Deseret News - Video - Rocket test

Deseret News - Video - Rocket test

ATK successfully test the booster for the Ares rocket today.

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

For some comic relief Listen and enjoy

"WARNING"
Some jokes on the site have adult content. So please be aware and wear earphones if you have young children around.

Highlights from previous rocket launches

Theses are just a few pictures from model rocket launches.

Something I Thought I would share

Several years back (say the year 2000) I came across this very interesting Space Heroes item from Bandai on clearance at a Kaybee Toy Store. This was a very rare find. It was a very cool and very accurate look alike of Pete Conrad, Alan Bean and Charles Duke. I though these were a great tribute to a past moment in time. I had the fortune of being able to meet Pete Conrad as a young boy growing up near the Johnson Space Center in Clear Lake Texas, and then getting another chance as an adult while stationed at Camp Pendleton in California. He was promoting a synthetic oil product in the 90s while also working on the DCX SSTO project. This was one or two years before Pete passed away after suffering internal injuries from a motor cycle accident. He is a one of a kind person who has made a life long impact on me.
Anyway, I thought I would share these pictures and if anyone has a memorable moment to pass from any experiences with an astronaut please post them here.

R/S

Spy Satellites in Film and Reality

Please click on the title for the article:-)

Spaced Out

I was in Texas in July of 2005, and I had stopped with my father in a town called Round Top. I read this article that I thought would be interesting to pass on to others.

SPACED OUT!
A Message from a Real Space Cadet
By Chris Travis
Editor of Round Top Register of Round Top, Texas



Everyone I know says I am spaced out. My wife tells me I’m distracted and self absorbed. She says I have no sense of time, lose things constantly, and cannot be trusted with appliances and says these things are evidence of my dysfunction. According to her, I fade in and out of reality all the time… but she doesn’t know the half of it. The truth is … I am a real space cadet.
My friends think I’m a pie-in-the-sky dreamer too, a guy who spends most of his time in La La land. They’re too nice to say it, but half the time they think I act like I’m from another planet. I try to tell them what I have discovered about the inner workings of the universe, but their eyes just roll back in their heads like the reels in a slot machine. It happens so often I have taken to cupping my hands under their mouths on the hopes I will hit the jackpot. So far the only payoff I’ve gotten is a spray of spittle when they burst into laughter.
I know I am hoist on my own petard. It’s my own fault that people question my credibility. Part of my problem comes from publishing this little newspaper. In the past, I must admit I have written a few things that stretch the truth. Many people doubt my in-depth interviews with Santa Claus and Bigfoot are the real deal. I understand that some folks question whether the Register is really locked in a vicious print war with the New York Times; that our columnist is really over two hundred years old; or that Round Tops’s Town Marshall is really 6’9” tall and rides tornadoes.
These are reasonable doubts, and I cannot deny that I might have played loose with the facts a time or two for the sake of art. But in all fairness, anyone who studies physics will find what most of us think of as “the real world” doesn’t even exist. One of the founders of quantum physics, Erwin Schrodinger, points out that at the atomic level, all matter performs in a “completely disorderly heat motion, which opposes itself to their orderly behavior and does not allow the events that happen between a small number of atoms to enroll themselves according to any recognizable physical laws.”
That means that if you look closely at the building blocks of the universe from which everything is made-your car, your kids, your dinner, your new pair of shoes-you won’t find anything that looks anything like “facts or reality.”
Reality is just a story humans tell one another so we won’t be utterly overwhelmed by the immensity and utter complexity of the world we live in everyday. The universe is incomprehensibly vast. Life is unfathomably complex. Few of us have the slightest idea what is going on around us, and for the most part, we don’t want to know. Understanding the truth is a real blow to the ego, so who wants to face it?
The fact that everyone makes up their own reality is just one of the basic truths that even the most backward of the galaxy’s species takes for granted, but here on the old home planet we are still having a hard time getting the message. People on our planet often think there is some “real objective” world that is the same for everyone. This kind of provincialism is very embarrassing for a space ranger like myself. Put yourself in my shoes, you are at a cocktail party at a penthouse in an upscale tourist colony orbiting a gas giant in the Betelgeuse system, and your host, who looks like a six foot tall oyster with chrome hood ornaments suddenly shouts “Humans believe what?” and the whole party breaks up in a riotous laughter.
This kind of thing makes is very hard to act cool. Belonging to what many interstellar beings consider “one of the goofiest looking species in the universe” is hard enough, but being an intellectual laughing stock just adds insult to injury.
That is one of the reasons I have decided to come clean about my secret life and try to explain what is really going on in the universe to the rest of humanity.

Sugar Crystals on a String

My Strange situation began a long time ago when I first became a space cadet.

It began innocently enough. I had a big imagination as a child and was fascinated with the workings of the world – why sugar crystals appeared on a string suspended in salt water; why the program in your hand shivers and quakes in a concert hall when the strings crescendo at certain notes; why snow flakes are all unique, and other amazing mysteries of science.
When I was a kid, the world was a source of wonder for me, and that wondering set me to wandering in my mind…and the next thing you know I was a space cadet.
It all started when I met Tom Corbette and the Space Rangers. Tom was an all-American boy, tried and true, and a fellow cadet at the Interplanetary Space Academy. He and I teamed up with tow other young cadets. Roger, who was a real wise guy but a crack navigator, and Astro, our massive but good-natured engineer. The four of us rocketed all over the solar system before I was out of the sixth grade.
In the summer after I graduated from elementary school, I discovered a book called Glory Road, and found myself hopping from one dimension to the next.
That was where all the trouble started. It was fun, flitting from one alternate universe to another battling impossible odds, but there are serious consequences when you defy the laws of physics, and before long I was paying the piper.
I first began to notice strange things happening when I was in the seventh grade. That school year I lost three watches and four coats. My mother assumed I was simply careless, but as far as I could tell those personal items just disappeared. Right away I realized they had slipped into another time /space continuum but it was hard to prove to my mom.
Sadly, a little known effect of such quantum phenomena is that there is a corresponding perturbation in the electro-chemical energies passing through the synapses of the brain when they occur…which means you can’t actually remember the alternate universe events when they happen to you.
I knew those watches including the one with Roy Rogers and Trigger on the dial must lie half buried beneath the purple sands of a distant world.

They were probably being crushed under the twelve armored feet of a methane-breathing three-headed desert beast rather than lost in my school locker.
But no matter how articulate my argument, I couldn’t convince my unimaginative mother.
When I came home from school without my coat for the third time, she grounded me. That’s when I realized my life as starfarer was better kept a secret.
Now all these years later, I realize that I am not alone. There are other people like me out there in the world, lonely and lost, never seeming to fit in, observing a universe that their friends and neighbors can’t seem to perceive.
They are normal people except for a few unusual quirks. They tend to lose anything not chained to their belts. They are constantly looking for their keys, their cell phones, their screw drivers and their wallets. Important papers vaporize on their desks at work.
They have no sense of time. They have a hard time remembering names and phone numbers and never read directions. They leave lights on all over the house and can’t be trusted with toaster ovens.
They spend a lot of time lost in thought, staring off into space with wistful expressions on their faces. Sometimes they become fixated on watching a cloud, or a crawling bug, or the reflection of light on water, and you have to shake them to get their attention.
In other words, they have the attention span of a four-year-old.
If there is anyone in your life like this, I ask you to be patient and forgiving. They may be annoying and hard to live with, but they’re behavior is an unfortunate side effect of an important mission.
They’re secretly defending the earth against invasion by the forces of galactic evil. So give them a break. It easy to get a little distracted when you’re standing alone against the death rays of the machine-beings from the Crab Nebula. Facing such responsibility, anyone could forget a birthday or two.
These people disserve your respect because they are performing a valuable public service. Defending the planet earth from total annihilation is a thankless job, but someone’s got to do it.

