History

Founded in late 1992 and incorporated in February of 1994; SFO has been in existence for 24 years and has been a duly constituted Non-Profit Corporation in Florida for 23 years. In that time we have made some money, become known as the “Stealth Aerospace Company” and generally had some fun.

In the last ten years we have done a lot of unpaid work for the Orbital Commerce Project. The list of our accomplishments is given below starting at the beginning and leading up to today.

The first thing we did was to develop a travelling road show that we took to Science Fiction conventions in an effort to recruit members. This approach worked well for several years from about 1993 to 1998. Membership grew to over 100 as a direct result of this effort.

Co-incident with our registration as a Not for Profit Corporation in 1994 we were approached by a member of AMSAT-NA who was also a member of SFO about the possibility of finding space to build a Satellite Integration Facility for preparing the AMSAT Phase 3D satellite for flight and delivery to Kourou in French Guiana. We found and converted space inside the Foreign Trade Zone at Orlando International Airport; in the process erecting a portable Clean Room that was capable of Class 1000 performance.

During the period from about 1993 to 1996 or 7 we were involved with the USAF CSAC process for updating the Eastern Test Range. In 1995(?) we were accepted as an RSLP contractor by Spaceport Florida Authority.

In 1996 we performed a contract for the Spaceport Florida Authority as a sub-contractor for a USAF contract. This resulted in the preparation of a document for the Spaceport Authority entitled “Range Documentation Requirements and Instrumentation Capabilities.”

In 1997 we were working two contracts simultaneously; one for Honeywell Space and Defense in Clearwater, FL. which continued into 1998 and the Fourth International Lunar and Mars Exploration Conference which we convened and ran in Cocoa Beach, FL. in September 1997.The conference was a success.

During the period from 1998 until 2003 we developed the Space Exploration Plan, (SEP) and presented papers at the various Space Congress’ organized by the Canaveral Council of Technical Societies.

Since then we have performed a lot of free engineering for the Orbital Commerce project including the following:

1. Issues relating to the SEP and the formation of the OCP itself. A fundamental difference of opinion doomed this collaboration and the issues are documented in the SFO archive.
2. The application of Rocket Powered aircraft to the security needs of the USA.
3. The XCOR Iron Cross control system analogue for the Lynx vehicle.
4. Several Rocket Powered aircraft designs to support Quick Reaction approaches to area surveillance and communications.
5. The final area of co-operation was on the DARPA XS-1 project bid. Interestingly we have a theoretical solution for Mach 8+ separation and return of the booster vehicle to the Launch Site.

In late 2018 we decided to look at what would be required to build an infrastructure in space to allow exploration and settlement of both Outposts in space and Bases on planetary surfaces like the Moon and Mars while exploring and perhaps mining the Asteroid Belt. This was published in March 2019 and there are Appendices that will be published later this year.

2019 is SFO’s 25th year of operation, hopefully we will be around for another 25 years!