A lifelong Kentuckian, engineer, innovator, and outdoor enthusiast sharing the natural beauty of the Red River Gorge and ideas for a better tomorrow.
In 1992, I co-founded the Space Propulsion Synergy Team and from that organization in 2006, I put together a team of leading rocket designers in the Space Industry to bid on NASA’s Commercial Orbital Transportation System (COTS) program, but we came up a little short to a well-funded start-up, named SpaceX. Instead of getting upset, I went on to design a lunar project to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 mission (20July2019).
With the help of NASA-Johnson and NASA-Ames, we came up with a plan to land within 500 meters of Apollo 15 and/or 16 landing sites. We were given Apollo 15 and 16 because Apollo 14 didn’t have a rover and 17 was the last mission, so its landing site is considered a shine. A walking robot would travel to the Lunar Roving Vehicle, replace the Silver Iodine batteries with lithium batteries, and install a solar umbrella. The robot would get in the driver seat and drive over the lunar landscape during the 2-week long lunar day while taking chemical samples via by an analyzer bolted in the passenger seat and driven remotely by people (all over the world).
The project was rejected by NASA Associated Administrator (Gertz) because we couldn’t accomplish it before the anniversary date. Although the date has past, the project still could be performed since the walking robot technology has improved and the lunar rovers haven’t gone anywhere.
Rate: Walking Robot / Lunar Rover
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Recently, I have devised a Modular, Gas Cooled, Multi-Spectrum, Molten Salt, HyperBreeder Nuclear Reactor that is able to burn depleted uranium and spent nuclear fuel (i.e., nuclear waste!) from legacy reactors. Instead of nuclear waste being around for 10,000 years, this reactor will produce lifesaving medicine and valuable materials and will only be radioactive for 150 years (5 half-lives of Cesium-137 and Strontium-90).
This reactor doesn’t need to enrich uranium, it can actually ‘burn’ depleted uranium. There would be no excuse for bad actors (Iran) to have nuclear enrichment programs for nuclear energy.
Rate: The Most Environmentally Friendly Nuclear Reactor Design that burn’s nuclear waste!!!
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For several years, I have been developing a large passenger aircraft that will take off from commercial airports using a rocket engine (e.g., SpaceX Raptor 3) that will propel the aircraft to Mach 13.6 and then coast for 6,000 of miles at ~165,000 feet altitude before landing in under 70 minutes.
Such an aircraft could take off in Miami, fly to Anchorage, Alaska in 1.5 hours. Refuel in 1 hour, and fly to Tokyo in 1.5 hours. The same flight could be accomplished non-stop by a Boeing 777, but require 17 hours.
Having a lot of passenger seats spreads the flight cost to the point that the plane would be extremely competitive with Premium Economy prices (e.g., ~$2,000 to less than $1,200 per flight).
Rate: 400 Passenger Hypersonic Aircraft will fly 5,900 miles in 70 minutes at 165,000 ft altitude
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Doug is 12th Generation North American and 7th Generation Kentuckian with ancestors living around the Red River Gorge area since his first Kentucky ancestor was born in Madison, Kentucky in 1790.
Doug grew up in Estill County and spent his youth in the many caves in this region, before graduating from college and interviewing at NASA at the Kennedy Space Center on Tuesday, 28January1986; you know that day as the Challenger Accident.
A little while later, Doug was hired by the NASA Space Shuttle ET-SRB team, but was quickly loaned out to Lockheed’s Advanced Concepts Lab where he worked on Liquid Rocket Booster Program, Advanced Solid Rocket Booster Program, American Launch System, National Launch System, and many more.
Doug (with help from senior NASA managers) wrote, “Lessons Learned from the Space Program with emphasis on what really happened during the challenger accident”. Paper was presented to UC-Irvine in April 2026.
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