Tether forecast
Puget Sound Business Journal (Seattle) - by Steve Wilhelm Staff Writer
You need look no farther than the stars Rob Hoyt has painted on his bathroom's blue wall, the bookcase stuffed with science fiction works, or the posters of astronauts to realize that Hoyt is a man captivated by outer space.
But Hoyt is no Trekkie living in a world of fantasy.
His two-person company, Tethers Unlimited Inc., headquartered in Clinton, has won several contracts from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration to develop a new space transportation technology based on long woven tethers strung across miles of space.
A space tether is a slender woven tubular structure of gossamer lightness but great strength that can be deployed from a satellite or spacecraft.
While the company's first commercial application -- a product called the "terminator tether" -- will be used to drag satellites from orbit, Hoyt is developing variations of the tether technology that could maintain the international space station in orbit, or lob payloads to the moon and back.
"I've always wanted to work in space and space propulsion," said Hoyt from an office in his small North Seattle home. "I feel that for humanity to have a long-term future, we have to expand off this planet, and move into the solar system and beyond."
At the NASA Institute for Advanced Concepts in Atlanta, director Robert Cassanova takes Tethers Unlimited seriously despite its tiny size. The institute has been one of Tethers' major funders, including a $500,000 grant awarded this year.
"I don't see any real technical stumbling blocks to something like this working," Cassanova said. "Tethers Unlimited is the company that is most well-known for looking at the overall concept of tethers."
Hoyt, 31, owes much of his present direction to one of his favorite science fiction writers, Robert L. Forward.
Hoyt was in high school when he first read Forward's science fiction novel, now called "Rocheworld," about a future world of interplanetary space travel technologies. The ideas captivated Hoyt, especially when he looked at the back of his volume and discovered Forward also was a renowned physicist who had published many technical papers and advised space agencies.
Fast forward to 1991, when Hoyt had just finished his master's degree in aeronautics and astronautics at the University of Washington, and was preparing for the entrance exams to pursue his doctorate. He learned that Forward was coming to his department to present a technical paper. "I was pretty excited to see him, and the kind of stuff he was working on," Hoyt recalled.
Forward, 62, discussed the promise of space tethers and a NASA contract he had just been awarded to develop them. But he ended with a discouraging note: Nobody had found a way to prevent tethers from being cut, in a matter of days, by space debris and micrometeorites.
At home that night, Hoyt had a brainstorm. He worked far into the night on his computer, writing a program demonstrating how a tether could be fashioned of several parallel strands held apart by a web of other, looser, strands. If one of the weight-bearing strands was cut, the others would take the load.
Several days later Forward met Hoyt for the first time, and watched with delight as Hoyt's computer program demonstrated the tether's ability to cope with micrometeorite blows. "Right then, I knew he had come up with the solution to the tether cut problem," Forward said.
In honor of Hoyt's breakthrough Forward dubbed the device the "Hoytether," and the two are seeking a patent for it.
To develop the Hoytether, Forward first hired Hoyt as a consultant. Later, after Hoyt finished his doctorate, the two formed Tethers Unlimited to pursue the technology's commercial applications.
"It was kind of him. I didn't have to go out and get a real job," Hoyt said. The man who was an inspiration to Hoyt while in high school had become a mentor, and now a business partner.
Hoyt said the two have learned to complement each other, balancing Forward's "big picture ideas" with Hoyt's technical prowess. Forward calls Hoyt "significantly harder-working, smarter and brighter than I am, and that is saying a lot."
By the fall of 1994 Tethers Unlimited received a $70,000 NASA grant to develop the Hoytether, followed eventually by a two-year phase II contract for $600,000. This year it has received two $500,000 grants, one to refine the terminator tether, and the other to develop the system for moving payloads between Earth and the moon.
Hoyt is spending most of his time developing Tethers Unlimited into a profitable company. Hoyt found a Scottish company, Culzean Fabrics, that can crochet the tether material, and is negotiating with other suppliers to develop other components. He's also looking for investors or industry partners. Tethers Unlimited has been collaborating with The Boeing Co. and Primex Aerospace to develop tether applications.
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