VCD 005_At the Presentation of Arthur C Clark Award' 87 to Dr John R Pie...

Amateur Rocket High Lights

Here is a link to some cool rocket highlights:
http://www.spacevidcast.com/2011/06/11/amateur-rocketeers-and-beautiful-space-live-show-4-15/

NASA’s MSL Curiosity rover begins its voyage to Mars – SpacePod 2011.11.28

NASA’s MSL Curiosity rover begins its voyage to Mars – SpacePod 2011.11.28: NASA's most ambitious Martian rover ever is on its way to the red planet. This is your SpacePod for November 28th, 2011
 
NASA's Mars Science Laboratory mission lifted off the launch ...

Secretive Air Force space plane nears orbital record

Secretive Air Force space plane nears orbital record

Happy Birthday Carl Sagan

In this Skeptics Distinguished Lecture Series talk at Caltech from 1999, three science biographers take an illuminating look back over the life and legacy of one of the 20th Century’s most celebrated astronomers.

We Choose The Moon

You can relive the Apollo experience anytime with the following link:

http://wechoosethemoon.org/

Ron Paul Still Standing

Space Shuttle Through the decades

The Astronaut's Guide To Life In Space

Vista House that overlooks The Columbia Gorge

Welcome
Check out this area if you are ever traveling along the Columbia Gorge

The Incredible Journey of Apollo 12

More Proof that Man was on the Moon:-)

These are really cool images from the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter that were recently released. Check them out.

Don't Know Much About The Universe

Kenneth C Davis is the author of the "Dont't Know Much About" book series. All of them are worth reading. I hope you like the link.

R/S

NPR.org - Sizing Up Space: A Visual History

Sizing Up Space: A Visual History
http://www.npr.org/2011/07/21/138560459/sizing-up-space-a-visual-history?sc=emaf

This message was included:

check it out

*Listen/Watch on NPR.org*
Many stories at NPR.org have audio or visual content. When you visit the link
above, look for a "Listen" or "Watch" button.
For technical support, please visit NPR's Audio/Visual Help page:
http://help.npr.org/npr/consumer/kbdetail.asp?kbid=152

Area 51

This is another cool video about a new book on Area 51.

C-SPAN video of Interest

rocketaholic,

video program After Words with Jane Blair in the C-SPAN Video Library. You may view by clicking on this link or copying and pasting it into your browser:
http://www.c-spanarchives.org/program/JaneBl

-- Your new C-SPAN Video Library. Created by Cable. Offered as a Public Service

Marine Jane Blair author of "Hesitation Kills" on MSNBC's Dylan Ratigan ...

Commercial Space Federation

I thought this video was pretty cool:-)

Hail to NASA and the Space Shuttle program

Today is the launch of the last Shuttle Atlantis. It is a shame that the program is coming to an end.

Successful Launch of Minotar Rocket on June 29th 2011

http://orbiter-forum.com/showthread.php?p=280606
A Minotaur rocket roared into orbit from the Virginia coast Wednesday night, successfully deploying a small spacecraft to make the benefits of satellite technology more accessible to deployed U.S. military forces in Afghanistan and other war zones in the Middle East.

Here is a link to the video of the launch:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SBiMGLEd0RU&feature=feedu

Who really gives a S@#$!!!!!!!

Who really gives a s!@#$ about anything now days. Peace???? there will never be peace or happiness for all ever. There will be lulls, but something will always happen, good or bad. All we can ever do is try to be prepared, and help one another.
Sanity? What is sanity? One man's sanity is another man's chaos.

Please reply, .................

@}:-

Glory Launch Good, Failed to reach orbit though:-(

The Power of Myth by Joseph Campbell

The Flame Trench: Atlas V Rocket Rolls Out For Friday Launch

The Flame Trench: Atlas V Rocket Rolls Out For Friday Launch: "An Atlas V rocket with a mini military shuttle onboard rolled out to its oceanside launch pad today, but the weather forecast for Friday cal..."

Discovery went up Perfectly

STS-131 Launch via Space Shuttle Discovery in HD - 04/05/2010

There is No God, By Penn Jillette

There Is No God
by Penn Jillette

November 21, 2005
I believe that there is no God. I'm beyond atheism. Atheism is not believing in God. Not believing in God is easy — you can't prove a negative, so there's no work to do. You can't prove that there isn't an elephant inside the trunk of my car. You sure? How about now? Maybe he was just hiding before. Check again. Did I mention that my personal heartfelt definition of the word "elephant" includes mystery, order, goodness, love and a spare tire?
So, anyone with a love for truth outside of herself has to start with no belief in God and then look for evidence of God. She needs to search for some objective evidence of a supernatural power. All the people I write e-mails to often are still stuck at this searching stage. The atheism part is easy.
But, this "This I Believe" thing seems to demand something more personal, some leap of faith that helps one see life's big picture, some rules to live by. So, I'm saying, "This I believe: I believe there is no God."
Having taken that step, it informs every moment of my life. I'm not greedy. I have love, blue skies, rainbows and Hallmark cards, and that has to be enough. It has to be enough, but it's everything in the world and everything in the world is plenty for me. It seems just rude to beg the invisible for more. Just the love of my family that raised me and the family I'm raising now is enough that I don't need heaven. I won the huge genetic lottery and I get joy every day.
Believing there's no God means I can't really be forgiven except by kindness and faulty memories. That's good; it makes me want to be more thoughtful. I have to try to treat people right the first time around.
Believing there's no God stops me from being solipsistic. I can read ideas from all different people from all different cultures. Without God, we can agree on reality, and I can keep learning where I'm wrong. We can all keep adjusting, so we can really communicate. I don't travel in circles where people say, "I have faith, I believe this in my heart and nothing you can say or do can shake my faith." That's just a long-winded religious way to say, "shut up," or another two words that the FCC likes less. But all obscenity is less insulting than, "How I was brought up and my imaginary friend means more to me than anything you can ever say or do." So, believing there is no God lets me be proven wrong and that's always fun. It means I'm learning something.
Believing there is no God means the suffering I've seen in my family, and indeed all the suffering in the world, isn't caused by an omniscient, omnipresent, omnipotent force that isn't bothered to help or is just testing us, but rather something we all may be able to help others with in the future. No God means the possibility of less suffering in the future.
Believing there is no God gives me more room for belief in family, people, love, truth, beauty, sex, Jell-O and all the other things I can prove and that make this life the best life I will ever have.

