JATO Rocket Car
Encyclopedia
The account of the JATO
Rocket Car was one of the original Darwin Awards
winners: a man who supposedly met his death in a spectacular manner after mounting a rocket engine
on a common automobile
. It was originally circulated as a forwarded email
.
In 1996, after numerous inquires, the Arizona Department of Public Safety issued a news release posted on their website concerning the story. It termed the story "an Arizona myth."
The story was also debunked in 2003 on the pilot episode of the Discovery Channel
show MythBusters
, titled "Jet Assisted Chevy, Pop Rocks and Soda". They replicated the scene and the thrust of the JATO with several commercially-available amateur rocket motors. The car did not go anywhere near the 300 mph (500 km/h) reported in the original story, and failed to become airborne.
repostings:
. When this urban legend was debunked, it was specifically pointed out that the mentioned Darwin Awards were fictitious. It contained a reference to the 1985 mention of a Vending Machine Tipover Darwin Award.
It was Paul Vixie
who wrote this introduction to the JATO urban legend that first included the term "Darwin Award". Vixie credits Charles Haynes with making the (informal) Darwin Award Nomination, but it was Vixie's specific wording, with the first sentence crediting Haynes stripped off, that was actually circulated and actually referred to the Darwin Awards as if they actually existed and were common knowledge, though the message wasn't widely circulated until it was reformatted.
It remained fairly dormant until 1995, when the message surfaced again in rec.pyrotechnics with the email header stripped off the introduction, though the main story is still indented. Three days later the introduction is fully integrated into the story and it appeared on rec.humor in a form that made it a truly infectious meme
.
Shortly after it was reposted in 1995 it quickly began to spread, being posted on Usenet 24 times within the next month. In 1996 the legend was further embellished with references to the year of manufacture of the car and G-Forces and to the form which was widely circulated via email (55% of all postings on usenet which included "JATO Rocket Darwin Award impala" also included "g-forces").
Cult of the Dead Cow
, a hacker group and ezine, published an extensive elaboration in 1998 that claims to explain how the story came into being, describing in a detailed and plausible manner the most common details of the Rocket Car legend. Four males under 25 engaged in scouting, welding, drinking, and Rube Goldberg
engineering to build a rocket rail car after they happened upon JATOs in a junk pile. Supposed author "CarInTheCliff" also describes the car's only test plus the elements he has added while discouraging repeats by example. In this account it is also claimed the story has been around long before 1990.
The Darwin Awards meme was also spread by Wendy Northcutt
, who collected the Darwin Awards on a public website in 1993, and circulated new stories in a regular newsletter.
JATO
JATO is an acronym for jet-fuel assisted take off. It is a system for helping overloaded aircraft into the air by providing additional thrust in the form of small rockets....
Rocket Car was one of the original Darwin Awards
Darwin Awards
The Darwin Awards are a tongue-in-cheek honor, created by Wendy Northcutt to recognize individuals who contribute to human evolution by self-selecting themselves out of the gene pool through putting themselves in life-threatening situations...
winners: a man who supposedly met his death in a spectacular manner after mounting a rocket engine
Rocket engine
A rocket engine, or simply "rocket", is a jet engineRocket Propulsion Elements; 7th edition- chapter 1 that uses only propellant mass for forming its high speed propulsive jet. Rocket engines are reaction engines and obtain thrust in accordance with Newton's third law...
on a common automobile
Automobile
An automobile, autocar, motor car or car is a wheeled motor vehicle used for transporting passengers, which also carries its own engine or motor...
. It was originally circulated as a forwarded email
Email
Electronic mail, commonly known as email or e-mail, is a method of exchanging digital messages from an author to one or more recipients. Modern email operates across the Internet or other computer networks. Some early email systems required that the author and the recipient both be online at the...
.
In 1996, after numerous inquires, the Arizona Department of Public Safety issued a news release posted on their website concerning the story. It termed the story "an Arizona myth."
The story was also debunked in 2003 on the pilot episode of the Discovery Channel
Discovery Channel
Discovery Channel is an American satellite and cable specialty channel , founded by John Hendricks and distributed by Discovery Communications. It is a publicly traded company run by CEO David Zaslav...
show MythBusters
MythBusters
MythBusters is a science entertainment TV program created and produced by Beyond Television Productions for the Discovery Channel. The series is screened by numerous international broadcasters, including Discovery Channel Australia, Discovery Channel Latin America, Discovery Channel Canada, Quest...
