rocket envisioned a fleet of spaceships and Clancy predicted Roton was “going to change the world.”

Company founder Gary Hudson resigned as Rotary Rocket’s chief executive in June.