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Model Rocket Pre-History!
Model Rocket Pre-History.
It is generally accepted that model rocketry was started by Carslile and Estes and Stine. While that is true for what evolved into NAR and what we know today in terms of commercial suppliers, there was a pre-history. Remember first model rockets included making your own motor until it became possible to buy one, and more importantly they were readily available by mail-order. In this April 1954 Popular Mechanics article, reference is made to hobby rockets, as compared to semi-professional amateur rockets! http://books.google.com/books?id=Nd...nepage&q&f=true Quote:
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Pre-Historical Jerry! cite: http://www.v-serv.com/usr/images/Po...hanics-1954.pdf 8mb PDF! I wonder if this goes into the pin-up girl thread too? Last edited by Jerry Irvine : 01-14-2014 at 06:56 AM. |
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Interesting. Good to know they had the ladies involved even then.
Randy www.vernarockets.com https://www.facebook.com/RocketBabeDustStorm |
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The article makes reference to George James who acted as the default lobbiest in DC for rocketry, hobby-model, and amateur-semipro (ARS, PRS, RRS, MIT, CIT, JPL) for several decades (1940-2000). It was his efforts that greased the wheels for Harry and the other folks leaning on regulations. We all owe a debt of gratitude to George James.
Last edited by Jerry Irvine : 01-14-2014 at 08:06 PM. |
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Thanks for posting this! The RRS broke the ground for our hobby. It is great to see a reference to them.
I have a basement full of old Popular Mechanics, Popular Science, Mechanics Illustrated, and simiar magazines from the 30s, 40s, and 50s. Several of them mention the RRS. I have seen pictures of their range and other pictures of this tower, but I have never come across this particular article before. Thank you so much for bringing this to our attention. Every article, every photo from those early days of rocketry is like striking gold for those of us with a historic bent. Now I need to go check the antique stores to try to find a copy of this particular issue! The posted picture is great! I may be older than dirt, but I can still appreciate a photo of a pair of fine looking rockets like these. Yessir! Fine looking rockets! The Fireman formerly NAR 2217, Peak City Section 2 |
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There were rockets in that photo? Earl
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Earl L. Cagle, Jr. NAR# 29523 TRA# 962 SAM# 73 Owner/Producer Point 39 Productions Rocket-Brained Since 1970 |
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I think USR was the first rocket company with a website. I was playing with html (and email and FTP) and said, "I can do this!" Jealous of your NAR numbers . . . . NAR 24333 Polaris section 193 (after NAR added 100 to all section numbers) TRA 012 founder Lucerne Test Range Prefecture #007 founder. Coulda had a lower number but I asked for a license to kill! Last edited by Jerry Irvine : 01-15-2014 at 01:54 PM. |
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Jerry, My magazines, like most of my old rocket stuff, are in storage in Colorado Springs while I am working in the Midwest, so I don't have access to most of that information right now. Next time I get home, I will look them up and try to get the info to you. I would love to see them on the internet so a new generation (and an old generation as well) can see them. The article refered to above from PM (I finally stopped looking at the picture long enough to READ the article.) Man, talk about hard-core rocketry! A rocket propelled by liquid oxygen and thiakol rubber? Good heavens! That was a different world from the one we now know, and no mistake. Sometimes I wonder how I ever got to be this old. Oh, I guess I got to be this old by not dieing sooner... Other than fiction, like October Skies, do you know if there has ever been a definnitive history written about those early, pre-NAR amature rocket days? The Fireman |
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He personally did the same thing with "sparkies". Let's at least be historically accurate. cites: http://www.oldrocketforum.com/archi...php/t-2448.html http://rocketry.wordpress.com/2008/11/ https://groups.google.com/forum/#!t...ets/1y3iy33omto Read those carefully. ATF has since gone against igiters, so we have "starters". They used to be exempt per 55.141(a)(7). As was all Class C (UN 1.4). http://www.v-serv.com/usr/motors/g68f.html Last edited by Jerry Irvine : 01-16-2014 at 04:47 PM. |
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I have heard a lot of this from cranky old Denver area rocketeers. All the "he screwed me and didn't pay for this and that, or this or that blew up and had to skedaddle here or there, or this or that was stolen," and on and on and on. I just chalk it up to a bunch of sour grapes, hearsay and that maybe someone was a better businessman and Capitalist and got things done. I want my model rocket history to be Happy-Happy-Happy, draped in Glory and mystique. We need or Hero's, our October Sky movie creation myths. I need to look at the photo of Vern with his Klingon beard in the '74 catalog and release those happy, inner child memories. If some little people got trampled over and left in the dust bin of History by the strong then so be it, that's the way things are. Who cares if Thomas Edison might have out flanked Hiram Maxim on the incandescent light bulb, Hiram's later inventions made the world a better place. |
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She's roughly the same age as my mother..... |
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