Dimensional Schizophrenia

To my clients, friends and neighbors, I am a regular guy who happens to be a little eccentric. They assume that I lose things and can’t remember people’s names because I simply don’t pay attention, or because my brain was damaged in the 1960’s by recreational drugs.
Actually, I am constantly cycling from one dimension of space to another. I’ll be in Round Top talking on the cell phone or sitting at the drafting board designing someone’s country home…and then all of a sudden I’m taking four G’s as my spacecraft leaves the atmosphere of the fifth planet out from Alpha Centauri in pursuit of insectoid aliens bent on galactic domination.
Needless to say, these circumstances make it difficult for me to maintain my professional composure in my architecture firm. It’s hard to explain what is really going on, so I find it necessary to preserve the charade that I am simply a garden variety ditz. This guise has long worked to my advantage.
You learn a few things about the behavior of sentient life forms when you hang out with aliens from all over the galaxy. I’ve seen it over and over in fifty different star systems.
When some species find out you are different – and Homo Sapiens are among them – it makes them afraid, and organisms that are afraid have a tendency to get nasty.
It’s long been my opinion that it’s better to take a little lip, than to have your lip busted.
As a result, I have lived a double life up to now. But, I am throwing caution to the wind. I’m going to tell everybody what I have found out in my travels about what is really going on here on the planet earth.
I have to run to the house because I forgot to turn off the coffee percolator and the Queen is afraid I am going to burn the house down. I’ll clue you in as soon as I get back.

The Ultimate Truths
of Life on Earth
Whew! That was close. The bottom of the coffee pot was starting to look like a black hole. Being dimensionally challenged is really irritating sometimes
Now back to the facts about life on earth. There are a lot of facts that earthlings don’t really understand of course, more than I have time to share. After all we are a primitive race from a backwater planet in the rural areas of a minor galaxy. So in order to simplify this, I am going to focus on the top seven.

Important Truth I

The Aliens are getting restless.

For the last million years or so, most of galactic society has ignored human beings. I mean, there have been a few good sitcoms based on human beings, mostly comedies similar to Bedtime for Bonzo, but for the most part no one really cared. Human beings were just funny monkeys scratching themselves. Alien societies felt safe from the various types of violent madness we are so good at cooking up because we were stuck on the surface of our own planet and couldn’t get at them.
But then Neil Armstrong set foot on the moon, and that changed everything. Those of us who were alive when that happened experienced a very rare event. Life on earth is roughly 300 million years old. Each of us lives an average of about 70 years. That means the odds that any individual organism would be alive when a representative of life on earth actually set foot on another world is 4,285,714,286 to one.
It’s not just the Beatles that make us a unique generation, and this fact is not lost on folks who live in neighboring star systems. They are especially paranoid because things are happening awfully fast. Our seed is spreading. Voyager I is now about 8.7 billion miles from earth and moving towards them at 46,000 miles an hour. They watch the History Channel. They know what nutcases we are and it is making them nervous.
Now what you need to understand is that most of our neighbors in the galaxy are pretty nice folks. They tend to be forgive and forget types.
But there are races out there that view us the same way we view a venereal disease, and if they decide we need a dose of antibiotics, we are toast.
That’s the main reason I have decided to speak up. We need to get our act together in the next couple of generations, or our communal butts are going to be in a sling.

Important Truth II
You live in your own little world.

Each of us makes up our individual reality. I mean really. I’m not saying the material world doesn’t exist. There is a world out there, but each of us perceives it differently in significant ways.
Throughout the galaxy, every different organism has its own “real world.”
Highly social species like us can coordinate our behavior by talking and mimicking each other, and by building a common living space to channel our actions, but those are just tricks our brains have evolved so we can get more food and make more babies than the other animals we compete with for survival.
Bottom line, you have to guess about what the other guy is thinking.
After millions of years of evolution, our brains have gotten very good at guessing, but you don’t have the slightest idea what is going on in the minds of your wife, your husband, or your kids….let alone behind the fevered brows of Osama Bin Laden or Tom Delay.
There is no point in worrying about what other people think.
There is no point in talking to other people about what they think other people think.
There is no point to watching television shows or reading books about what other people think. You’ll never really know.
So just relax and pay attention, because the only way you are ever going to get any idea what a person thinks is by listening to them and watching their behavior.
On advanced worlds, listening and observing are competitive sports. You can get a Ph.D. in them. In many societies, talking is seen as an unpleasant but necessary metabolic process, something like urination or defecation. The smartest people never say a darn thing!

Important Truth III

You are never alone. You just think you are.

You are really just a cell in a bigger organism.
Every advanced society in the galaxy understands this.
I know you think paying your own bills and having your own body makes you all grown up and independent, but the truth is that you and every other living thing is just a piece of the living earth.
All the incredibly diverse species that cover our planet are just specialized cells like those in your body. Some are liver cells. Some are stomach lining. Some are neurons.
I know this is a blow to your ego, but it is time to grow up and face the music. You aren’t really all that important in the grand scheme of things. Even humanity as a whole is not all that big a deal. Our living planet was growing and evolving just fine for hundreds of millions of years before anyone invented a BMW.
It may seem like the American Idol results show, or your hangover is the center of the universe, but it really isn’t.
The reason you think you are an individual is because all living systems are built of small pieces that must be distinct from one another if they are to work. Identity is necessary for their functioning, just as an individual cell is important to the functioning of your pancreas.
What a liver cell thinks about the liver makes no difference. All that matters is whether it secretes bile. The same is true for you. I know this is hard to swallow, but time is running out so I can’t afford to break it to you gently.

Important Truth IV

Everything in the universe is always running down.

