I posted the picture of the scrap burn to give an impression of what happened at the AeroTech plant in Las Vegas in 2001 when a barrel of propellant scraps was accidentally ignited inside their building. The resulting explosion blew the doors off the building and injured several people, one of whom later died of his injuries (extensive burns). It was a terrible tragedy. After the initial explosion, a barrel of magnesium powder ignited and the following fire completely destroyed AeroTech and several other businesses in the same complex. Many people might have given up at this point but Gary Rosenfield did not. Legal wrangling by AeroTech’s lawyers held off the wolves in Las Vegas just long enough for AeroTech to build a new facility in Cedar City, Utah before the inevitable bankruptcy.
The AeroTech fire and bankruptcy were an opportunity for Loki Research. The largest competitor in the market place was, at least temporarily, shut down and for sale to the highest bidder. There was much discussion at Loki Research about trying to buy the AeroTech assets out of bankruptcy. After much consideration, we decided not to bid. There were many reasons why we did not, a big one being I did not want to move to Utah. Two things we did get, at no cost, were a list of chemicals that AeroTech used from the Clark County Hazmat fire report and a list of AeroTech’s creditors (suppliers) from the bankruptcy court. The chemical list alerted me to some propellant additives that I was unaware of and later used, and the supplier list introduced me to Bernie Kosowski. Bernie was the president of Mach I, Inc. a specialty chemical supplier. Located in Pennsylvania, it was a short ride for me and being able to drop in and talk propellant with an expert like Bernie was very helpful.
When you announce that you are starting a business, you receive encouragements from many people, but understandably not from your competitors. The best you can reasonably hope for is indifference, but more common is outright hostility. The hobby rocket “pie” is not large and nobody wants to give up a slice to the new guy. Frank Kosdon sent me this
“Notice of cease and desist” letter, it’s partly hand written and partly typed on a manual typewriter. I kept Frank’s letter because it’s kind of awesome, especially the last line. Gary Rosenfield also threatened to sue me for patent infringement and he actually had a patent. So both Frank and Gary were telling me that they invented the reloadable rocket motor and I couldn’t make them without infringing their intellectual property. Intellectual property is a complex topic of which most people have little understanding, I wasn’t about to rely on my own knowledge of these matters, so I hired the best patent attorney in New York (according to him) to advise me. This sounds expensive, but seeing as we were good friends from school, he agreed to do it for a case of beer. Who invented the reloadable hobby rocket motor? Was it Frank Kosdon? Gary Rosenfield? Or someone else? I’ll never know. It probably wasn’t a single person, but it doesn’t matter. The design I wanted to sell wasn’t patented by anyone and was, in fact, a design published in 1989, a couple of years ahead of the AeroTech patent (see photo below). This is known as “prior art.” Once published, an idea becomes public domain and cannot be patented. Loki Research was in the clear. For all their bluster, Frank and Gary both got what they really wanted most anyway, they wanted me to not compete directly by selling reloads for their hardware. That was never my intention and I never did.