About the author:
Penn Jillette is the taller, louder half of the magic and comedy act Penn and Teller. He is a research fellow at the Cato Institute and has lectured at Oxford and MIT. Penn has co-authored three best-selling books and is executive producer of the documentary film The Aristocrats.


**I found this article and found it interesting. Please provide comments**

Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey (widescreen)

2001 Space Odyssey Interview w. Arthur C. Clarke - part 1

Arthur C Clarke predicting the future in 1964

Lego NASA Crawler/Transporter

Crap From The Past Radio Show

I ran across this on an open archive forum, along the same line as the strange video below about Space.

Internet Archive video -- Reflections In Space

 

 Video Link: <href="http://www.archive.org/details/ReflectionsInSpace">http://www.archive.org/details/ReflectionsInSpace</a>

2011 Seattle Fireworks at Space Needle

CES | Canonical

CES | Canonical

Can ET and Christmas Co-exist

Imagine there's intelligent life somewhere out in the universe. Then think about the message of Christmas.

The essential Christmas story is that Christ came in human form to live among us on Earth to save all sinners here. What if there are intelligent beings out "there?" Do they have Christmas too?

If the question sounds silly, some people take it very seriously.

In a soon-to-be published book, First Contact, The Washington Post's Marc Kaufman quotes Gary Bates, the head of Creation Ministries in Atlanta, who says he is deeply uncomfortable with the notion of extraterrestrial life.

"My theological perspective is that ET life would actually make a mockery of the very reason Christ came to die for our sins, for our redemption," he told [Kaufman]. Bates believes that "the entire focus of creation is mankind on this Earth" and that intelligent, morally aware extraterrestrial life would undermine that view and belief in the incarnation, resurrection and redemption drama so central to the faith. "It is a huge problem that many Christians have not really thought about."
Oh, but they have. And not only Christians.

Epicurus, long, long ago, proposed that life exists on other celestial bodies. Aristotle proposed the opposite: that life is here and nowhere else. Aristotle's view was taken up by the Church. In 1600, philosopher Giordano Bruno was burned at the stake for, among other things, believing in a "plurality of world," so this question is old, contentious and sometimes dangerous.


There could be other beings, also intelligent, created by God.


- Jesuit astronomer Jose Gabriel Funes
But doctrines can change. A statue of Giordano Bruno now stands in Rome, near the Vatican. Two years ago, the director of the Vatican Observatory matter-of-factly referred to potential life in the universe as our "extraterrestrial brothers."

"As a multiplicity of creatures exists on Earth, so there could be other beings, also intelligent, created by God." said Jesuit astronomer Jose Gabriel Funes. "This does not conflict with our faith because we cannot put limits on the creative freedom of God."

That remark got a lot of attention, from, among others, the always alert TV comedian Stephen Colbert (himself a Catholic) who invited a Vatican astronomer from Arizona, Brother Guy Consolmagno, to come on the show.

Brother Guy, (previously trained as a physicist at MIT) told Colbert that the Church has always recognized extraterrestrials, beings with wings who live in a zone that is near but not of Earth. They are called "angels." "The whole mythology of angels in the Jewish and Christian tradition shows that the Church, the religious people, the people that wrote the bible, were not afraid of other intelligent creatures who are also worshipping God," Guy said.

Colbert, speaking tongue-in-cheek but for many in his audience, wondered "Doesn't this upset our place at the center of God's creation?" Quoting the catechism, about how Jesus was "born of the Virgin Mary and became man," he wondered if other intelligent communities have their own saviors, also sent by God, and if it turns out there are multiple Christmas stories, doesn't that somehow diminish our own?

I know Colbert is a comedian, not a theologian, but he's obviously smart, sensitive and maybe even a believer. More important, he knows how to press a point. Though he pushed Brother Guy pretty hard, the physicist-turned-monk seemed very comfortable with the idea of extraterrestrial Christmases.

When Colbert went all the way and asked could there be different saviors on different planets across the universe, to the audience's astonishment, Brother Consolmagno didn't object. Instead he smiled and said, "I'm not there, I haven't found out.'

So that's the question: What happens to Christmas when there are not one, but two, three or 40,000 civilizations across the universe? Can the baby Jesus and ET share the holiday? No, says Gary Bates. Yes, says Brother Guy. This is not a real question yet, because the only intelligent life we know is here. But if that changes, will Christmas change too?