Human scientists call this fact the Second Law of Thermodynamics, or entropy. Most physicists consider it the most general law of nature.
When the energy in any system – a star or a living organism – runs down to the point that it becomes a dead, inert lump of matter, it reaches a state that a physicist calls thermodynamic equilibrium, or maximum entropy. It can also be described as “greater order” as significant change in its form stops for all practical purposes.
Most substances degrade relatively rapidly from the relative disorder caused by heat to a more “stable order” as they cool to absolute zero, but the march towards maximum entropy exhibits itself in many other ways. When two solutions are mixed - for instance a jar of sugar water and a jar of plain water - the sugar has a “goal” of becoming equally distributed throughout the liquid water. When it reaches that state, maximum entropy is achieved.
Such effects occur throughout nature.
For instance, Americans degrade the complex organisms we refer to as cattle at a mind-boggling rate. In the year 2000, somewhere around thirty-eight million of those highly organized and brilliantly functional organic systems, each capable of independently maintaining its energy level for a considerable number of years, were “degraded” to the more stable state we refer to as sewage by the process of our consumption.
That sewage is then consumed and degraded by specialized microorganisms even closer to thermodynamic equilibrium.
In that same year, each American converted an average of 195 pounds of red meat, poultry and fish into simpler forms. Every year of our lives, we convert more than our weight of other “higher life forms” into energy and protein which we use to battle the relentless march of entropy.
Each individual organism on earth is an efficient processing plant that is remarkably effective at making other organisms in the world around them - and even inorganic compounds - more “stable.”
Eating and finding food are so basic to the function of living things that in almost all organisms the brain is located near the entrance to the gut. There are several families of genes that govern both brain and gut development, which reflects the ancient relationship between the gut and the brain.
It is humbling to consider while pushing our carts through the grocery store that we may be utilizing the first and foremost purpose of our minds, but those are the facts. Like every other animal, our primary business in life is to find food that can be converted to energy to support the functioning of our bodies. What we do not use, we excrete as feces, urine, and perspiration.
Combined, the amount of waste generated by living things, both in life and in death, has altered a significant portion of the earth’s crust. Soil and limestone deposits, both results of millions of years of processing by living things, cover our planet.
All life is knee deep in birth and death, two extremes of a powerful entropic process. This universal contest is present not only in the grand scheme of nature, but also in the daily existence of everything in creation.
Our sun is a powerful generator of energy, but like all sources of energy, that energy is slowly suffering the attrition of entropy. The powerful heat and pressures within the core of our planet create complex mineral deposits, which emerge through volcanic activity and other geological phenomena to create mountains and other grand features, which are in turn worn down by wind, rain, glaciers and other natural forces, and turned into sand and soil.
Our bodies face entropy each day. Millions of years of evolution have built a grand engine in the human physique. Each human body has incredible abilities to persist in the face of entropy’s relentless march - but in the end - every living organism, every mountain, every energy source…wears down.
So your decline is inevitable. No matter how much you work out and how low fat your diet, you are still on the way out. All you are ever going to do is eat, poop and die.
I know this is bad news, but every cloud has a silver lining. Entropy means that there will always be plenty of work for doctors, remodeling contractors, cosmetics sales people and washing machine repairmen.
In fact, entropy drives the global economy.

Important Truth V
You don’t really exist. You’re just a relationship.

Now this might be hard to understand, so I will use a metaphor that makes it easier.
First, I have to tell you that your self, the part of you that is saying “I,” is what scientists call a “dissipative structure.” Such a structure accelerates the pace of entropy by taking energy from the world around it and hastening it towards thermodynamic equilibrium.
Dissipative structures are easily observable in nature. Whirlpools and tornadoes are two common examples, but galaxies and eco-systems also qualify. So does your body.
When barometric pressure rises in a storm front, a regular form with a recognizable structure emerges...a tornado.
A tornado allows the high barometric pressure to dissipate more effectively in exchange for maintaining its structure. It has to have a thermodynamic imbalance to exist. When the build up of pressure is equalized, the tornado disappears.
In the early 1990’s, earth scientists performed a thermal analysis while flying over several varied ecosystems and discovered that the more developed the eco-system, the colder its surface temperature. They discovered what the rest of the galaxy already knows, that complex living systems dissipate the sun’s energy more effectively than those that are less diverse.
The more complex the living system, the more effective dissipater it is. Think rain forest vs. parking lot. Get the idea?
Your body is a complex living system too, just like a jungle. The city you live in is also complex living system. Both you and the city are dissipative structures. You take energy out of the world around you like a tornado, and use that energy to avoid the impact of entropy.
As pointed out above, you are very effective at turning cows into excrement. You do this so you can continue being yourself. The cow is sacrificed to maintain your structure.
A tornado’s identity is a relationship between a high pressure storm system and a low pressure layer of air. A tornado is an identifiable thing, but though it has a structure you can see and it can blow a piece of straw through a fence post, all its parts are parts of other things. It has no distinct content. Its behavior is the only thing unique about it, and that behavior is completely determined by its environment.
So is yours. You are merely a relationship between your cultural environment and the genes you inherited from your family. The “I” you think you are is a relationship between those two sets of formative circumstances.
The only thing that is really “you” is how you act, and how you act is almost entirely determined by your instincts and your environment.
In this newspaper are three little stories about how this works with three smaller animals; harvester ants, termites and a rodent called a naked mole rat. You can get an idea how human society is put together if you read about them.
Sorry. I know it’s hard to feel like the most important being in the universe when someone is suggesting you make decisions like a termite, but…well…you do.

Important Truth VI
Your brain is not designed to make you happy.

Have you ever noticed that it is incredibly difficult to get happy and stay that way? We have been evolving for several million years. The amazingly brilliant brains in our skulls make us smart enough to get to the moon and invent cell phones. Since almost all of us want to be happy, you would think natural selection would have done a better job of getting us that way.
The problem is that natural selection doesn’t care if you are happy unless your happiness makes your genes more likely to make it to the next generation.
Genes are very selfish. They have their own agenda, and don’t care a whit about your happiness.
Cognitive psychologist Steven Pinker makes this point as follows: “People don’t selfishly spread their genes; genes selfishly spread themselves. They do it by the way they build our brains. By making us enjoy life, health, sex, friends, and children, the genes buy a lottery ticket for representation in the next generation.”
So you see, your brain isn’t designed to make you happy. It is designed to give you grandchildren, and if they make you happy, that is because your genes want you to throw yourself in front of a lion so they can have grandchildren. After they are born, you are expendable.
The reason for this is perhaps the most important truth of all for human beings.



Important Truth VII
All that really matters is sex.

There are plenty of galactic races that don’t have sex. They reproduce with spores, or through binary fission like a paramecium, or are manufactured in a factory. I met an alien one time that reproduced using a Xerox machine.
There are many different ways to do it. But for human beings, in the long run, sex is all that really matters. Ultimately, every man is a sperm, wiggling his little tail while racing all the other little men up the birth canal for a one-in-a-million chance of getting laid. Every woman is an egg, waiting for first the few suitors to arrive, and then being picky about which one she lets penetrate her cell membrane.
That’s about it. Sex is the point of all human existence.
Money, power, beauty, kindness, love, morality, success and all our cherished ideals and grand dreams are merely various strategies that natural selection has bred into us so we will keep making more babies, and keep helping those babies survive so they can make more babies.

There are currently about 6,451,058,790 human beings on earth. One year ago there were 6,376,863,118.

That’s 74,195,672 more people in a single year.

In 1950, the global population was 2,556,517,137. That’s more than a 250% increase in only 55 years.
At that rate, in 110 years there will be about forty billion of us scurrying around.

You can see why our galactic neighbors are so worried about what will happen if we move into their neighborhoods.

John Thompson's Super Tomahawk

This is the BFR launch from 2003. One week before my first of four deployments to Iraq. The rocket was launched again after returning later in 2003. This could and would not have been accomplished without the help from the DART and San Diego Tripoli group. We had a 16,000 foot waiver for the launch. The rocket reached an altitude of 12,357 feet. It was a picture perfect launch.

