In 1964, high school dropout Ky Michaelson strapped rockets to a motorcycle and successfully rode it down a speedway. Next, he added rockets to a snowmobile and raced it across his frozen home state of Minnesota.

The success of these speed runs inspired Michaelson to keep pushing to go faster with rocket power. He strapped rockets to cars, motorcycles, go-karts, snowmobiles, boats, a wheelchair, an oversize runner snow sled, and a bicycle. He built a Buck Rogers jet pack, and a land-based jet pack that sent his own son Curt down a drag strip at more than 50 miles per hour with the boy wearing roller skates. Michaelson even got a port-a-potty to fly with rockets attached. In 2004, he was a founding member of the Civilian Space eXploration Team, and on May 17 of that year, became the first civilian to launch a rocket into space without any help from a government institution.