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Marc Kaufman's new book, First Contact (Random House), will be published in April, 2011. Brother Guy Consolmagno's book on astronomy is called The Heavens Proclaim, Astronomy and the Vatican. Stephen Colbert's conversation with Brother Guy Consolmagno — based on an article Marc wrote in the Washington Post, can be seen here. My own contribution to this theological discussion, a Christmas cartoon fable called Santa and the Space Nicks describes an intergalactic gathering of Santa Clauses.

Check out shows from Hillstomp

X-37B Space Plane Lands

The U.S. Air Force's mysterious X-37B robot space plane returned to Earth today (Dec. 3) with a successful landing at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California before sunrise.

Air Force officials hailed the unmanned X-37B space plane's successful landing, though its mission remains shrouded in secrecy because of its classified nature. But Vandenberg's 30th Space Wing did not shy from snapping photos of the X-37B vehicle, known as the Orbital Test Vehicle 1.

We Are Building a Religion Lyrics by "Cake"

We are building a religion,
We are building it bigger
We are widening the corridors and adding more lanes
We are building a religion.
A limited edition
We are now accepting callers for these pendant keychains
To resist it is useless,
It is useless to resist it
His cigerratte is burning but it never seems to ash
He is grooming his poodle
He is living comfort eagle
You can meet at his location but you'd better come with cash

Now his hat is on backwards. He can show you his tattoos
He is in the music buisness he is calling you "DUDE!"

Now today is tomorrow and tomorrow's today
And yesterday is weaving in and out
And the fluffy white lines that the airplane leaves behind
Are drifting right in front of the waning of the moon

He is handling the money. He's serving the food
He knows about your party. He is calling you "DUDE!"

Now, do you believe in the one big sign?
The double wide shine on the boot hills of your prime
Doesn't matter if you're skinny. Doesn't matter if you're fat.
You can dress up like a sultan in your onion-head hat

We are bulding a religion. We are making a brand
We're the only ones to turn to when your castles turn to sand
Take a bit of this apple, Mr. Corporate Events
Take a walk through the jungle of cardboard shedies and tents
Some people drink pepsi. Some people drink coke. (coke)
The wacky morning d.j. says democracy's a joke.

He says now, "Do you believe in the one big song?"
He's now accepting callers who would like to sing along
He says, "Do you believe in the one true edge?"
By fastening your saftey belts and stepping towards the ledge

He is handling the money. He is serving the food.
He is now accepting callers. He is calling me "DUDE!"

Do you believe in the one big sign?
The double wide shine on the boot hills of your prime.
There's no need to ask directions if you ever lose your mind
We're behind you. We're behind you.
And let us please remind you
We can send a car to find you
If you ever lose your way

When You Sleep Lyrics from "Cake"

"When You Sleep"

when you sleep where do your fingers go?
what do your fingers know
what do your fingers show
where do your fingers go

when you sleep
do they tremble on the edge of the bed
or do you fold them neatly by your head
do they clench like claws against your own skin
when you're living your day al over again

when you sleep
when you sleep where do your fingers go?
what do your fingers know
what do your fingers show
where do your fingers go

do they play guitar in a latin bar
are they strangers or lovers
do they drive your car
are they swimming submissively
sex acts of life
or just cutting through jello with a very sharp knife

now zeus was a womanizer
always on the make
but hera usually punished her that zeus was one to take

when you sleep where do your fingers go?

are they pulling out weeds from the dusty soil
but then never rewarded with the fruits of their toil
are they scratching their nails on the chalkboards of death
only seeking attention when everyone in the room has left

when you sleep
when you sleep where do your fingers go?
what do your fingers know
what do your fingers show
where do your fingers go

when you sleep
do they tremble on the edge of the bed
or do you fold them neatly by your head

A Man Who lived a full life

Dad passed away this past Sunday on September 12th. he would have been 81 this October. My dad lived a full life and lived it to the maximum. Yes he is human and was not always at his best, but he was a caring and loving man. He taught me a lot directly and indirectly.

Tacoma isnt a bad place:-)

Well I have been spending a couple of weekends up in Tacoma Washington helping my 94 year old Grandfather inlaw with some yard work. I have been lucky that the weekends were cool sunny and clear. The grass was pulled up first then there was the landscaping canvas that was laid down, followed by a lot of wood chips.
The yard is really coming along quite well.

A Good Quote from A. Sachs

"Death is more universal than life; everyone dies but not everyone lives."
A.Sachs

Honoring James P. Hogan

A very well known Science Fiction author has passed away suddenly. The first book I read of his was "Inherit The Stars". The book can now be read or downloaded on line for free. The author is actually an electrician and started writing as a contest to see who could wirte a better book than Arthur C. Clarkes 2001 book. Mr. Hogan won the contest.
The book was interesting due to the fact that is was set in the not too distant furture when mining for Helium 3 on the Moon was being conducted and they found a deceased astronaut that they had thought died due to his life support system failing. When they did the autopsy though, they discovered that he had died more than 50,000 years ago.
This threw the whole idea of Adam and Eve into a new light.
You may want to read this book yourself, it was a very interesting book to say the least.

Views from the Columbia Gorge

These are just a few pics of the things I have seen so far in the Columbia Gorge area.
The water fall is called Multnomah Falls. You can hike up to the top, which is almost a mile and is a good workout if you do not stop until you get to the top. The dog in the picture is a miniature dachshund that has a bomber helmet on with goggles. That dog was loving having the wind in his face.