Team America Rocketry Challenge 2007

This is someones brief clip from TARC 2007. Looks like it was a good event:-)

Apollo 13 Launch Sequence

I love this part of the movie:-)

My Rocket Project Thanks to the Support of the Club

The BFR
Was a project I had started to piece together in 1996. Thanks to the help of the club members from the San Diego Tripoli group, it was able to come together the weekend before I deployed to OIF I in January of 2003. After returning from the 9th month deployment, the rocket was re-painted and launch again at Plaster Blaster of October 2003. Now after returning from my 4th tour in Iraq, I hope to get involved in the hobby again. I would like to focus on the NAR TARC program as a mentor and to share the educational aspect and the overall enthusiasm of the hobby. The hobby has come a very long way and that is a great thing.

Little Joe II at Plaster Blaster 2006

Another interesting launch at Plaster Blaster 2006

DART/TRASD Vostok Launch Plaster Blaster 4

Another great launch at Plaster Blaster 4.

ART Fatboy at Plaster Blaster 2006

I missed this event due to being deployed. Val, sorry it happened, but I am glad NAR insurance coverage helped out with repairing the damage.

Explosion

even the pros have failures

Downright Ignorant Rocket Launch

This rocket launch is a classic.

Space Sounds

For all Space History enthusiasts, this link is for you:

http://www.spacesounds.com/

This site has the actual recordings from the Mercury missions to Space Shuttle Missions. It is a good site worth listening to.

titan IV Rocket Launch

Very cool video to watch.

Arthur Clarke Cybercast Hal's Birthday

This is a very educational clip that talks a lot about the history of the internet.

Professor Stephen Hawking Takes Zero-Gravity Flight

I am glad that Mr. Hawkings got to experience Zero G.

A Man On The Moon Message from The Author

A Man on the Moon is being re-issued this fall with a new afterword for the
50th anniversary of the space age.

Also, there is currently a book in writing about Mars exploration to be published in the fall of '08 by Abrams; the working title is "A Passion for Mars." And there will be more to come in '09, so stay tuned.
Thanks again.
Andy Chaikin

NASA Space Launch Initiative

This is just one of many school groups that is involved with the NASA Space Launch initiative. Please click on the title above the image to read about the group. It is a good program worth supporting.

Some Good Quotes to share

“Man is an artifact designed for space travel. He is not designed to remain in his present biologic state any more than a tadpole is designed to remain a tadpole.”

William S. Burrows

All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.

Edmund Burke

A Blog Site Worth Checking out

Here is a link to another site worth checking out...
http://feedspace.blogspot.com/

Apollo 11 Moon Landing DVD Extract

Apogee is the place to go for Space history books and video.

Also check out Spacecraft Films as well.

Alien With An Attitude

This was a quick shot taken of a beefed up LOC Minnie Mag on an Aerotech I-284 white lightning reload motor. I love those motors.

Space Political Comics

I thought these were funny space Tid bits that I thought I would pass along, just for a quick smile.

Man's Reach

When Space.com first came into existence, they were selling a great magazine as well. I have the first issues of them. Yes I am a bonified Space Geek and proud of it. Anyway, I found this image on the back of one of their issues and I thought I would share it with other Space Geeks. Space.com is a great web site to add to your favorites.

The NCR Space Shuttle Model Rocket

Astronaut Statistics

Encyclopedia Astronautica is one great place for anything about space related items.

I found this one are about Manned Space missions quite interesting. I though what was particularly interesting is that since the 1960s to now, less than 1,000 people been in space. According to the Stats, the total amount of people in space is 460 according to the US Air Force Stats.

I am a big supporter of space manned and unmanned missions, but I thought that at least more than 1,000 people would have been out in space by now.

Mars by 2040

“The earth is a cradle of the mind, but one cannot live in a cradle forever.”

Konstantin E. Tsiolkovsky,
Father of Russian Astronautics,
1896Rationale for Human Space Flight

Mars by 2040

“Enceladus”, a moon of Saturn by 2070
(I-MAX L-5, 1996)

Exploration of space has always been a dream by humans. Due to the advancement of unmanned technology and mans ability to plan ahead prior to where a spacecraft should be, the dream of human exploration now days is becoming harder to support. If you read about any of the previous manned missions to the moon, nearly all of the missions would have been aborted without the quick action of manned intervention and ingenuity. If the astronauts had left their lives in the hands of the on board computers, Apollo 11 would have been aborted or worse, would have crashed into a boulder.

I was looking at a previous IMAX film the other day titled L-5, A City in Space. There were some interesting points in the film. One, stating that manned exploration of Mars occurred in the year 2040; of course this film was made in 1996, but I think that year is more realistic minus the current political statement by the current president pushing us to Mars at an earlier year. We still need to complete the International Space Station and complete exploration of the moon for materials such as Helium 3, which could be quite profitable amongst other minerals that have been discovered from the manned moon missions. The date of when L-5 is built is still yet to be determined. Prior to the city being built, machine and man would have already explored all of our inner planets.

Mr. Gerard O’Neill (“The High Frontier” 1986), before he passed away was a big advocate for human settlements in outer space. The so-called City in space would be estimated to take approximately 30 years to complete. The space city would be able to hold 10,000 people which would include about 150 acres in order to hold livestock and grow plants, minus cows because they would be to large to handle. Water would be recycled and preserved to the maximum. The city would be placed at an orbit between earth and the moon where very few corrections would be needed in order to keep it in the proper orbit. The city would rotate in order to generate an artificial gravity and there would be a large mirror to help generate electricity for the city.

Of course, there are constant dangers of life support system failures, shortage of water and other supplies and the threats of unknown objects that could cause harm; such has debris or meteors and solar flares or something similar to Shoemaker-Levy 9.

One thought for maintaining a good water supply would be to capture a large comet of ice in order to maintain an abundance of water.

This Fourth of July was quite memorable due to the launch of STS-121. I think the space shuttle should continue to operate well past 2010 (Capitol Hill Hearing Testimony, April 26, 2006). The Crew Exploration Vehicle (CEV) is supposed to be the new thing in order for man to get to the moon. NASA will notify the final company that will be selected to design the CEV in August 2006 (Wikimedia). The first manned mission using the CEV is not scheduled until 2014, so there will be a four-year gap with any spacecraft that can carry more than two people. The Soviets Soyuz capsules will be relied upon during that period.

NASA has a current budget of $16,792 million for FY 2007. This is a 3.2% increase from FY 2006. That does not include the $5,349.8 million for emergency supplemental money for the Hurricane Katrina restoration efforts (Capitol Hill Hearing Testimony, April 26, 2006). That amount of money may sound like a lot, but in reality, it does not go very far. NASA redirected funds from science and exploration budgets in order to get these two main objectives accomplished.

In order for manned missions to go beyond where they currently are, it will require private ventures and the expertise from a wide spectrum. NASA, Russia and the European Space Agency cannot do it alone. June Scobee Rodgers, the widow of Dick Scobee, Commander of the Space Shuttle Challenger recently noted, “Without risk there’s no discovery, there’s no new knowledge, there’s no bold adventure… the greatest risk is to take no risk.” (Capitol Hill Hearing Testimony, April 26, 2006).

References: (IMAX, 1996), L-5 City in Space.Gerard K. O’Neill, “The High Frontier” (1986).

Capitol Hill Hearing Testimony, April 26, 2006.

Wikimedia, Crew Exploration Vehicle Information from Answers_com.htm.

