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Ambrose went to the motel -- but not for long. After dark he hijacked his own truck and again headed east for Rockport, Texas, this time sticking to the back roads where he was less likely to be spotted.

Meanwhile, the press was waiting. The Percheron Project, says Ross, had become the biggest thing to hit south Texas since the previous hurricane. Local and national print reporters milled about. TV film crews flitted in helicopters. When arrival time came and passed with no truck, no rocket, and no word, SSI's recently hired press officer had to concede that they had not the slightest idea where Percheron was. Hours later Ambrose telephoned from west Texas and complained about washed-out roads. Early the next morning, he arrived.

The plan was to conduct two, or possibly three, test firings of the engine with Percheron bolted firmly to the test stand. The first firing would last about five seconds, a "burp" test. If the static tests went well, the rocket would be launched out over the Gulf of Mexico.

With a successful flight under their belts, SSI investors hoped to attract $20 million to $60 million in second-stage financing through a public stock offering. Just building and testing the Percheron would exhaust the $1.2 million in private capital already invested in the project. They needed much more to get their space transportation business off the ground.

Hannah had visited the California plant every week or two through the winter and spring to check on Percheron's progress. With the rocket now in Texas he could keep tabs daily -- and did.

The July 4 launch date had long since passed, and Hannah began pushing Ross and Laursen to move more quickly. They think he pushed a bit too hard. Sometimes Hannah would announce the time and date of some event to the press without getting a firm commitment from the GCH people, who then had to hustle to meet the deadline. In late July relations between Hannah and the GCH crew deteriorated to the point that Ross put himself and his engineers on eight-hour days -- about half their customary shift. He calmed down, though, and work picked up again. "I could only stand it for about three days," Ross says.

July 31, and finally the Percheron is set. The rocket is bolted to a steel test stand 19 feet high, which in turn is anchored to concrete pilings extending 3 feet into the Texas soil. Pipes carry cooling water through the stand's metal structure to prevent heat damage during the test firing. The water comes from the pond of Ralph, the local alligator, who must be diverted from his home pond with chicken carcasses while suction pipes are installed in the pond.

At 2:45 p.m., 3,700 pounds of liquid oxygen are pumped from storage tanks into the upper portion of the rocket. Sixteen hundred pounds of kerosene go into the lower tank. At 4:20 engineers begin pressurizing the tanks, and by 5:45 the pressure in both has reached 137.5 pounds per square inch without a leak. The welds hold. At 5:50, after a five-minute countdown, Laursen pushes the igniter button.

Nothing.

At 5:56, another try, and still nothing. The burp test fizzles.

The test was canceled, the tank pressure was relieved, and the rocket was checked. Kerosene, leaking into the engine, had wet the igniter and prevented it from lighting.

Hannah told the entire crew to take the weekend off and send the bills to him. Only one technician was jailed for excessive relaxing. That evening Hannah drove Ross and Clif Horne to the Houston airport so they could fly to California for the weekend. On the way he repeated an offer he had made earlier that month. Ross and his engineers, Hannah said, should leave GCH and come to work for SSI directly. They would receive stock in the company, and Ross would have a seat on the board. "He told me," says Ross, "that the best motivation he could give me was to make me independently wealthy." Ross and Horne agreed to consider the offer.

The next test firing was scheduled for Wednesday, August 5.

The procedure was the same except this time the igniter was wrapped in a plastic trash bag to keep it dry in the event of a leak.

"... 10... 9... 8... 7..."

Ross hit the igniter button, and just as it should have, smoke appeared at the rocket's base.

"... 6... 5... 4... 3... 2... 1... 0"

Laursen pushed the button opening the liquid-oxygen valve and a split second later another button controlling the kerosene valve.

"Shit!" said Laursen. (ABC had to edit its videotape before the evening news.) There were eight second while the crew in the control van waited to learn where the first pieces of the exploding rocket would fall back to earth. Then they put out the grass fires and started the cleanup.

In September, Hannah withdrew his merger offer to GCH and his employment offers to Ross and the Percheron engineers. Based on conversations he had had after the Percheron test with NASA engineers, and based on prayer, Hannah had decided that solid-fuel rockets held the key to commercial space transportation. How does he know he has made the right decision? "Technology," he answers, "is only part of a project like this. You can't make decisions without also having faith." His company, now called Space Services Inc. of America, expects to test-launch its first rocket in August.

On October 1, after the Percheron explosion, Ross, Horne, Fruchterman, and Williams incorporated Phoenix Engineering and began preparing a business and technical plan for building low-cost, liquid-fueled rockets.

Laursen remains unemployed.

Hudson is still majority stockholder of GCH, which owes Hannah slightly more then $200,000 for cost overruns on the Percheron Project. "We are very actively doing nothing," he says.

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