Amateur rocketry
Encyclopedia
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Rocket
A rocket is a missile, spacecraft, aircraft or other vehicle which obtains thrust from a rocket engine. In all rockets, the exhaust is formed entirely from propellants carried within the rocket before use. Rocket engines work by action and reaction...
motors, launching a wide variety of types and sizes of rockets. Amateur rocketeers have been responsible for significant research into hybrid rocket
Hybrid rocket
A hybrid rocket is a rocket with a rocket motor which uses propellants in two different states of matter - one solid and the other either gas or liquid. The Hybrid rocket concept can be traced back at least 75 years....
motors, and have built and flown a variety of solid, liquid, and hybrid propellant motors.
History
Amateur rocketry was an especially popular hobby in the late 1950s and early 1960s following the launch of Sputnik, as described in Homer HickamHomer Hickam
Homer Hadley Hickam, Jr. is an American author, Vietnam veteran, and a former NASA engineer. His autobiographical novel Rocket Boys: A Memoir, was a #1 New York Times Best Seller, is studied in many American and international school systems, and was the basis for the popular film October Sky...
's memoir
Memoir
A memoir , is a literary genre, forming a subclass of autobiography – although the terms 'memoir' and 'autobiography' are almost interchangeable. Memoir is autobiographical writing, but not all autobiographical writing follows the criteria for memoir set out below...
Rocket Boys
Rocket Boys
Rocket Boys is the first memoir in a series of three, by Homer Hickam, Jr. It is a story of growing up in a mining town, and a boy's pursuit of amateur rocketry in a coal mining town. It won the in 1998, the year of its release. Today, it is one of the most often picked community/library reads in...
.
In the summer of 1956, 17-year-old Jimmy Blackmon of Charlotte, North Carolina built a 6-foot rocket in his basement. The rocket was designed to be powered by combined liquid nitrogen, gasoline, and liquid oxygen. On learning that Blackmon wanted to launch his rocket from a nearby farm, the Civil Aeronautics Administration notified the U.S. Army. Blackmon's rocket was examined at Redstone Arsenal
Redstone Arsenal
Redstone Arsenal is a United States Army base and a census-designated place adjacent to Huntsville in Madison County, Alabama, United States and is part of the Huntsville-Decatur Combined Statistical Area...
and eventually grounded on the basis that some of the material he had used was too weak to control the flow and mixing of the fuel.
Interest in the rocketry hobby was spurred to a great extent by the publication of a June, 1957 Scientific American
Scientific American
Scientific American is a popular science magazine. It is notable for its long history of presenting science monthly to an educated but not necessarily scientific public, through its careful attention to the clarity of its text as well as the quality of its specially commissioned color graphics...
article that described the design, propellant formulations, and launching techniques utilized by typical amateur rocketry groups of the time (including the Reaction Research Society
Reaction Research Society
The Reaction Research Society is the oldest continuously operating amateur experimental rocket group in the United States. Founded by George James on 6 January 1943, originally as the Southern California Rocket Society, the organization's name was changed to the Glendale Rocket Society two months...
of California). The subsequent publication, in 1960, of a book entitled Rocket Manual for Amateurs by Bertrand R. Brinley
Bertrand R. Brinley
Bertrand R. Brinley was an American writer of short stories and children's tales. He was best known for his Mad Scientists' Club stories....
provided even more detailed information regarding the hobby, and further contributed to its burgeoning popularity.
At this time, amateur rockets nearly always employed either black powder, zinc-sulfur (also called "micrograin"), or rocket candy
Rocket candy
Rocket candy is a type of rocket propellant for model rockets made with sugar as a fuel, and containing an oxidizer. The propellant can be divided into three groups of components: the fuel, the oxidizer, and the additive. The fuel is a sugar; sucrose is the most commonly used. The most common...
(often referred to as "caramel candy") propellant mixtures. However, such amateur rockets can be dangerous because noncommercial rocket motors may fail more often than commercial rocket motors if not correctly engineered. An appalling accident rate led individuals such as G. Harry Stine
G. Harry Stine
George Harry Stine was one of the founding figures of model rocketry, a science and technology writer, and a science fiction author.-Education and early career:...
and Vernon Estes
Vernon Estes
Vernon Estes , born January 4, 1930, is the founder and namesake of Estes Industries, the highly-recognized model rocket production company, headquartered in Penrose, Colorado....
to make model rocket
Model rocket
A model rocket is a small rocket that is commonly advertised as being able to be launched by anybody, to, in general, low altitudes and recovered by a variety of means....
ry a safe and widespread hobby by developing and publishing the National Association of Rocketry
National Association of Rocketry
The National Association of Rocketry is the governing body for the sport/hobby of model rocketry in the United States. It was established in 1957 by Orville Carlisle and G. Harry Stine and is currently headed by Trip Barber. It is the oldest and largest model rocketry governing body in the...