Copenhagen Suborbitals Heat-1X team

http://www.copenhagensuborbitals.com/index.php

This is something that is going to be launched within the next 6 days. This looks very interesting.

It has been a while since I posted anything:-)

Well,

It has been some time since I have posted really anything of substance. I have moved from Southern California last year. I miss launching with the San Diego Rocket club DART. I have been to one rocket launch in Oregon with the OREO club. It is a cool club, but I do miss Fiesta Island.

Anyway, I myself have been busy with work and have been enjoying the Columbia Gorge and swimming each and every day. It helps get the day going and helps me decompress after work. Life is going good so far.

33 Minutes Trailer :: LONG PROMO (inHD)

NASA.gov - STS-132: Atlantis Comes Home

Check this video out:
http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/videogallery/index.html?media_id=14380998

****************************

NASA Privacy Statement:
http://www.nasa.gov/about/highlights/HP_Privacy.html

STS 132 Ascent Highlights Video

The video provides some details for scale builders and has some cool video to boot.

R/S

Spaceflight Now | This Week in Space

Spaceflight Now | This Week in Space

FW: Check out Stephen Hawking: Humans are

Check out Stephen Hawking: Humans are

 

http://www.dailygalaxy.com/my_weblog/2010/03/stephen-hawking-humans-are-entering-a-stage-of-selfdesigned-evolution.html

 

 

Burt Rutan sees the future of space | Video on TED.com

Burt Rutan sees the future of space | Video on TED.com

cool stuff

How Did Moon Travel Change Astronauts? - ABC News

How Did Moon Travel Change Astronauts? - ABC News

It's a Blast! Team America Rocketry Challenge

Here is something that highschools can compete in. Check it out:-)

HIMARS

The new artillery asset that is now in the Marine Corps inventory as well:-)

Fox Battery - HIMARS SHOOT IN IRAQ

Dark Paradise

This is a cool song:-)

Videos of Interest

Links of Interest To others:

The biggest HPR launch of a Saturn V rocket: www.youtube.com/watch?v=EwvjPPOR3IM




BFR: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nahu9h1fitc&feature=player_embedded

Other interesting Links:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PoYPxuCPY2U&feature=player_embedded


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k4-CyIBlKNs&feature=player_embedded



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m79UO4HOQmc&feature=player_embedded


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8vPbmgyWmnU&feature=player_embedded



PEPCON Explosion in 1988

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HJVOUgCm5Jk&feature=player_embedded


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_KuGizBjDXo&feature=player_embedded

"Model Rocketry - The Last Frontier" (Part One)

This is an all time classic that discuses the hobby of rocketry the best

Model Rocketry - The Last Frontier (Part Two)

One of the best Videos that talks about rocketry

Orphans of Apollo Trailer

Falcon 9 Nine Engine Test

11/22/2008

The full mission duration test firing of the Falcon 9 first stage lasting nearly 3 minutes. The nine Merlin engines produced 855,000 lbs. of thrust and consumed over half a million pounds of liquid oxygen and rocket grade kerosene during the test.

Original Old School Classic Oompa Loompa Music Videos

something for fun

Peter Schilling - Major Tom

I Like this song:-)

This is a Cool Site

This is a great place to learn about onboard video rocketry.

Estes Oracle Rocket Launched from Fiesta Island 10-26-2008

Video from the Fiest Island Launch with the Oracle Rocket

Dart Launch on October 26 2008

Todays Launch at Fiesta Island was terrific. The weather was perfect. There was a light crowd and everybody there did a great job with safely launching their rockets and staying organized. I was able to launch a Hobby Lobby Radio Cotroled SR-71 Blackbird successfully. I know there were several people there with video cameras and cameras, so I hope someone got a good picture or a video clip of its launch and landing. It had a little nose damage, but it will fly again on a higher impulse motor next time.

"Always Another Dawn" By Scott Crossfield

I have been looking for the book titled "Always Another Dawn" by Scott Crossfield. One of the famous test pilots that flew several experimental plays during the 50s and 60s. It was sad that he had passed away two years ago, but he left a lasting impression on thousands of people. The Scott Crossfield Foundation web site has a great brief prsentation by Scott, and it also has the book "Always Another Dawn" on line to read. I thought I would pass that info on here to others.

Enjoy

India in Space

India will be searching for Helium 3 on the Moon. I think they may surprise us all.

Dart Launch October 12th 2008

The Sunday launch with DART was terrific. There was a nice crowd out there and the weather was perfect. The Scratch built Proton Rocket was launched on an Aerotech G-71 Redline motor.

Plaster Blaster VII Interceptor M

The Interceptor M Launch at Plaster Blaster 7 was picture perfect:-)

Just some classic rockets

Here is a collection of some of my favorite rockets. Of course this is a very small amount of what I have.

Who do you think is the most famous???

Who do think is the most famous?

Space and Science Link

The National Geographic Society has a very cool web site that you fellow rocket and science enthusiast may like to checkout.

Comic-Con this Weekend in San Diego

Well, this weekend will be fun at the Comic-Con. I myslef will be checking out some of the stuff on Sunday. In the meantime, I will be going to see the new X-Files movie. Yes I have and will always be an X-Files fan.

