Velociworld

IN LIEU OF A SHUTTLE LAUNCH

Rocket Jones has great rocketry stuff, obviously. I'm jealous. The only rockets I ever torched were the little Estes bastards as a kid. Although I did run across the site of Robert Goddard's first rocket launch (1926) on a golf course in Auburn, Massachusetts in 1975 while looking for a stray tee shot. Totally serendipitous. THAT was cool.

At any rate, I'm going to re-engage in model rocketry. But I want to make the leap from model rocketry to Mid-Power or High-Power Rocketry.

Yes, I have a goal: before this decade is out, I plan to launch a rhesus monkey into a nice parabolic arc, and bring him down in fewer than four parts.

I'm pretty close to the Cape. I figure a good "O" rocket, a parachute, and a Boston Whaler off New Smyrna Beach and I can conceivably retrieve all of that monkey.

All on a commercial budget. No government funds. It ain't the X-Prize, but it's a start.