Model Rocket Safety Code, and by commercially producing safe, professionally-designed and -manufactured model rocket motors. Model rocketry by definition then became a separate and distinct activity from amateur rocketry.
As knowledge of modern advances in composite and liquid propellants became more available to the public, it became possible to develop amateur motors with greater safety. Hobbyists were no longer dependent on dangerous packed-powder mixtures that could be delicate and unpredictable in handling and performance.
The Reaction Research Society
Reaction Research Society
The Reaction Research Society is the oldest continuously operating amateur experimental rocket group in the United States. Founded by George James on 6 January 1943, originally as the Southern California Rocket Society, the organization's name was changed to the Glendale Rocket Society two months...
conducts complex amateur rocket projects, utilizing solid, liquid, and hybrid propellant technologies. The Tripoli Rocketry Association
Tripoli Rocketry Association
The Tripoli Rocketry Association is one of the two major organizing bodies for high power rocketry in the United States. It was founded in 1964 in the Pittsburgh, PA region as a high school science club, integrating both rocketry and space science...
sanctions some amateur activities, which they call "research rocketry," provided certain safety guidelines are followed, and provided the motors are of relatively standard design.
Notable events
Civilian Space eXploration Team
The Civilian Space eXploration Team, known as CSXT, is a team of around 30 civilians interested in private spaceflight. The team was created by Ky Michaelson. It has conducted multiple rocket launches in an attempt to establish altitude records...
(CSXT) successfully achieved the first officially verified flight of an amateur high-power rocket into space, achieving an altitude of 72 miles (115 km).
Prior to that, the Reaction Research Society
Reaction Research Society
The Reaction Research Society is the oldest continuously operating amateur experimental rocket group in the United States. Founded by George James on 6 January 1943, originally as the Southern California Rocket Society, the organization's name was changed to the Glendale Rocket Society two months...
on November 23, 1996 launched a solid-fuel rocket, designed by longtime member George Garboden, to an altitude of 50 miles (80 km) from the Black Rock Desert
Black Rock Desert
The Black Rock Desert is an arid region in the northern Nevada section of the Great Basin with a lakebed that is a dry remnant of Pleistocene Lake Lahontan...
in Nevada.
During Series 9, Episode 4 of the BBC's Top Gear, presenters Richard Hammond and James May were given 12 days to convert a Reliant Robin into a re-usable space shuttle. The shuttle used 6 x 40960 NS O hybrid motors for a maximum thrust of 8 metric tons, making it the most powerful non-governmental rocket launch in Europe. Unfortunately, the explosive bolts holding the Robin to the external tank failed causing them to crash into a nearby hill.
See also
- Amateur rocket motor classificationAmateur rocket motor classificationMotors for model rockets, high powered rockets, and amateur rockets are classified by total impulse into a set of letter-designated ranges, from A , up to O as the largest...
- Civilian Space eXploration TeamCivilian Space eXploration TeamThe Civilian Space eXploration Team, known as CSXT, is a team of around 30 civilians interested in private spaceflight. The team was created by Ky Michaelson. It has conducted multiple rocket launches in an attempt to establish altitude records...
- High-power rocket
- Model rocketModel rocketA model rocket is a small rocket that is commonly advertised as being able to be launched by anybody, to, in general, low altitudes and recovered by a variety of means....
- Portland State Aerospace SocietyPortland State Aerospace SocietyThe Portland State Aerospace Society , founded in 1997, is a student group at Portland State University building high powered rockets with the vision of putting nanosatellites into Earth orbit. Pursuing this vision has led to building advanced avionics, adaptable airframes, and high energy rocket...
- Reaction Research SocietyReaction Research SocietyThe Reaction Research Society is the oldest continuously operating amateur experimental rocket group in the United States. Founded by George James on 6 January 1943, originally as the Southern California Rocket Society, the organization's name was changed to the Glendale Rocket Society two months...
- Rocket FestivalRocket FestivalA Rocket Festival is a merit-making ceremony traditionally practiced by Ethnic Lao people throughout much of northeast Thailand and Laos, by numerous villages and municipalities near the beginning of the rainy season...
- Space Frontier FoundationSpace Frontier FoundationThe Space Frontier Foundation is a space advocacy nonprofit corporation organized to promote the interests of increased involvement of the private sector, in collaboration with government, in the exploration and development of space...
- ThermaliteThermaliteThermalite a specific type of fuse used in pyrotechnic applications.This fuse is used in high-power model rocketry as a means of simultaneously igniting multiple "clustered" rocket motors...