It’s Not Top Gun, It’s Rocket Science: Reimagining High Speed Global Travel

HYBRID EVENT: The [Rice Space Institute](https://rsi.rice.edu/) presents the final Houston Soaceport Frontier Lecture of the year.

“How does the world change if you could fly across the globe and still be #HomeForDinner? [Venus Aerospace](https://www.venusaero.com/) is building a spaceplane capable of 1-hour global travel, using 3 key technological breakthroughs:

1. NexGen Rocket Engine: We’re testing multiple pathways to effectively cool what will become the world’s most advanced rocket engines. Our engine is more efficient than any rocket engine ever built. Instead of carrying more fuel, we can have wings, landing gear, and higher safety factors on our vehicle.

2. Innovative aircraft shape: The challenge? Build a craft that can fly at Mach 9 and land at San Francisco.

3. Leading edge cooling: Punching through the sky at Mach 9 generates enormous heat. Current solutions require months of inspections between uses. Our active cooling technology replaces exotic ceramics with standard aircraft materials, allowing for 2-hour turns at airports. We are working with the USAF and Georgia Tech and University of Arizona.”

**Sassie Duggleby** is the CEO and co-founder of Houston-based Venus Aerospace. Prior to launching Venus, she was Launch Systems Engineering and Mission Management Consultant at Virgin Orbit, where she developed & tested launch software and telemetry systems, managed launch systems engineering requirements, as well as helped with Mission Management and Business Development. She has spent her career growing multiple high-tech startup businesses including fiber-optic test (Luna Technologies), biotech (Ecolyse/Phage Biocontrol), and hazardous trailer manufacturing (Exosent). She started her career with National Instruments as an applications engineer before getting her MBA focused on entrepreneurship. She is a proud mom of 2 daughters, a barn cat, and a goofy labradoodle. Ms. Duggleby has a B.S. in Biomedical Engineering from Texas A&M University (graduated summa cum laude), and an MBA from Virginia Tech.

The lecture will take place at Anderson Biological Laboratories, Room. 131
Interactive map:
[Rice University (concept3d.com)](https://map.concept3d.com/?id=473#!m/492362?ct/13398)

Watch the lecture on Zoom at: [https://riceuniversity.zoom.us/j/97606100108?pwd=VzhLcSswR2ErcnlRL3R4NUNoQWYrUT09](https://riceuniversity.zoom.us/j/97606100108?pwd=VzhLcSswR2ErcnlRL3R4NUNoQWYrUT09)

A pre-lecture reception will be held at Valhalla beginning at 6 p.m.

Rice event page: [https://events.rice.edu/#!view/event/event_id/329343](https://events.rice.edu/#!view/event/event_id/329343)

Campus parking: [https://parking.rice.edu/parking-facilities-and-rates](https://parking.rice.edu/parking-facilities-and-rates)

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RSI Space Frontiers Lecture Series: [Space Frontiers Lecture Series (rice.edu)](https://spacefrontiers.rice.edu/)

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*Top image: Venus Aerospace*