Nice Launch Day at Fiesta Island 24th May 2008

Well, the launch day at Fiesta Island San Diego was pretty good considering that the previous days had some pretty strange weather. The NAR rocket club DART run by the current president Mike Jerauld was a good day. From 8 a.m. to 12 p.m. there was a large variety of rockets launched. Everybody there had a good and safe time. The San Diego Rocket club has a long history and I hope that they get an archive going soon that will have a copy of all the news letters tha have been circulated. Several good people that have helped keep the club operational have passed away and will not be forgotten. They have made a terrific impression upon me, and I hope to be able to spread their enthusiasim that they have given me to others.

Systeme Solaire

July 20th 1969

The Bay Colony Rocket Club of 1981

The 1980s was a good era. Where I grew up we had started a little rocket club and it was a lot of fun.
My dad has now moved to an assisted living residence now and his house has been sold. I was given a big box of pictures to go through from the old house. I ran across these photos and it took me back. That was a good era. Retired astronaut Robert Crippen and his family lived in our neighborhood. He would attend some of our club meetings and it was motivating. The Space bug was in our club and I have never lost that.
I wonder where everyone else is that used to be in the club back then?

The TMRK Pegasus Model Rocket

The True Modeler's Rocket Kits make some very great model rockets that are worth the cost. I have enjoyed building their scale model rocket kits a lot. I had the great fortune to be asked to beta test one of their up and coming kits. It is a scale model of the Orbital Science Corporations Pegasus rocket.
I had previously built their four inch diameter Jupiter C kit and a smaller scale model of the Scout. Each one has been fun to build and a joy to launch.




As you can tell from lift-off, it was launched on a cluster of three Estes D12-3 motors, and it was picture perfect:-)


The lift-off was really nice. The Pegasus did a slow roll during ascent. It looked like it was a controlled maneuver.

A Good Talk By Burt Rutan

Clustered Rocket Design HPR 1993 Article of Interest

Here is a great article that I thought would be of good use for those interested in clustering a rocket:

Telescope Principles Training Video

I thought this was something worth passing on about telescopes.

Im a Member

View my page on Our Planet

My Nephew is a Rock Star:-)

I know that most of my items are of rocket videos and about my enthusiasim for space. But I am also a big Rock Band fan and avid drummer myself. So I am happy to brag about my Nephew who is in college, but is also a rock star on the side. He is with a group titled "Is He Safe". They have a good fan base and I think you may see them on TV sometime in the very near future. Please check out their music when you have a chance.

Man in Space 2 of 8 - Early Rockets

more classis rocket launches

Man in Space 1 of 8 - Prehistory of Rocketry

I thought you would like to see this video clip.

Rocketry Lesson Plan Supplement

This is a good video from the Federation of Galaxy Explorers (aka FOGE).

Rocketry - Estes Historic Document - 1961

This is a great video about Estes Rocket Company.

Bomarc DVD Preview

Anyone interested in the history of the Bomarc needs to get this DVD.

A TRIP TO THE PLANETS with WILLY LAY 115 minutes 1960...

This is a great classic video from Willy Ley

Kids in Model Rocketry

Kids in Model Rocketry
LAUNCH Magazine Online - Wednesday, 21 November 2007

© LAUNCH Magazine Online

High Power Rocket Chase at XPRS '07

I love the music with this video (RUSH).

Fox 11 RocStock

RocStock media coverage

Altitude prediction program

A free altitude program
that may be good to try is WinRoc (http://www.drmoore.org/winroc.htm).
It is a Windows based program, but is very easy to use.

For Those Rocketeers getting ready to Certify

For those new to the hobby of Rocketry who are looking for some software that may help with your rocket design. One source that is good is Nakka Rocketry

He has some great programs that will help with calculating the correct amount of 4F black powder to use for ejecting your recovery system when using an altimeter or any type of ejection system. One basic calculation is to use approximately 1/4 gram of black powder (4F) for every 20 cubic inches.

I will post my Level 3 project soon and the steps necessary for a successful qualification flight soon.

Flight of the X-Wing

Prepping of the big X-wing launch at Plaster Blaster 2007

X-Wing Fighter Rocket

This was launched at the Plaster Blaster event of 2007

In The Shadow of The Moon

Ron Howard has finished producing another terrific movie that is due out now in September of 2007 at limited theaters. It may be in your area. If not please look at the link and make sure to buy a copy once it is out for sale.
I know that there are still a lot of people that support manned missions to the moon and beyond. The ones who support them are also very well aware of the risks, but they, including myself would love to go.

He is one of a kind.
The cool competence displayed by Wally Schirra during the Gemini-Titan shut-down reflects the wisdom behind the decision to use test pilots to fly the early US spacecraft. Tom Stafford was also on this Gemini flight. He shared his memory with everyone today at the San Diego Aerospace Museum. It was really something.

