Len Cormier, Designed Lower-Cost Space Van, 82
DGH
Len Cormier; Designed Lower-Cost Space Van
Len Cormier, 82, a Washington [DC]-area aerospace consultant and
entrepreneur who designed a space van for lower-cost space travel,
died June 16 [2008] at the Heartland Hospice in Wilmington, Delaware.
He had neck and head cancer.
Mr. Cormier, a Fairfax [Virginia] resident until moving to Avondale,
Pennsylvania, in 2006, had been involved in space programs since 1956,
when he began his career with the National Academy of Sciences in
Washington [DC].
As a staffer with the Academy in 1957, Mr. Cormier was in attendance
at the International Geophysical Year proceedings when the Soviets
surprised the world with the launch of Sputnik.
The event made a tremendous impression on him, his family said. He
decided then to pursue better access to space through affordable,
reusable space vehicles.
Mr. Cormier worked to bring his idea to fruition through his company
PanAero Inc. He created a conceptual design for the Space Van 2011 and
hoped to fund it in 2003 by winning the X Prize, a $10 million award
offered to the first private team to fly a manned rocket into space.
With his SabreRocket model, Mr. Cormier's team competed against more
than 20 teams for the prize but lost. He said that the competition
could ultimately result in "much more reliable, and much lower-cost
access to space."
Mr. Cormier was born in Boston [Massachusetts] and joined the Navy in
1943 within a month of his 17th birthday. He served as a Naval
Aviation Cadet, a fighter pilot and executive officer of an anti-
submarine warfare patrol squadron. He joined the Navy Reserve in 1947
and achieved the rank of lieutenant commander in 1958. He retired from
the reserves in 1966.
Mr. Cormier received a bachelor's degree in physics from the
University of California at Berkeley in 1952.
He worked with NASA at the beginning of his career as well as the
National Academy of Sciences.
In the early and mid-1960s, he was project engineer for space
transportation systems at the Los Angeles [California] Division of the
former North American Aviation Inc. He spent two years as a project
engineer and program manager for fighter systems at what was then
North American Rockwell.
He was a charter member of the Department of Transportation's
Commercial Space Transportation Advisory Committee.
His marriage to Lee Cormier ended in divorce.
Two sons predeceased him, Michael Alan Cormier in 2000 and John Neal
Cormier in 2005.
Survivors include his wife of 29 years, Anne Goldstein Greenglass of
Avondale, Pennsylvania; four children from his first marriage, Mary Jo
Cormier of Long Beach, Califonria, Melissa Reynolds of Carbondale,
Colorado, Claire Jean Cormier of Oxford, Ohio, and Tom Cormier of
Reno, Nevada; three stepchildren, Gwen Greenglass of Chicago
[Illinois] and Bonita Springs, Florida, Felice Joy Latzko of Newark,
Delaware, and Leslie Titcomb of Germantown [Maryland]; 12
grandchildren; and three great-grandchildren.
--
Yvonne Shinhoster Lamb
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/07/15/AR2008071502721.html