David A. Noever, David D. Smith, Laurent Sibille, Scott C. Brown, Raymond J. Cronise, and Sandor L. Lehoczky, “High Performance Materials Applications to Moon/Mars Missions and Bases”, 1978.

Space Frontier Foundation 2005 Annual Report.

Monty Python - International Philosophy

I Love Monthy Python:-)

PALE BLUE DOT

This is an interesting video. Enjoy

Here is a link to my alternate/earlier Blog site

I had started an ealier blog of a different nature. Since Blogger has switched over, I can't update my olde site. See here is the address: http://what-we-say-and-what-we-hear.blogspot.com/

Enjoy.....

uav's, raytheon, missiles and boeings

Very interesting video

Atlas V - STP-1 Launch

Atlas Launch from Florida on Thursday March 8, 2007

The Space Age 1959 magazine

The Space Age 1959 magazine

RRS Class

In the year 2000, I attend the class. The article here is one that I submitted to Extreme Rocketry, but it was never published. I think it was due to the fact that they were using Apple software and my article was in Microsoft Word.

I was going through my garage in preparation for retirement and moving when I came across the article. I thought I would share it with anyone interested in attending one of their courses. The RRS is a great group of friendly and smart men and women. I enjoyed my time there and I hope that if anyone is interested with making their own stuff, that they attend one of their classes first. It would be very wise to do so first. Safety is paramount with this hobby at all times.

R/S
The Rocketaholic

RRS Class

RRS Motor Class

RRS Motor Class

Images of Systeme Solaire partial Successful liftoff

Systeme Solaire Analysis and feedback

Below are the modifactions to our Systeme Solaire rocket. The rocket did perform marginally. The hardest issues with the design, were leaking and not being able to get the solid igniter grain to light very well without major modifications.

Systeme Solaire Feedback and Analysis

The project was educational to say the least. We did learn ways where the system could be built easier and lighter in weight.

The last two articles by Kevin Funk as The Unstable Rocketeer

Despite is complications, he achieved getting his college degree and excelling beyond what anyone ever thought he could accomplish. He died too early in life unexpectedly, but he lived his life to the fullest.

I was welcomed by him and his family. After I returned last year from my tour in Iraq, I was able to meet his parents and visit with them. I loved him and his family as if they had always been a part of my family.

Kevin will never be forgotten by those who ever met him. He continued to strive and accomplish a lot of things regardless of his handicap. I am sure he is continuing to accomplish many more things where he is now.

All the best Kevin from another die hard Rocketeer:-)

More Unstable Rocketeer articles Tribute

The Unstable Rocketeer

I would like to take a moment to recognize someone dear to me that has made a big impact to the hobby of rocketry. He passed away in late 2004, but he did leave a lasting impression.
His name if Kevin Funk. He was well known for some early 1990 articles in the NAR magazine as The Unstable Rocketeer (1993-1996). I would like to post his articles here as a tribute to him. He had a unique way of looking at the hobby that brings humor to it when needed.

Good memories and early Rocket Hobby Pics

The first set is a collection of photos of my aunt and uncle and two great second cousins from San Antonio Texas. My uncle was a pilot during WW II and is a great person. I grew up with the joy of being taught how to water ski by my uncle up at Lake LBJ outside of Austin Texas.

The next collection of photos are from my early years in the Marine in artillery. We were in South Korea when these photos were taken. When I returned back to the states I went water skiing and then returned back to duty.

I was stationed at Camp Pendleton and got involved with the San Diego Rocket club called DART. They are still going strong in southern California. It is a great educational hobby and learning tool.

Apollo Program

This is a great tribute to the Apollo Program.
Enjoy:-)

Oracle onboard Rocket video clip

Here is a clip of video taken with the Estes Oracle Rocket. It is a good beginner rocket for digital video flight recording.

Over There Theme Song

A Video dedicated to the Men and Women Still Deployed.

For Any Race To The Moon History Buff

"To The Moon" By Michael Kapp (AKA Mickey Kapp) I think is the best historical collection of Audio CDs around. These were originally on LPs when first produced in 1969. Lodestones did a great job by preserving these and offering them to those interested.

What I enjoy about the collection, is that it puts you back during that period. You get to listen to Hermann Oberth, Werner Von Braun, and a large number of well known and influential people that got us off the planet and to the Moon.

Any space historian or enthusiast, I think, will enjoy adding this to their audio collection.

The Rocketaholic

Famous Quotes

"Every vision is a joke, until someone accomplishes it. Once realized, it becomes commonplace" – R. H. Goddard

The Audacity To Dream And The Audacity To Execute

by Michael Potter
Los Angeles CA (SPX) Oct 27, 2006
On Friday morning October 20th, with the 6am morning dawn light, space professionals and enthusiasts streamed into the Las Cruces Airport in New Mexico for the X-Prize Cup events. There was a special spirit in the air, partly because of the festival like atmosphere, but also because many people recognized this to be part of a larger and more important historical event.

Some observers from the old space movement make the error of dismissing these activities as being another example of rocket hobbyists and associated cultists on steroids. These critics will probably charge that this is a waste of money and resources, while being outright goofy and embarrassing.

But the simple message to these folks, is they just do not get it. In the last 20 years where have the legacy space institutions taken humanity? There have been countless cost overruns, and numerous program set-backs, and there has been virtually no inspiration for change from the traditional space sources.

To perhaps over paraphrase, the title of an American politician's new book, the new space movement has "the audacity to dream, and the audacity to execute."

The X-Prize Cup not only brought together the Lunar Lander Challenge, the Vertical Rocket Challenge, the Elevator Competition, but it provided an outstanding venue for space professionals to meet and deal, while ensuring an excellent venue for the general public to learn at first hand the basics of rocketary and the technology for exploring space.

The X-Prize is about creating leverage and generating innovation. The money that the X-prize leverages, for the most part, would not be destined for traditional space activities. These monies are from new and entirely different sources than old space budgets.

The X-Prize Cup is betting that the Rocket Racing League X-Racers will create spin-offs for aerospace in the same way that auto racing has creating innovation and technology advance in automobiles.

To dismiss the X-Prize and the X-prize Cup, not only diminishes the great achievement of Burt Rutan and Space Ship One, but dismisses the grass roots efforts to educate and inspire the next generation, and who have the audacity to dream.

The Space Show is Awesome!

If anyone likes to learn more about the Space industry and its History, then the Space Show is for you.

I have been very fortunate to have a good connection here overseas with the ability to download some of the interviews. When I have some down time, I listen to one of the interviews.

The interviews leave me with a very positive feeling that the continuation for space exploration is not dead, but is thriving. That is a very good thing.

QModeling Rocket Kits are Cool

I just got done completing the paint job and decal placement on my Nike-X kit by Q-Modeling. This is an up scaled kit from what The Estes company used to make. I had the original model back in the 80s and I always like it because it reminded me a lot of the Nike Zeus rocket that was in service back during the Cold War Era. The model came packaged and sealed in great shape. I had just gotten back from my 3rd tour in Iraq, and it was nice to see the package waiting for me when I got back. It took me a while to finish, that was just due to family and work (I am sure that a lot of us older rocket die hards can relate). Anyway, yesterday evening I was finally able to finish the model and put the decals on it this morning. I was stoked when I saw the completed product. Now I just need to get some motors and launch it. I will give a review of its flight profile when that occurs.