Seeing Astronauts Today:-)

Today, I had the nice fortune of getting to see and listen to four very great men. Scott Carpenter, Tom Stafford, Eugene Cernan and Ed Buckbee.
They were down at the San Diego Aerospace museum today and it was a very rare treat to meet the men in person.
Scott Carpenter was the second man to orbit the earth after John Glenn and he was an aquanaut as well. Tom Stafford flew on a Gemini mission, Apollo 10 and on the Apollo/Soyuz mission in 1975. Eugene Cernan also flew on a Gemini mission, Apollo 10 and on Apollo 17. Eugene Cernan was also the last man to have set foot on the Moon in 1972, 35 years ago.
Ed Buckabee was the forum interviewer and also the author of a great book titled "The Real Space Cowboys that was also co-authored by Wally Schirra who had recently passed away in May of 2007.
Ed Buckbee, worked with Von Braun at Marshall Space Flight Center and as a NASA public affairs officer worked with all the astronauts who flew the Mercury, Gemini and Apollo missions.
He was selected by Von Braun to create and manage the U.S. Space & Rocket Center in Huntsville, Ala., and was founder of the U.S. Space Camp and, along with the Mercury 7, the U.S. Astronaut Hall of Fame near Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
Schirra has to be the most accomplished fact-checker in publishing history, the only man to travel in Mercury, Gemini and Apollo flights.
Along with a gallery of photos displayed throughout, the book comes with a DVD that has save-for-your-grandchildren moments, like a mini-documentary on Shepard's first flight, as well as some whimsical moments with elaborate practical jokes. "Levity is lubricant of crises," Schirra said, explaining the astronauts' love of a good "gotcha."
The fun-loving side -- Shepard once borrowed an Indy 500 race car and drove it onto Johnson Space Center, just to trump Schirra's pride in a new Ferrari -- mixes wonderfully and entertainingly with the contemplative side in this book.
What Buckbee and Schirra proved conclusively in "The Real Space Cowboys" is there was plenty of fascinating stuff to write, years after "The Right Stuff."

The forum was really nice. It was really great to see a part of history in person today.
Their final note that all four men conveyed to the audience is that this generation and the ones to follow should continue to explore space and beyond, inspire the youth do get involved.

"If you do not take an interest in the world, the world is not going to take interest in you". Continue to dream and never settle.

At the end of the forum, the Air Force color guard from Travis Air Force base did a very nice closing ceremony with respect towards Astronaut Wally Schirra. It was very moving, patriotic and well received by the audience.

LDRS 2008 in Argonia Kansas

It is funny that today of all days I found an article I had saved from Discovery Magazine dated December 1993.
It is about an earlier LDRS event that was going on in Argonia Kansas in 1992.
I had happened to be getting a Hair-cut at Camp Doha Kuwait when I had found the Discovery magazine there in the waiting room. I am a pack rat and a bonnified rocket nut, so I held on to the magazine article to this day. The article was written by Jeffery Kluger, titled "Let's Do Launch"

Argonia is a fun place to hold LDRS. I heard that this years LDRS at Jean Dry lake bed was a success.
I hope to make it Plaster Blaster later this year that will be held near Plaster City California this October 2007.

Below is the original article that was with the two photos:

