Movie stars are said to like Minnesota because we, the residents, leave them alone. They can come here, go to restaurants, go to shops and people don't climb all over them. We smile, we nod. That's it. We show respect, restraint.... Maybe that's because we have some pretty amazing people right here.

Take Bloomington's own Ky Michaelson. Here's a guy Hollywood knows well. In the 1970s, he and fellow stuntman and business partner Dar Robinson changed the nature of action films — adding to time-honored car chases, shoot-'em-up gun play and mind- bending leaps off buildings and out windows. The "decelerator" Ky built and Robinson affixed to his own leg allowed the latter to go out a window some 20 stories up, shooting at Burt Reynolds while falling backwards toward the pavement with a thin cable hooked to his ankle. Why use a "blue screen" to trick the camera when you can just point the camera at a guy in freefall? Michaelson and Robinson teamed up on many heart-stopping stunts, including leaps from airplanes and towers for prime time TV.

But Michaelson's attraction to challenges and tinkering goes well beyond stunts. He's best known as The Rocketman for his irresistible drive to place a rocket on just about any vehicle — and a few things none of us ever thought of as vehicles.

From the late 1960s into the early 1980s, Michaelson designed and built an amazing array of rocket-propelled racers that smashed records and delighted crowds in venues across the country. Cars he built or worked on set over 70 national and international speed records. He still has the time cards for the first five-second, the first four-second and the first 300-plus mph quarter-mile runs. His hydrogen-peroxide powered rocket cars hit those speeds decades before piston-powered machines could. While the big-name mechanical engine stars didn't necessarily appreciate Michaelson making their passes seem like grocery runs, he is not one to shrink from peer pressure or buy into narrow views of what's possible. It's hard to name a vehicle he hasn't put a rocket on — they include cars, motorcycles, go- karts, snowmobiles, boats, a wheelchair, oversize runner snow sled and a bicycle. He's built a rocket pack to fly like Buck Rogers, and an earthbound jetpack that propelled his son Curt down drag strips at over 50 miles per hour— on roller-skates! He even put a rocket on a port-a-potty for a TV show, and the darn thing flew.

Of course, rockets have a more historical application, pointed at the sky, and Rocketman has pushed boundaries there, too. In 2004, Michaelson's Civilian Space eXploration Team became the first amateur group to design, build and launch a rocket into space.

This feat was accomplished at Black Rock Desert, Nevada, on May 17 of that year, as recognized by the Federal Aviation Administration's Office of Space Transportation. The rocket reached a maximum altitude of 72 miles, in a launch effort that involved coordination with three major airports, rail lines and federal authorities. Bet Cape Canaveral didn't know Minnesota had a space program.

Although he's lived on the coast and worked with many movie stars, Michaelson prefers Minnesota, where, like the big box-office draws, he can relax and enjoy being one of the guys. What he's accomplished has hardly been forgotten and his shop is busy still. Right now he's building a robot to help with presentations he makes at schools.

When the remake of "The Italian Job" was coming out in theaters, there was a stunt driver demonstration in the Twin Cities to showcase some of the hot moves the film's Mini Coopers made onscreen. Michaelson turned out to see it. When a stuntman went up to the microphone to say a few things to the press, he stopped mid-sentence, his eyes on the Bloomington tinkerer. "Are you Ky Michaelson?" he asked. The Rocketman said he was. The driver went on to introduce Michaelson as one of his heroes for his amazing stunt work. He later gave Michaelson a ride in one of the stunt cars — and not a "family ride" either. You see, we're not so easy to impress, and we've got some amazing people of our own.

Originally published March 10, 2007