Update to the Q-Modeling Rocket kit of the Nike X....

I went out to our local park to launch a few rockets before I had to go back to Iraq for a 4th tour. I had the Nike X prepped with an Estes E-4 motor. But Before I launched it I launched a few smaller Estes Star Wars rockets. I noticed they were catching a good thermal, so I wasn't too sure if the field would be big enough for the Nike X launch.
Thr wind was picking up and it was starting to get dark. So I had to postpone the launch of the Nike-X until I get back from this tour.

1st Flight of the Estes Oracle Digital Video Rocket

To the left, is an image taken from the digital video recorded by the Estes rocket called the Oracle. It went up on an Estes D12-5 and it was a picture perfect flight from lift off to landing. The 30 seconds of video came out really quite clear. I look forward to getting more good videos with the rocket.

If You have the following symptoms, you too may be a Rocket Aholic

You May be a Rocket Aholic if you:

1. Have two of the same rockets, so if one gets damaged, you have spare parts from the second identical kit/model.

2. Have enough rockets to last you for awhile in the garage, but every time you enter a hobby store, another one catches your eye.

3. Every time you go shopping, you always see an object you know could be made into a rocket (Crayola piggy bank, baby bottle piggy bank, inflatable sheep, rubber chicken, etc.).

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If you have any one of these symptoms, you too may be a Rocket aholic. "Never Fear!". Do not be ashamed or embarrassed! RAA has been established to kindle these feelings and thoughts. We are of a different breed! That is a good thing indeed. You probably cringe every time you hear someone say, "It doesn't take a rocket scientist to do this!" you probably want to jump up and say, "Hey fool, I am a rocket scientist and proud of it!"
As I was saying, RAA is a group for you, not against you. e-mail me here with your story, and I will glady post it here for all to read and empathize along with you. If you have created some cool designs, please let me know and we can post them as well.

Happy Smoke trails and safe recovery:-)

Almost home and looking forward to some more rocket projects

I cannot wait to get back to the states and try out the Oracle digital camera Rocket by Estes. I got to play around with the software and it looks promising. I have not launched it yet though. Has anyone else launched the tocket yet? If so please give me some feedback as to the quality of the video and if the thing is able to take hard landings and still work.

model magazines

http://www.ninfinger.org/~sven/rockets/ModelRocketry/ModelRocketry.html

The above link is a great resource from magazines of the golden days of rocketry. It is well worth looking at.

JET

Edward N. Hall, 91; Rocket Pioneer Seen as the Father of Minuteman ICBM

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Edward N. Hall, 91; Rocket Pioneer Seen as the Father of Minuteman ICBM
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By Thomas H. Maugh II
Times Staff Writer

January 18, 2006

Col. Edward N. Hall, the U.S. Air Force's foremost rocket expert who is widely considered the father of the Minuteman intercontinental ballistic missile program that is the core of this country's missile defense, died Sunday at Torrance Memorial Medical Center.

He was 91 and had been bedridden at his home in Rolling Hills Estates for 1 1/2 years with a broken hip and other ailments.

The solid-fuel rocket technology that he helped develop was subsequently used in most other U.S. missiles, including the Polaris, the Titan III and IV and the boosters on the space shuttle.

Early U.S. rockets were liquid fueled, typically operating on a mixture of liquid oxygen and alcohol or kerosene. But these compounds were sufficiently unstable that the rockets could not be kept fueled and ready for launch.

Instead, the fuels had to be pumped in before launch through a complicated system of pipes, a slow and sometimes dangerous process that required a high level of skill.

A solid-fuel rocket, in contrast, could be kept safely fueled and ready for launch at a moment's notice. But early solid fuels did not generate enough power to lift a rocket into space, they had a disturbing tendency to burn through the sides of the rocket casing, and they could not be shut down once ignited.

Working with engineers at companies such as Thiokol and Boeing, Hall was able to overcome these problems.

To increase thrust, the team began using a mixture of ammonium perchlorate, which provided oxygen for the rocket's internal fire, and aluminum, which served as a fuel. The two were mixed and encased in a rubber-like polymer that also burned upon ignition.

To provide even thrust without damaging the rocket, the team built upon a technique developed in a small British laboratory. Instead of having the fuel burn at one end, as early rockets had, they cast a star-shaped opening all the way through the solid fuel, allowing the propellant to burn from the inside out.

In this fashion, the propellant had a constant surface size, which provided even power output throughout the burn, and the remaining propellant also served to insulate the sides of the craft from the intense heat generated by the motor.

They even developed a way to shut the rocket down, a feat that many engineers had not believed possible, but one that was necessary for an ICBM to be able to hit its target accurately. To achieve this, they installed precision shutdown ports on the rocket chamber that, when opened in flight, reduced the chamber pressure so abruptly that the propellant was snuffed out.

The first 10 Minuteman ICBMs using this technology were installed in underground launching silos in October 1962, during the Cuban missile crisis.

Eventually, more than 1,000 were installed in silos throughout the country, but disarmament agreements have scaled the number back to 500.

Each of the third-generation Minutemen now in place, however, carries three independently targeted warheads, in effect making them three ICBMs in one.

Although Hall was not directly involved, the same technology was used in the U.S. Navy's Polaris missile, which could be launched from a submarine, and the Titan III and IV rockets, which served not only as ICBMs, but also as launch vehicles for the Gemini astronauts.

Edward Nathaniel Hall was born in New York City on Aug. 4, 1914, as World War I broke out. He was the son of a furrier who went broke in the Depression, but he was able to gain admission to the elite Townsend Harris Hall school through a competitive examination.

Hall studied chemical engineering at City College of New York, but couldn't find a job after graduation because of the economy, so he enlisted in the U.S. Army Air Forces. After the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, he was commissioned a second lieutenant and sent to Britain, where he supervised the repair and maintenance of B-17 bombers.

In 1943, he received the Legion of Merit for devising a rapid method for repairing serious fuselage damage caused by anti-aircraft fire and enemy fighters.

He developed an interest in rocketry when he was sent to the captured V-2 factory near Nordhausen in north central Germany when the Nazis surrendered in May 1945. There he oversaw the division of spoils between the U.S. and England.

He was subsequently assigned to Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton, Ohio, where he was soon building bigger and better liquid-fueled engines. By 1954, he had constructed one with a thrust of 135,000 pounds, more than double the 56,000 pounds of thrust produced by the German V-2.

His work was crucial in the development of the Bomarc, Navajo, Snark, Rascal and Falcon missiles, as well as the Atlas and Titan I ICBMs.

But he ultimately recognized the futility of trying to build bigger and better liquid-fueled engines and switched to work on solid fuels in 1957. That work led to a second Legion of Merit in 1960.

After he left the Air Force in 1959, he spent 14 years as an engineer at United Aircraft Corp. before retiring and beginning a number of consultations with other companies.

In 1999, he was given the Air Force Space and Missile Pioneers Award and made a member of the Hall of Fame at the U.S. Air Force Space Command at Peterson Air Force Base in Colorado.