Let's do launch

- amateur high-power rocket clubs
Discover, Dec, 1993 by Jeffrey Kluger

If you want to be unpopular in the technology community, there's no better way to do it than to become a rocket designer. For centuries rocketeers have consistently ranked near the top of most people's Least Favorite Inventors list, and with good reason. * The problems with rocketry started in the tenth century, when the Chinese first discovered that mixing charcoal, sulfur, and potassium nitrate could lead to sudden explosions - as well as to late-night calls from Japan, Korea, and Mongolia wanting to know what the heck the racket was all about and if China had any idea what time it was. The Chinese soon learned how to use their explosive mixture to produce the world's first gunpowder, bombs, and solid-fuel rockets, leading to more calls from Japan, Korea, and Mongolia saying that maybe they were a little too hasty in bothering China before and, honest, it was Thailand that made them call.
After the Chinese, rocket science plodded along slowly until the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, when the liquid-fuel rocket was developed. Although a lot of people tinkered with them, liquid rockets were perfected principally by Robert Goddard, an American engineer, and Wernher "Boom Boom" von Braun, a German visionary who had always dreamed of traveling to the planets but whose rockets kept winding up at destinations just short of there - like Trafalgar Square.
Fueled mainly by hydrogen ([H.sub.2]), liquid oxygen (lox), and kerosene (cream cheese), liquid rockets flew farther and faster than any missiles ever had before, but their inventors did not always receive the appreciation they deserved. Von Braun, who had expected to be handsomely decorated after World War II, instead surrendered to the Allies and was invited to move to New Mexico to build rockets for the United States. Given the choice between the Land of Enchantment and Nuremberg, Von Braun packed his bags and headed west, mostly because the health benefits and vacation package were better. (Goddard's fate has been even worse. Fully 72 percent of all college-age adults still appreciate him less for his ingenious multistage rockets than for his 1959 cinematic tour de force Breathless.)
But though things have always been tough for rocket professionals, the amateurs, at least, haven't been discouraged. So I discovered this past summer when I traveled to the town of Argonia, Kansas, to witness the annual orgy of model missile launching organized by the Tripoli Rocketry Association, a national organization of backyard rocketeers.
As anyone who grew up male and American during the early years of the space race could tell you, model rocketry was once something of a childhood rite of passage. At least two years in the life of every 1960s boy were devoted to building and launching light-weight rockets made of balsa-wood nose cones, balsa-wood fins, and cardboard bodies remarkably reminiscent of paper-towel tubes. While giving an airborne ballistic device to a preteen who can't yet be trusted with the keys to the Toro riding mower might seem like a bad idea, the hobby was in fact relatively safe - mostly because the government prohibited model rocket builders from using engines that conpanels and surrounded by a dozen or so men; another hundred yards beyond that was a row of 24 tripodlike launch-pads holding rockets that averaged about three feet in height. The whole spread had much the look of a miniature Cape Canaveral on launch day - with the exception that Cape Canaveral doesn't have Port-O-Sans and a refreshment tent.
As I got out of my car in a parking area reserved for nonrocketeers, I was just in time to hear a voice on the launch site public-address system counting down from five to zero, and in the distance I saw what appeared to be a rocket ascending about 2,000 feet into the air. The trajectory of the flight looked good, but after a few seconds the rocket arced over and seemed, to my alarm, to be heading back toward the ground without benefit of parachute.
"Incoming! Incoming!" yelled the voice over the public-address system. "We have an uncontrolled rocket coming down beyond the prime viewing area!"
Looking around and recognizing that I was alone in the parking lot, I shrewdly concluded that I was probably well beyond the prime viewing area and dove back inside my rental car - a '93 Ford Taurus with tape deck, air-conditioning, and, I dearly hoped, a reinforced steel roof. Peering out the window, I saw the rocket complete its reentry somewhat less ceremoniously than the old Mercury and Apollo spacecraft, returning to Earth somewhere between a '91 Chevy Lumina and an '88 Jeep Cherokee.
Already I had seen all I cared to see of the Tripoli gathering. I enjoy watching rockets as much as the next guy; I just don't enjoy watching them close in on me from 2,000 feet. Nevertheless, I had come here to meet rocketeers, and in search of information - or at least names for subsequent legal action - I figured I should talk to at least a few.
Wandering into the parking area reserved for the rocket launchers, I instantly realized that the members of the Tripoli club are nothing if not hardy. The event was being held in mid-August, when the temperature in Kansas is just below the smelting point of copper. Inside the tents it was even hotter, and by 10 a.m. most of the nearly all-male crowd had already stripped down to a handsome ensemble of shorts, sneakers, and T-shirts tied kerchieflike around their heads, giving each of them less the look of an American rocketeer than a sort of Lawrence of Argonia.
As I approached the guys at the control table, I could see that, of the men still wearing shirts, most were also wearing lapel stickers with HELLO, MY NAME is . . . printed at the top. None of them had written the name "Strangelove," "Oppenheimer," or "Hussein" underneath, and this I took as a net plus. The first person who stopped me to say hello, however, had written "Moose," and my optimism quickly faded.
Moose Lavigne, however, turned out to be a very friendly fellow and quite the rocketry professional. In his weekday life outside Argonia, Moose is a field site engineer at Cape Canaveral who helps launch Delta rockets. Why anybody who works all week firing off big rockets would spend his weekends firing off little ones was beyond me, though the Lavigne family is probably grateful for small favors. If Moose's specialty were proctology, the whole clan would no doubt be getting bundled off for Labor Day weekends at a high-colonic clinic. Moose's fascination with model rocketry, however, appears to go beyond the strictly professional.
"People who launch rockets are intrigued by the challenge of it," Moose told me. "When you're launching full-size rockets, you're working as part of a team; this means that any rewards and any setbacks are shared. When you're launching model rockets, however, you're working all by yourself, so the success or failure is all yours."
Standing with Lavigne was Gerald Kolb, whose attachment to all things airborne is much more down to earth. Kolb is one of the partners of Public Missiles Ltd., a corporation doing business in Mount Clemens, Michigan. What the company manufactures and sells, not surprisingly, is high-power rockets.
"Like most people here, I started building model rockets as a kid and quickly went as far with them as the kits and engines could take me," said Kolb. "When high-power rocketry got started, I jumped right into that. A few years ago I joined Public Missiles and have been building and marketing mail-order kits ever since."
Kolb explains that his customers - like most high-power rocketeers - are a fairly homogeneous group: mostly male, mostly professional, mostly former sixties rocketeers now falling into the 35-to-45 baby boom group. Nationwide, high-power rocketeers are divided into chapters (or "prefectures") that periodically hold their own local gatherings (or "launch meets") on farms or vacant land where there are few neighbors (or "plaintiffs") to be disturbed.
