56 | New Scientist | 28 September 2019
The back pages Q&A
A childhood spent building rocket motors
prepared Sam Rogers to become part of the
team that built the Jet Suit – and he is the
person who gets to fly itAs a child, what did you want to
do when you grew up?
I always liked the idea of becoming an inventor
similar to Caractacus Potts from Chitty Chitty
Bang Bang and to build and fly rockets.Explain your work in one easy paragraph.
I am part of the team at Gravity Industries that
built the gas-turbine-powered Jet Suit. I design the
components to be optimal for 3D printing,
meaning we can produce more lightweight and
more efficient parts. Almost all of the suit’s
components can now be 3D printed.
I also flight test the equipment. We are
continually working on the design of the
Jet Suit and each test helps us build a much better
one next time.How did you end up working in this field?
I previously worked on metal 3D-printed rocket
engines. This propulsion work eventually led me
to work on the Jet Suit.What’s the most exciting part of your job?
Feeling the energy output of high-power
systems, such as turbojets and rocket engines,
are some of the most rewarding moments.
You can viscerally feel it: the hot exhaust exiting
at 1600 kilometres per hour from the nozzle,
the flames licking from the exhaust cones
during engine start-up, the low frequency
vibrations through the ground, all of it. You get
a strong sense of the enormous energy output
of these systems.Were you good at science at school?
School provided the necessary knowledge so that
I could progress to my own projects. I learned a
great deal of chemistry and physics by
experimenting with fuels and chemicals outside
of school time. I designed, built and test-fired
solid fuel rocket motors, along with flying and
crashing many radio controlled planes.If you could send a message back to
yourself as a kid, what would you say?
Build, test and improve projects as often as
possible and record all experiments in image and
video form so that you can easily demonstrate
your progress and experiences to others.What scientific development do you hope
to see in your lifetime?
Safe and reliable human access to space. Also, I
hope that engineering can incorporate cinematic
design elements more frequently to bring science
fiction closer to real life.If you could have a long conversation
with any scientist living or dead,
who would it be?
Nikola Tesla, to hear him describe his thinking
profile and his approach to designing beautiful
machines. I would like to explore his workshop
and to see how he developed his inventions.Do you have an unexpected hobby, and if
so, please will you tell us about it?
I make short films, and I particularly enjoy using
pyrotechnics and special effects for filmmaking.
Pyrotechnics requires knowledge of how to
control and be comfortable with fire in close
proximity, which is pretty fun.Is there a discovery or achievement
you wish you’d made yourself?
I wish I had realised how adaptive a human’s
balance and control can be. While the Jet Suit
is flying, it is completely free in 3D space, yet
a human can learn to control it and achieve
a perfectly stationary hover.What’s the best thing you’ve read or seen
in the past 12 months?
The recent Apollo 11 movie by Todd Douglas
Miller. It’s real footage shot at the time of the
mission. Throughout the film, you have to keep
reminding yourself that what you’re seeing is real
and not CGI. The scale of engineering is immense.OK, one last thing: tell us something that
will blow our minds...
The arm mounted turbines on the Jet Suit spin
at 117,000 revolutions per minute at full power –
that’s nearly 2000 times per second. ❚Sam Rogers is a flight suit design engineer at
Gravity Industries“ The best part
of my job is
viscerally feeling
the energy
output from
the turbojet
engines”
STEPHEN CHUNG/ALAMY STOCK PHOTOSee Sam in action
Sam will fly the Jet Suit and
talk about how it works at
New Scientist Live
newscientistlive.com