He is survived by his wife of 62 years, Edith Shawcross Hall; a daughter, Sheila Hall, of Calabasas; and two sons, David of La Crescenta and Jonathan of Kendall Park, N.J.

Copyright (c) 2006, The Los Angeles Times

Visit OrlandoSentinel.com

A good place to learn about HAM radios

https://www.arrl.org/forms/cce/reg.html?co_num=EC-010

I think Apogee is one of the best companies around when it comes to educational products and software. Practically everyone I know in the hobby has used RockSim software. I have used it along with some of their publications. Please check out their site by clicking on the image.

A Good Model Rocket History link

I am a bonified Rocket nut. No if's, and's, or but's about it. I like model rocketry and I enjoy High Powered rocketry. But safety is always paramount of course.
I was searching the web and trying to find something that had history of the hobby and I hit pay dirt. Here it is..
I also found a great site in the works that offers images of the rocket motors that used to be in circulation during the early years of the hobby. I wish the Siler Streaks were back. Here is the site...

I have discovered a lot of good web sites that I like to share with others or famous quotes.

I like this quote:

"Don't tell me Man doesn't belong out there. Man goes wherever he wants to go.'
--Wernher Von Braun

Nowhere To Hide

Please Read Nowhere To Hide

This is an article about a Marine Corps squadron that is dedicated to their job and realize the importance of what they are doing in regards to the big picture. This is just one of many units involved in OIF and I think it is really impressive.

Some Previous Images of my first Big Rocket project in 2000

This was one of my very first big rocket projects. I had made three attempts before finally getting the Phoenix to go up picture perfect twice. The previous three failures were due to the motor and not the rocket itself. I had tested the first flight with an Aerotech L-952 and its own delay. The motor fired its ejection charge prematurley and shredded the front portion of the rocket. This occurred in 1997 outside of Las Vegas at Springfest. Two more attempts encountered similar incidents, but were not as dramatic as the one in 1997. The first successful flight, was for my level 3 certification flight in 1999, and then second for the Rock Stoc X M drag race. Here is another link that goes into the details of the EVENT.



John Eric Thompson & his 1/2 scale Phoenix
"I have been in the hobby ever since 1972. I Love this stuff".
John's Phoenix will be flying either on an M1419, or an M2400T.
The Phoenix is:
8 inches Diameter:
height: 100 inches
weight: 51 lbs.
expected altitude: 5,280 feet on M1419
This rocket features Blacksky Altacc avionics with a Pyro II release mechanism for drogue to main deployment.


LIFTOFF! The smoke trail to the right is actually from two rockets - John Coker's OTRAG and Kurt Gugisberg's Big Purple left in a dead heat, with John Thompson's Phoenix in hot pursuit with an Aerotech M 1419.

A nice Photo to share

This is a photo of my rocket I had build and launched in 2004. It is a model of the Jupiter C rocket that launched Americas very first satellite in the late 1950s. This particula kit is made by the TMRK company. TMRK stands for True Model Rocket Kits. This model is really a joy to build. I launched this model just prior to my second deployement to Iraq. My son and I had a nice launch at the Lucerne Dry lake bed. The Southern California Rocket Association sponsored the day launch. It was a nice group of people and I look forward to attending another launch after the tour (the 3rd) is over with.

So Far, Today went great!

The voting process here in Iraq went very well. We were all on our toes expecting mayhem, but it never really happened. That was great. I hope that this is a sign of better things to come for the people of Iraq. I see children over here a lot. It reminds of our families back home. We all cannot wait to return, but we all have a job to do and everyone here is doing what they can. Some have made the ultimate sacrifice, and those of us who are fortunate enough to return, will never forget.

Tomorrow is another day, so we will prepare for the next day like we always do. Looking forward to better days ahead for everyone.

HAPPY HOLIDAY'S EVERYONE

I just want to wish everyone a very safe and happy holiday season. I hope that next year will be a good one for everyone. This year has really been a traumatic year. It has also brought a lot of people closer together. Mother Nature has proven again that she is in charge and that we should always be aware and prepared for the unexpected.

Another Link that Talks about this Country Iraq

Yes I am over here deployed and proud to serve. This is my third tour. I found another Link that can talk about what is going on over here probably more freely than I can. He has an updated link here and an earlier link here: Michael Yon

The site is up front, close and personal. I must warn, that some of the things on the site can really pull at your heart and soul.

We are continuing daily with the commitment and determination to keep the peace and to protect the innocent.

NASA has got the Stuff

NASA has a really cool and educational web site for all of you rocket enthusiast.

Here is their Link: ROCKET INDEX

Cool Links of Interest

Four cool sites that You may find of interest

LEVEL 3 Rocketry

What's Up Hobbies

Level 3 Rocketry Forum

More Pics from Plaster Blaster


And


The UAV Forum.


Things here are going fine. Looking for trouble in all the right Places:-)

Please read this link when you get a chance

There is a reporter in Iraq that gives a really good unbiased view of Iraq and what is going on here. Please read it and bookmark it for future reference. Here is the link: http://moab-iraq.blogspot.com/

I am not as good of a story teller as this reporter is, and she has gone places that I would'nt travel and probably wouldn't have the privelage as a military member. But anyway. I think this lady is great at what she is doing over here.

Jay Leno Support for Our Squadron

Jay Leno showed support for us over here. I got this photo sent to us from my wife back in the states. It is a good morale boost whenever we get support from back home.

Some cool pics of the Scan Eagle

The Scan Eagle is really cool. Definitely worth having over here in the far off land.
Things over here are moving along. Continuing to provide support overhead for the troops on the ground. It is tedious work, but definitely worth it.

The Marines Using Scan Eagle

The Marine Corps is utilizing the Scan Eagle UAV as another tool to support the Marines on the Ground. There are a few Dets out in Iraq that are flying missions Non-Stop.

Here is some PR info about the UAV:
November 2004

The Scan Eagle long endurance UAV recently completed what is believed to be the longest flight by a UAV that was launched and retrieved at sea. The 16-hour flight began with the bird effecting an autonomous take-off from a wedge-shaped catapult launcher. The UAV flew for 16 hours and 45 minutes over Puget Sound, Washington doing area surveillance of sea conditions and shipping activity. The 1.2- meter long Scan Eagle, a product from Boeing and the Insitu Group, has a three-metre wingspan and can remain on station for more than 15 hours, with a 30-hour on-station time planned for future versions.

More Photos of the BFR to share

Here are some more photos from Ray Dunakins site that I would like to share with others. They are really cool.



Jimmy Philips is climbing up the launch tower in order to arm the elctronics prior to launch. There was an altimiter, a timer for the outboard motors to light mid-air, and an R/C system as a back up in case anything failed.



This shot is at liftoff with just the main 98mm reload motor. the outboards light four seconds later.



The last photo I think is one of the coolest. The big rocket was still hauling mass when Rays rocket with the camera reached apogee. It was a real lucky image since some rockets have a tendency to spin while in flight.

The last bits of Foxtrot.

Below are the last of the Foxtrot clips that I have saved for nostalgia.

Sounds like military ops

Foxtrot must have good military training at a young age.



Good experience with scientific research and development.


And a very creative competetive spirit.

