LDRS article in Popular Science

There sure is. It's also available online at

And they have a Forum connected with the magazine, which must be brand new, since I posted the first message in it the other day.

Who posted the first "rocket" message to Compuserve?

Could you be a bit more specific? June? July? What's on the cover?

Bob Kaplow NAR # 18L TRA # "Impeach the TRA BoD" >>> To reply, remove the TRABoD!

Bob Kaplow NAR # 18L TRA # "Impeach the TRA BoD" >>> To reply, remove the TRABoD!

And also, who cares?

Since Jerry apparently cares, I would not be surprised if it was him. He has turned public self-worship into a nauseating art-form. Some dream of a day when a 3-letter agency could find the cojones to run a sting on him that stifles his whining and pontificating for a long time. One could only imagine the "JerryFest" that would happen at Lucerne after that.

Does that 'CATO' pic remind anyone else besides me of the classic Hindenberg picture...? :-)

Eldred

What I want to know is why they 'photoshopped' the launch tower away.....or did it launch out of a hole in the ground? It looks all wrong.

Chuck

What suprised me a bit, was how TRA (it was a TRA event) got almost no mention. A story like this in a national mag could have been a great way to not only attract people to this years LDRS, but also to "find a club in your area". The only URL I saw was for this years LDRS.

"Hey Martha, if we can't drive to Canada to watch rockets blow up, how about we go to this launch next weekend. It's only 45 miles away!"

I have to go about 70 miles for our 'local' club launch, and several members in the club travel much farther. I wish the launches were a bit closer... :-(

Eldred

Has to be July, since it came in the mail two weeks ago. The article had me looking up the LDRS #next site on Google maps.

Dave Dix> > >

Yep, they got rid of the launch tower. It looks right in the Extreme Rocketry LDRS 23 Issue's centrefold, IIRC.

Or at the MDRA photo gallery:

...Rick

I finally got my hard copy issue after reading the article on line. I have two problems with it. First is them saying "pounds of explosives" on the cover. That and the pictures alluding to we only like it when things explode, as well as making sure to quote Ky saying "We're only happy when you're nervous." Teamed up with other things like the Vonage and "model rocket blows up the car" commercials I'm starting to see what could be a subliminal undercurrent to sway public opinion away from the hobby when the next round comes with the BATF and Homeland/(un)Patriot's crap. John Q Bovine will be sitting there watching Fox News and say "Ook ook, dem people are danger-r-r-rous. Dey shouldn't do dat. Dey might attack Walmart, and den I'll have to buy overpriced U.S. made goods."

Yeah, I know. I'm a conspiracy theorist off his meds. I've heard that all before.

Aside from that it was a very good article. Much better than their prior one (which also has allusions to irresponsibility).

My take (and I admit I'm biased as an acquaintance of the guys who made the Vonage video) is that it's beneficial to us.

After all, how many folks end up getting interested in the hobby by seeing it as 'extreme sports for nerds', or something to that effect? Our own efforts, ads, and FACTS about the safety of the hobby prevent it from being realistically viewed as a threat -- certainly no more than all the injuries/deaths from soccer, swimming, football, etc.

David Erbas-White

If the chance is there I use it to advantage by saying that's what the B.A.T.F. did to "prove" model rockets were a threat to aircraft. The reactions tend to be either they think I'm pontificating from out my posterior or they think that things have gone too far with this security fad if that's true. Of course it helps that when saying "model rocket" they get mental images of what can be found at Walmart.

Certainly this is one time I would not be concerned about being proven wrong. and just be a conspiracy theorist who's off his meds.

Chuck

I thought all they proved was that BATF is a threat to vans.

Bob Kaplow NAR # 18L TRA # "Impeach the TRA BoD" >>> To reply, remove the TRABoD!

Quite true, but I always tell folks that they got the idea for the commercial from the B.A.T.F. tests. Of course I try to make it as entertaining as possible (at the expense of said venerable agency) as I tell the tale. The most amazing thing is the percentage that actually listen. Methinks even John Q Bovine is getting concerned about our new found level of security.

Chuck

< ...snip for brevity...>

I bought a copy recently too, and decided it was not as bad as I thought it might be. The remark about "stuffing fifty pounds of explosives" in a rocket certainly sucked, and they did obsess a bit on the catoes and "worm guillotines" (a term I've only ever heard used once in 20 years of rocketry). But despite all that, one gets the impression that this stuff can't be very dangerous if all these rockets are blowing up or crashing and nobody's getting hurt. They also mentioned that many of the folks doing these rockets are tech-heads, which makes it sound like we know what we're doing and not just a bunch of yahoos. And at the beginning of the mag, they quote the writer and photographer as saying that the rocketry culture is the coolest they've ever seen.

I think it's worth noting that most of the objectionable phrases in the article came from rocketeers, not from the writer. We have to learn to be more careful about what we say to the media.

One other small complaint is that the article makes it sound like this is strictly a guy thing (complete with the usual phallic references). Guys may be in the majority but there are a lot of women active in high power too.=20



OTOH, if the public and government agencies knew that HPR folks were just a bunch of yahoos having fun, they would realize that HPR is harmless. Knowing that HPR folks are tech-heads, they may be driven to paranoia; developing and flight testing radar seekers, Doc Brown harnessing 1.21 Jiggawatts of electricity in unforseen ways, possibly with terrorist assistance...

I'm not so sure about "rocketry culture", but there are a lot of cool folks in sport rocketry.

Alan I've not read the article yet.