Len Cormier; Designed Lower-Cost Space Van

Len Cormier, 82, a Washington-area aerospace consultant and entrepreneur who designed a space van for lower-cost space travel, died June 16 at the Heartland Hospice in Wilmington, Del. He had neck and head cancer.

Mr. Cormier, a Fairfax resident until moving to Avondale, Pa., in 2006, had been involved in space programs since 1956, when he began his career with the National Academy of Sciences in Washington.

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 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 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, Pa.; four children from his first marriage, Mary Jo Cormier of Long Beach, Calif., Melissa Reynolds of Carbondale, Colo., Claire Jean Cormier of Oxford, Ohio, and Tom Cormier of Reno, Nev.; three stepchildren, Gwen Greenglass of Chicago and Bonita Springs, Fla., Felice Joy Latzko of Newark, Del., and Leslie Titcomb of Germantown; 12 grandchildren; and three great-grandchildren.

-- Yvonne Shinhoster Lamb