, titled "Jet Assisted Chevy, Pop Rocks and Soda". They replicated the scene and the thrust of the JATO with several commercially-available amateur rocket motors. The car did not go anywhere near the 300 mph (500 km/h) reported in the original story, and failed to become airborne.
Jet Assisted Take-Off
This is the text as it appears, possibly most frequently, in usenetUsenet
Usenet is a worldwide distributed Internet discussion system. It developed from the general purpose UUCP architecture of the same name.Duke University graduate students Tom Truscott and Jim Ellis conceived the idea in 1979 and it was established in 1980...
repostings:
History
The original Darwin Awards were fictitious. Both were contained in a 1990 Version posted to rec.motorcycles of the JATO Rocket Car urban legendUrban legend
An urban legend, urban myth, urban tale, or contemporary legend, is a form of modern folklore consisting of stories that may or may not have been believed by their tellers to be true...
. When this urban legend was debunked, it was specifically pointed out that the mentioned Darwin Awards were fictitious. It contained a reference to the 1985 mention of a Vending Machine Tipover Darwin Award.
It was Paul Vixie
Paul Vixie
Paul Vixie is an American Internet pioneer, the author of several RFCs and well-known Unix software.Vixie attended George Washington High School in San Francisco, California. He received a Ph.D in computer science from Keio University in 2011....
who wrote this introduction to the JATO urban legend that first included the term "Darwin Award". Vixie credits Charles Haynes with making the (informal) Darwin Award Nomination, but it was Vixie's specific wording, with the first sentence crediting Haynes stripped off, that was actually circulated and actually referred to the Darwin Awards as if they actually existed and were common knowledge, though the message wasn't widely circulated until it was reformatted.
It remained fairly dormant until 1995, when the message surfaced again in rec.pyrotechnics with the email header stripped off the introduction, though the main story is still indented. Three days later the introduction is fully integrated into the story and it appeared on rec.humor in a form that made it a truly infectious meme
Meme
A meme is "an idea, behaviour or style that spreads from person to person within a culture."A meme acts as a unit for carrying cultural ideas, symbols or practices, which can be transmitted from one mind to another through writing, speech, gestures, rituals or other imitable phenomena...
.
Shortly after it was reposted in 1995 it quickly began to spread, being posted on Usenet 24 times within the next month. In 1996 the legend was further embellished with references to the year of manufacture of the car and G-Forces and to the form which was widely circulated via email (55% of all postings on usenet which included "JATO Rocket Darwin Award impala" also included "g-forces").
Cult of the Dead Cow
Cult of the Dead Cow
Cult of the Dead Cow, also known as cDc or cDc Communications, is a computer hacker and DIY media organization founded in 1984 in Lubbock, Texas. The group maintains a weblog on its site, also titled "Cult of the Dead Cow"...
, a hacker group and ezine, published an extensive elaboration in 1998 that claims to explain how the story came into being, describing in a detailed and plausible manner the most common details of the Rocket Car legend. Four males under 25 engaged in scouting, welding, drinking, and Rube Goldberg
Rube Goldberg
Reuben Garrett Lucius Goldberg was an American cartoonist, sculptor, author, engineer and inventor.He is best known for a series of popular cartoons depicting complex gadgets that perform simple tasks in indirect, convoluted ways. These devices, now known as Rube Goldberg machines, are similar to...
engineering to build a rocket rail car after they happened upon JATOs in a junk pile. Supposed author "CarInTheCliff" also describes the car's only test plus the elements he has added while discouraging repeats by example. In this account it is also claimed the story has been around long before 1990.
The Darwin Awards meme was also spread by Wendy Northcutt
Wendy Northcutt
Wendy Northcutt is an author of a series of books on the Darwin Awards and the creator of the DarwinAwards.com website.-Education:...
, who collected the Darwin Awards on a public website in 1993, and circulated new stories in a regular newsletter.
External links
- Possibly the true story by those who started it (The original link, http://www.rocketcar.com, is 404, the domain expired and has been taken over, and the site is blocked from the Internet Archive by robots.txt.)
- Article at Snopes
- Article at DarwinAwards.com
- Cult of the Dead Cow's extensive elaboration.