The biggest thing I took away from the entire three hours was the size of the divide bewteen Tripoli and the NAR. I've been involved in Hobby rocketry on the NAR side for over 10 years now (since NARAM 34 in Las Vegas) and I thought I knew most of the players, but I didn't see a single person that I knew personally. Of course I recognized Ky and Bruce Lee by their reputations, and it was nice to see some faces to go with the names here, but I thought I'd see at least ONE person that I've flown with.
We had some LUNAR members there (Tony Cooper and his wife Sheryl who are our membership chair and Treasurer, respectively) and I was hoping to at least catch a glimpse of them. Tony said at a club meeting, when reporting on LDRS, that the Discovery people were mostly ignoring the mainstream flights and had their own little group working on the show. They only occasionally came over to the LP pads and non-contest flights.
I agree that the show was mostly positive towards the hobby, but I did have a few problems with it:
- Contiunally referring to the hobby as "amateur rocketry" rather than hobby rocketry. Amateur rocketry is a separate and well-defined activity that is much more dagerous.
- Technical mistakes left uncorrected: - the "3,500 pound rocket" pranging, - talking about a hybrid motor, showing a black powder motor and saying it contained "ammonium nitrate" - describing hybrids as "liquid fuel," "liquid oxygen" or "liquid hydrogen" (I guess "gasseous nitros oxide" just isn't sexy enough).
- The overall impression that the only way to "push the envelope" is bigger, bigger, bigger. How about refinement and reliability? Sophisticated payloads? High fidelity scale models? (e.g. George's shuttle). Actually, those questions are retorical. I know the answer when it comes to TV.
- Working as do in industries that involve hazardous materials, I cringed at the shots of Team Aurora (?) mixing their own propellants without a sigle piece of PPE (Personal Protective Equipment). The lady screening out AP without gloves, an apron or any sort of face protection. That wasn't powdered sugar she was sifting!
Again, I liked the show and think it was probably about right for the general public, focusing as it did on the people along with the hardware.
- Jack
Jack Hagerty ARA Press