The things I like about Foxtrot Rocketry clips

Foxtrots comic strip about rocketry has similarities about what I used to do as a kid with my first bunch of model rockets, and with my sisters Barbie dolls.
I grew up in a residential area that was, and is still called Bay Colony in Shore Acres Texas. There was one main road that had a loop at the end. There were about 8 or 9 streets. Each street had a dead end. The streets were named after fish. Our street was called Tarpon lane.
Anyway, we had a rocket club called The Bay Colony Rocket Organization. Across from Tarpon Lane, we could go over and launch rockets in the open field. The field is no longer there. There are about nine houses and a condo resort on that lot now.

We had a president, a vice president, a treasurer (that was me), and someone who would record the minutes from the meetings when we had them. We would sell things to raise money for club functions. Items like Gold C coupon books and club T-shirts.
The main town that we lived by, was La Porte. It isn't far from the Johnson Space Center in Clearlake. We would go on outings over to the NASA Space Center and attend and fly our rockets with the NASA/Houston club NAR# 365. Our club was young and we didn't know anything about NAR back then. we were just a bunch of space enthusiasts.

Foxtrot Humor:-)

My interest is still rocketry and space history

My interest by far will always be rocketry. I love R/C planes as well, but rocketry and space have always been my interest. I got my first model rocket when I was in second grade in 1973. I also witnessed the Apollo 16 and Apollo 17 launches in person. Of course being that young, all I rembered was the ground rumbeling and the noise. In 1993 I had the chance to see a Space Shuttle launch in person as well. The space shuttle gets off of the pad a lot quicker that the Saturn V that is for sure.

One weekend before I had to go to Iraq in 2003, I was finally able to get my big rocket project off of the ground. The rocket was 23 feet tall and 12 inches in diameter. This type of rocket is not abnormal for us rocket types. There are two well known organizations in the US. One is NAR and the other is Tripoli. Of course I could not have done it without the help of the San Diego rocket club members of DART and the Ocotillo/Plaster City HPR group. Things were getting down to the wire with deployment issues, and other things. A club member volunteered to transport the big rocket to the launch site for me. Val Derkach helped me store the beast in his garage for the assembly part. The paint job wasn't great, but time was short, so we let the boys have fun with a box of spray paint and let them go at it.

The motors were reloadable motors, similar to the SRB concept with the Space Shuttle. The center motor was a 98mm reload. The outboard motors consisted of two 54mm reloadable and four 38mm reloadable motors. They were hooked up to a timer that would start after initial lift off from the center motor. Four seconds after lift off, the outboards would light.
The rocket was also equipped with an altimeter that would record the flight data, deploy a drogue parachute 250 feet below apogee, and then deploy a 28 foot man rated parachute 800 feet above ground level. There was also a dual action remote control deployment system as a back up. This way if anything went wrong, I could remotely deploy the parachutes for a safe recovery.
Well the launch was picture perfect. The main motor lit, the rocket went up and cleared the pad, four seconds later the outboards lit and it was hauling mass.
We had an FAA waiver for 16,000 feet. The rocket achieved an altitude of 12,357 feet. So we were good to go.
Next to the rocket on the ground prior to launch, was another unique rocket. Ray Dunakin a populer and interesting man, has a unique talent with aerial rocket video and photography. he set a rocket of his next my big rocket. He launched his rocket just one second before mine in order to get some aerial shots of the big rocket lifting off. He got two cool images. One with the signature(meaning the blast off from overhead) and then one of a side shot when the big rocket passed his rocket.

The rockets recovery system worked as planned. There was not any wind that day, so the rocket landed upright on its fins.

It was a picture perfect day. It was also kind of ominous, since I was heading to Iraq the very next weekend.

Well after Nine Months in Iraq, I returned unharmed. We were fortunate for that. In October of that same year we launched the rocket again. This time the rocket we re-painted white with purple trim. It was launched on a cluster of eleven 38 mm reloadable motors. It got off the ground and maybe achieved about 2,000 feet if that. The recovery worked, but the landing was a little hard. After that launch, I glady donated the rocket to a high school group at the launch event. I was very happy with the success of the rocket. Now I can say that I did launch a big rocket. But I would never have been able to do it alone. The are a lot of great people in the club there in San Diego. The people I remember are the following. Please forgive me if I missed a name, because there are a lot. I can remember a face quicker than names some times.
Andy, Jaonna and Alex Woerner, Val and Kathy Derkach,Kevin Harness, Jimmy Phillips, Bill Bowman, Jim Neubauer, Jim Malone, Phil Vanderschaegen, and the rest of the club members.

So Far So Good.

So far the tour here in Iraq is moving along at a steady pace. We have had a little excitement. I can say excitement because no one got injured. Getting to this place was something. We got on board a C-130 in Kuwait, and flew on it in the middle of the day. The hottest time of the day. Also in a C-130, there isn't any A/C. it is just central air, half of that is from the Marine next to you that is breathing on you.
If I Die and wake up in that plane under the same conditions, then I know that I would be in Hell:-)
I probably lost 5 pounds in sweat alone from that flight.
We made it though and we are conducting business as usual.

Doing a Fourth Tour in Iraq now, Found a good site that may be of interest to others

I am in Iraq doing my duty. This is my Fourth and hoprfully final Tour. I work with a great squadron called VMU-1.
While here, I have been reading another BLOG site, that is very compelling and a good read. You may like it yourself.
We are here in Iraq for a little over six months. We did a change over with our sister squadron VMU-2. They are on the east coast of the United States.

The squadrons are the Marine Corps only UAV squadrons. UAV meaning Unmanned Aerial Vehicles. They are primarily used for Reconnaissance Surveillance and Targeting Acquisitioning, or RSTA for short. They are also used to adjust for artillery on the enemy. There is some rocketry when it comes to deploying the Pioneer UAV plane. It can be launch one of three ways. A rolling take, catapault launch from the back of a truck trailer, or rocket assisted which is the coolest way to launch them. It does not require much area to launch them with a rocket motor.

There is a web site that may be interesting that talks about all sorts of UAVs. It is the AUVSI site.

Rocket Aholics Anonymous

My site is mainly focused on Space Interests, meaning anything from Space History, Human and mechanical. I am a real model and High Powered Rocket enthusiast. I also love music and other interests. I grew up near the Johnson Space Center and the interest in Space has stayed with me ever since. I have been in the military since 1987 and retirement is almost here.
Anyone interested in Rocketry should check out the National Association of Rocketry site.
Also if you are into History of Space and Human exploration a good magazine to subscribe to is Quest that is published by the University of South Dakota. Their site is at: http://www.spacebusiness.com/quest/ they have an awesome link that talks about the history of space exploration. Make sure to check this out: http://www.spacebusiness.com/quest/links.htm The future of aerospace rests on us, the present generation and the generation that is coming up now. The twelve astronauts that landed on the moon are passing away soon. I am sure that Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, Pete Conrad (deceased), Alan Bean, Alan Shepard (deceased), Jim Irwin, Dave Scott, John W. Young, Stuart Roosa (deceased), Charlie Duke, Ken Mattingly, Harrison H. Schmitt and Eugene Cernan all thought that they would see others follow in their footsteps on the moon and beyond. I know that it will happen. Not as soon I would like, but soon enough those dreams will become a reality. There is a site that is dedicated to the Astronauts that have lost their lives and is a great site to pay homage.