Space Vehicles - Jon Richards

Cutaway Space Vehicles by Jon Richards is a great book for young kids to read and learn about various vehicles throughout the history of our conquest of space flight. The book covers from the Russion Vostok 1, the German V-2, the Saturn V and up through the Space Shuttle and modern space stations in large easy to ready print. The technical details are kept to a level to make it interesting to young readers without overwhelming them. A great addition to elementary school classrooms, and both school and home libraries with young wannabe astronauts.

Von Braun - Michael J. Neufeld

This is a well researched book that is a good read for anyone interested in the history of modern rockets and especially of the life and contributions of Werner von Braun. It covers his life from his birth to a well-to-do family, troubled school life and his lifelong obsession with rockets and manned space flight. It covers what appears to be his Faustian bargain with Nazi Germany and the eventual use of slave labor to build the famed V-2 rockets up through his surrender to the American forces and eventual key work and involvement with the Apollo missions that landed a man on the moon.

Space Camp - Anne Baird

This is a good book for kids who are interested in becoming astronauts. It goes through a typical six days of Space Camp. With the planned retirement of the space shuttle fleet, it will be interesting to see how these camps change over the next few years as their programs center around shuttle missions.

Strange Angel (John Whiteside Parsons) - George Pendle

Definitely a strange and interesting character in the history of rockets. The book covers many facets of this complex man from his contributions to the development of rocket fuels and helping to found what is now the Jet Propulsion Laboratories at CalTech to his involvement in Aleister Crowley's strange Ordo Templi Orientis (OTO) cult. You may not agree with his political or religious convictions, but he definitely played and interesting and important part in our race to space.

Quick update on current projects.

I will be reviewing and posting pictures of the building process and flight information, etc on the following projects when they are completed and ready for flight.

"RoboRocketryOne":

This rocket is built with a Semroc SLS Brighton kit. The motor mount retention system was modified as well as kevlar cord being added between the ejection baffle and the shock cord. The paint scheme was also changed to the patriotic stars and strips with the RoboRocketry logo added. This rocket will hopefully be flown for a Level 1 certifcation at the SARA launch this month.

Alan's V-2:

Alan is close to completing is V-2 rocket. He has alway's like the V-2 since he did a report on the history of rockets for his GATE class a couple years ago. He also got to see a real V-1 and V-2 at the Cosmosphere in Hutchinson, Kansas this summer.

Quest X-15:

The X-15 has always been a favorite of mine since I was a kid. I dreamed of flying an X-15 from an early age. We have already build a SpaceShipOne model and flown it. (You can see that in earlier posts here.) So we just need to finish this X-15 and then build a space shuttle to complete our set if the winged vehicles that have made it to space.

We are also working on the following, but don't have pictures to post, yet. Brenda build a helicopter recovery rockey and also has a boost glider that needs to be flown. We ordereed various composite RMS motors to get ready for the upcoming certification flight with eth RoboRocketryOne. We have also gathered materials and will be starting on a model of an Armadillo Aerospace vehicle soon.

We will post more pictures of all of these projects and the progress.

Team Moon - Catherine Thimmesh

Excellent book! I really like the approach she took to giving credit to the 400,000 plus people that were involved in making it possible to land a man on the moon. It is still awe inspiring to think back to what was accomplished in such a short time by the dedicated people at all levels. The book is full of color photographs and quotes from astronauts whose names you will know, but it refreshingly quotes and gives credit to many of the "backroom" and industry folks. These range from the aerospace engineers working on the recovery chutes to the heroic efforts of the team battling the high winds at the Parkes Radio Telescope in Australia. It took all of these special people to make the dream come true.

J. Robert Oppenheimer - Toney Allman

This is a good short overview to learn about Oppenheimer's life and his role in the development of the atomic bomb at Los Alamos. This book is aimed at grades 5-9, but my third grade son had no problem reading it. It is only 63 pages but presents enough information for young readers looking to do a report on the subject.

Handbook of Model Rocketry - G. Harry Stine and Bill Stine

This is an excellent handbook on model rocketry. I recommend it to anyone that is just getting into this exciting hobby or for those that have been launching model rockets but haven't read much on the subject. It is a good overview on many aspects of model rocketry. It has something for everyone.

I have been making and flying rockets for quite a while, but picked up good pointers and theory from the sections on air foils and fin design. Alan also used information from the chapter on Ignition and Ignition Systems when building the RoboRocketry Launch Box.

It is packed with information and advice on topics ranging from tools, techniques and rocket contruction, to stability, aerodynamics and recovery devices. There are also overview chapters on scale model building, payloads, altitude determination, clubs and contests and more.

I especially recommend this book as an excellent resource for parents, teachers, scout masters and other club leaders that are planning to teach rocketry concepts to their classes, clubs or their own children.

SpaceShipOne - An Illustrated History by Dan Linehan

Just finished reading this excellent book by Dan Linehan. I had picked up the copy earlier this year when we met Dan at the Pima Air and Space Museum during a talk he gave there. I wrote a short entry at that time with some pictures of our own SpaceShipOne model.

The book has many excellent pictures that chronical the evolution of the SpaceShipOne prject and their eventual winning of the Ansari X-Prize.

Very well done Dan! I highly recommend your book.

You can see some pictures of Dan with some of the the RoboRocketry team and a few pictures of our small SS1 in the earlier entry at: http://roborocketry.blogspot.com/2009/02/spaceshipone-illustrated-history-by-dan.html

Enhanced Motor Retention for Semroc Brighton

The Semroc SLS Brighton is a a very nice versatile kit. It has a motor mount system that can take a wide variety of single motor and cluster configurations. You can fly it on a cluster of four C motors (18mm), a cluster of three D-E motors (24mm), or single 29mm motor for flights up through H size motors. You can also fligh on a single 24mm motor using and included 24mm-29mm adaptor for the single 29mm motor mount.

The only major drawback to the stock design is the small engine hook (One typically used with 18mm motors) that is used to keep the motor mounts from ejecting. You have an overall very strong design of though-the-wall basswood fins and very strong tubes that when glued with epoxy make for a robust rocket that can be flown on motors up to high powered range. But then you haveonly the tiny little hook to hold in the removable motor mount. In the picture above you can see the small hook on the left side of th picture.

To compensate for this, I used Aves Fix-It epoxy putty to mount two threaded rods between the sustainer tube and the internal mount for holding the interchangeable motor mounts. I used one 3" 6/32 threaded rod cut in half. That made each rod 1.5" in length.

Shown above are the 3/16" One Hole Midget Cable Straps and wing nuts I used for the retainers. I was going to use these wing nuts as a "tool-less" design for ease out in the field. However, I will replace those with regular nuts to fly to cut down on the drag of the "wings" on the nuts. As you can see from the picture above, I also used the Fix-It epoxy putty for the fillets on the launch lugs and fins. I plan on fiberglassing the fins and lower body tube for added strength for high powered flights.

Hope this helps out some of you building this model. I had read several stories of high powereed motors being ejected and lost because of relying on the supplied hook. I would actually just have left it off to save on weight, if I had known I was going to add this modified retainer system.