david: I used the wrong word, how Take a shot at G.Harry? We got Chuck Piper over on ROL taking another shot at G.harry and estes over of all things the safety or non-safety of Zinc/Sulfur as a motor propellant.
Back in 1996 Manual Meija posted a very good article here in RMR (about the ARS and its role in the so called demonization of AR/EX. What he didn't write in that article, was that the ARS was orginally founded by AR/EX people.... who evidently over time chnaged their minds for some reason about AR/EX...which I allude to economic self-interest... It was the ARS who used the poor science from the NFPA report that started the whole demonization od AR/EX: and it apperas that G.Harry and the NAR and Estes were the front men in this war of words....
Guess who was a member of the Board of Directors of the ARS when this report/study was done?
none other than Werner Von Braun himself....a former AR/EX'er and Nazi H.W.Ritchey... Head of Thiokol, a former AR/EX'er with Reaction Motors Inc and then Thiokol
In fact the original 4 founders of the ARS were ALL hevaily involved in AR/EX activity
for a good history of RMI and the ARS:
when I pointed this out to David Sleeter who has a chapter in his "Amateur Rocket Motor Construction" book with the the title, "the Attempted Destruction of Amateur Rocketry", David remarked:
" Wow! The light begins to shine! This is a list of governemnet and industrial GIANTS, so its clear by 1958, the ARS had NOTHING to do with AR. THESE are the people who wanted to shut AR down. As a matter of fact, my late friend,Jim Humphreys,once told me that in the 1950s, when the RRS started making the newspapers with some of their more successful rocket launches, the government, concerned the civilian rocketeers might upstage their OWN budding efforts,ORDERED them to shut down.
When asked for a reason, they were told that their rockets were going "too high" (Jim's quote). When these pluky young men stood up to the governemnet and refused, saying (again Jim's quote), "The government doesn't have a monopoly on brains", they were all asked how old they were. When they all admitted to being eligible for the drqft,they were told anyone who continued to work on rockets would be DRAFTED! Faced with this unthinkable oputcome,they caved in, and submitted (temporarily) to the government's order. Then as the years passed, and governement policy relaxed,they resumed their activities."
So lets take a second or two to analyse and then speculate on the above. It appears that it was the powerful Military-Industrial complex of the time that wanted to shutdown the civilian rocketry efforts. I mean can you imagine the embarassment and the howls of derision that would have followed, had a bunch of no name "kids" been the first to place a satellite in orbit? Or launch other rockets into space? Remember what was going on at the time? The supposed ICBM gap? the X-15 program ..the space race .....etc...
And the military-industrial complex has had a monopoly in the United States since the beginning up into recently.... when civilians were finally "allowed" to do civilian space work
The ARS passed this motion in January 1958 as the forward to the ARSreport:
"The American Rocket Society reaffirms its strong stand in opposition to any amateur experimentation with whatsoever rocket propellants or rocket propellant materials of any kind"
Historical Timeline
10/57 Sputnik is launched 10/57 Mechanix Illustrated article about 1st model rockets called Rock-A-chutes published The article begins " Amateur Rocketeers who have been waiting for a chance to shoot their own rockets skyward may be just a step away from lighting the fuse" 11/57 The Model Missile Assn was formed (predecessor to the NAR) 1/58 ARS passes the motion posted above 1/58 150 people meet in Colorado and join the MMA Werner Von Braun was both an ARS member and NAR member (I don't know if G.Harry was an ARS member, but I suspect he may have been) 4/58 American Modeler magazine article about model rockets by G.harry Stine Has extensive anti-AR propaganda in article 5/58 American Modeler magazine article about MMI Model Missles,INc, the worlds 1st Model Rocket Company comment: can you say economic self-interest ? 9/58 Positive review of Rock a chutes in AM magazine 10/58 MMA becomes NAR.. G.Harry Stine is 1st president 11/58 The ARS report/study is done based on NFPA data from early 1958 12/58 Another positive article about Model Rocketry by G.Harry Stine 1958 RMI merges with THiokol Chemical (Reaction Motors Inc... did extensive liquid fuel AR/EX work) 1959 the ARS report is published: Amateur Rocketry: A delineation of the Problem,a Policy Statement, and a Program of Action for the American Rocket Societythe 1996 post:
There homemade model rocket engine issue has been with this hobby since its founding in 1957. In researching model rocketry's early history, I came upon an old series of articles that were published by the American Rocket Society, forerunner to the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics. Around the time of the launching of Sputnik 1, ARS was studying the issue whether to allow individual members to sponsor clubs that would allow youngsters to build homemade rocket motors out of compounds such as Zinc and sulfur. The ARS along with a number of other agencies were trying to stem the growing tide of unsupervised basement bombing that was going on around the country.
The idea was as follows:
A. All non-professional rocketry activities would be done in centralized locations that would be some distance away from populated areas. By doing this, the inherent risk that this activity would pose to non-participants would be minimized. Such locations would be properly equipped with features such as blockhouses and sandbag trenches for observers.
B. All youngsters participating in the rocketry program would build their project rockets while being supervised by either a military or civilian expert on rockets.
Many of the ARS membership were scientists, engineers, and military men who possessed the such knowledge. On paper, the idea was quite sound.
In practice, problems quickly surfaced. The problems were as follows:
A. While the ARS did have a number of members with experience in rockets, only a handful had the knowledge needed to deal with custom made rocket fuel.
B. When a few novice rocketeers were looking over the remains of a failed experiment, they demonstrated to the ARS personnel that they had no idea of what went wrong and that they were unable to learn form their mistakes.
By 1959, the ARS had given up on the supervised rocketry program and urged all participants to not persue such projects. There was alsl an unwillingness by the Department of Defense to spend it resources on superivise youth related "rocketry camps". Fortunately for us, Harry Stine, Vern Estes, and others came on the scene and provided a product that effectly solved the basement bombing problem.
The findings of the late 1950s ARS report are still as valid today as they were then. While there are some rocketry enthusiests who do possess the knowledge to build home made rocket motors and supervise the activities of those who do not, the bulk of the community, myself included, does not have a clue as to how to do this sort of work safely. There are still rocketeers out there who, after several trys, cannot properly assemble a reloadable motor stack ! Before NAR or any other rocketry organization gets into sanctioned home made rocket building, the level of ignorance has to be greatly reduced.