Category Archives: Rocketry

One more time

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A few years back, when I moved back to Arizona from West Virginia, I was interested in model rocketry, so I already had the idea for the story I’m working on now. I looked up the Superstition Space Modeling society, which at the time was having trouble finding a launch site. I tried again, a few years later, and this time got as far as visiting what was supposed to be their new launch site out west of Phoenix. After much trouble to find the place off in the desert, I found it occupied by an astronomy group, with nary a rocket or rocketeer in sight. I was disappointed, and then COVID 19 came along. So, with the novel reviving, I am again interested in attending a launch. For authorial research purposes. Yes, the society is still active, and yes, they have a launch planned in November, not too far from where the old site was. So think I’m going to try to go. This time, I’m going to call to make sure it’s going to take place when and where It’s supposed to and I have someone to meet.

Closing in

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Examination of the future is still difficult, but I’m starting to make a little progress. I have just a few more weeks in April to analyze before I have my outline of events for the year 2018. I hope to get that done soon.

The work on design of liquid-fueled rocked engines is going slow, but I made a little bit of progress. I got through the fuel and oxidizer flow rates, which is where I gave up the last time I worked on this. Now I’m working on calculations for the combustion chamber and nozzle. Copying the necessary equations into a word processor is excessively tedious, but I need to do this to document my work before I run the numbers.

I paid out a while ago for GURPS Vehicle Builder, which was supposed to aid and simplify the design process. As a writer working with simulations, this gives me a reasonably plausible ballpark estimates for what might be practical to try to actually design. I can only apply it to the real world with great caution, but it is giving me some preliminary ballpark figures. After a couple of hours figuring out how to use it, I established that liquid rocket fueled engines with extreme low values of thrust (below 2 lbs) are probably impractical, even for hobbyists. I need a lot more information about radio control and instrumentation before I can write convincingly about the design program. A few years ago, I make inquiries about the local model rocketry club, which was going through some difficulties. With my revival of interest in the subject, I would like too attend the next launch.