"High-power rocketry is something that a lot of us never get enough of," Kolb said. "National gatherings like this are the high point of the year for rocketeers, but across the country plenty of people in plenty of prefectures spend as much of their off-work time as they can doing nothing but this."
On nafziger's farm, this romance with the rocket was everywhere in evidence. While I spoke to Lavigne and Kolb, the launch site was kept constantly busy with rocketeer after rocketeer - some of them wearing T-shirts reading AS A MATTER OF FACT I AM A ROCKET SCIENTIST - carrying his model out to the pad, prepping it for flight, and then retreating mistily like a parent dropping off a child on the first day of school. When each new rocket was in place, the public-address announcer would read off its height, weight, thrust, engine size - and, I eventually expected, its order of finish in the swimsuit competition - and the crowd would stop what it was doing and turn to watch the flight. Most of these rockets, however, were small - about one foot to three feet high. What I had come to Argonia to see were the real macromissiles, and I decided to go off in search of them.
Wandering into the rocketeers' tent area, I caught sight of my first jumbo rocket, a yellow and black monster that looked like a dead ringer for a little four-inch missile - known as a Mosquito - that I had built during my own brief rocketeer career in the 1960s. The only difference between this Mosquito and my Mosquito was that this one was just a bit taller - seven feet taller, to be exact. The oversize rocket was built by Jim Cornwell, a cabinetmaker from Phoenix, Arizona, and from his first words it was clear that this was not a guy who would be content spending his leisure time collecting commemorative plates.
"I've built a lot of big rockets before," Cornwell said, "but this is the biggest. The body was made from a cardboard tube used as a mold for pouring concrete pillars. The nose cone is made of Kevlar and fiberglass, and the fins are a combination of fiberglass, balsa wood, aircraft foam, and birch ply. The whole thing weighs about 75 pounds."
The solid fuel Cornwell uses to fly his Mosquito, like the solid fuel used by most of the assembled rocketeers, consisted of ammonium perchlorate mixed with a rubberlike binder. There was enough propellant in Cornwell's Mosquito to produce 500 pounds of thrust for 5.2 seconds, carrying the rocket to an altitude of 4,000 feet and a speed of Mach .6. Cornwell hadn't actually flown his Mosquito yet, and though he was eager to do so this weekend, he would only if the wind and weather conditions were precisely right.
"Last year I built a 54-inch version of this rocket, but the recovery system failed," he said. "It flew three times but then disappointed me and crashed twice. Ultimately I just got fed up with it, sawed the top half off, and turned it into a pedestal for a coffee table." Want to bet the kids in the Cornwell family make it a point to bring home good grades?
Next to Cornwell was another rocketeer tent, belonging to Edward Conger and Benjy Levy. Conger and Levy were laboring over a few rockets - all nearly as tall as the Mosquito - but unlike Cornwell's tent, theirs was littered not just with fins, nose cones, and glue pots but also with circuit boards, laptop computers, and floppy disks, creating an overall impression of two people concerned less with launching a few cardboard rockets than putting a Macintosh into low Earth orbit.
Most of the electronic hardware, I learned, had to do with a very basic aspect of both model rocketry and real rocketry: determining how high your missile has flown. A couple of decades ago, I generally gauged the distance my rockets had traveled by using such crude measurements as "Over the Sappersteins' house" or "Onto the Sappersteins' house" or "Into one of the Sappersteins." Predictably, these units of measure were difficult to compute accurately, were impossible to convert to the metric scale, and eventually began to annoy Mr. and Mrs. Sapperstein. These days, however, model rocketeers have better ways of doing things.
"Inside our rockets," Conger said, "is an atmospheric sensor mounted on a circuit board and connected by aquarium tubing to a porthole near the nose cone. As the rocket rises, the tubing allows the sensor to sample the pressure of the outside air. Chips on the circuit board then record the readings and tell us how high the rocket traveled."
Beyond the Conger-Levy line, the rockets in waiting just got further and further removed from the tiny playthings of my youth. There was Richard Zarecki's 9-foot red, white, and blue Aurora, a model he had been designing and refining for 25 years. There was Mark Drass's Nike Smoke, a 10-foot-tall half-scale model of the Army's Nike sounding rocket. Finally, towering over both these brutes, there was John Baumfalk's 200-pound full-scale model of the 17-foot Patriot missile, the eagerly anticipated star of the Argonia show.
Though the crowd had applauded appreciatively when the smaller missiles went up, it was not until these big missiles started to fly that the real excitement began. Baumfalk's cardboard and balsa-wood Patriot was rolled out to the pad and - true to its advertising - needed only a plywood Colin Powell and a wax Wolf Blitzer to make it indistinguishable from the real thing. The PA announcer urged the spectators to give the rocket some room, and the spectators followed the advice instantly - moving en masse in the general direction of Colorado. After a five-second countdown, the engine ignited, the rocket shuddered on the pad, and, to the astonishment of no one more than Baumfalk, it leapt into the air and rose about 1,000 feet before falling to Earth beneath two huge chutes. Mark Drass's 10-foot Nike flew even more smoothly, although it took two count-downs to get it right. During the first one the nose cone alone took off, with a resounding pop reminiscent of a champagne cork. Next year, so rumors have it, Drass plans to launch an absolutely fabulous little Moet & Chandon, vintage '75 if he can possibly get hold of it.
But most impressive was Cornwell's Mosquito. With the threat of spending eternity as a piece of rumpus room furniture no doubt running through its fiberglass head, the rocket soared smoothly off the pad and climbed to about 4,000 feet, flying in what might have been the truest arc of the day. As it turned out, however, the weather wasn't as perfect as Cornwell thought, and after deploying its chutes at the peak of its flight, the Mosquito caught an air current and drifted off in a southeasterly direction, requiring Cornwell to leap into his truck and race off in pursuit, hoping to intercept the rocket before it left Kansas altogether and wound up somewhere between Oklahoma City and Munchkin City.
During the course of the three-day expo, at least 300 rockets were brought out to the pad; some met with disaster but most managed to make it into the sky and back to the ground with their fins, nose cones, and owners' egos still intact. Even before this twelfth annual event ended, the group announced that it had already scheduled its thirteenth, once again planned for summer and once again to be held on Nafziger's farm. From what I've seen, it's a good thing the rocketeers will be back - obviously the amateurs in Kansas could teach the professionals at NASA a thing or two. Wouldn't a shuttle made of paper-towel tubes at least be worth a try - if only so we could call the newly built ship the Bounty? Wouldn't NASA rocketeers named Moose - as well as Bullwinkle, Rocky, and Boo-Boo-seem more user-friendly? Wouldn't the space station Freedom make a terrific coffee table? In Argonia, at least, such ideas seem to fly.

Flight of the Conchords