PORT TOWNSEND — As Greg Mika talked about building rocket parts in his Glen Cove machine shop Wednesday, “Space Cowboy” by the Steve Miller Band was booming out of a nearby stereo.
It was a fitting coincidence.
Mika and his wife, Marcy, have volunteered their time and money to help two young Forks rocket scientists win a $10 million prize for private manned space flight.
Greg Mika compares Space Transport Corp. founders Phillip Storm and Eric Meier with Orville and Wilbur Wright.
Only their flight craft goes higher, and their Kitty Hawk is the wooded countryside of the West End.
Mika owns Reynold Grey Machining and Services Inc., established at 321 N. Otto St. about a year ago.
Before that, he was in the trucking business.
After reading articles about Space Transport Corp. in Peninsula Daily News, Mika logged online to research the company.
Now he’s becoming a key player in building Rubicon, the company’s 22-foot-tall suborbital space tourism rocket.
Mika’s father worked at Aerojet in Sacramento, Calif. Storm and Meier worked there, too.
As a kid, Mika belonged to the Aerojet model rocket club.
Reynold Grey will be welding the manned capsule and helping design the hatches.
Homegrown spacecraft
The homegrown nature of Space Transport was a major draw for Mika.
“They’re 25 years old and have a lot of tenacity,” he said of Storm and Meier. “They have a very unique way of doing things.”