At 75 when most men are retired, Casper’s John Wickman is working to design and build cheap but effective rockets the military can produce to shoot down drones or hit enemy targets.

An engineer who owns Wickman Spacecraft and Propulsion Co., Wickman said the price tag for his cheap rockets will run about $1,000, which is only 0.001% of the $1 million the government now pays for a similar rocket from defense contractors.

Wickman’s not some crackpot who plays with model rockets in his garage. He knows rockets and has the resume to go along with his vision. He’s worked with rockets and solid fuel motors for most of his career, first with defense contractors and then for his own company, which over the years has worked with the federal government on other projects.

“Primarily what we’ve done is research and development type work,” he said. “Although now we will be changing and moving into manufacturing which is something new for us as a company.”