I Started out in the "Golden Years" 1975 to 1985. My dad was a physicist and mathematician who wanted to work for NASA but ended up designing computers for NCR in Dayton Ohio. He and I would go out to the local high school game field and launch my "Nike-X" or "Big Bertha" until the summer sun went down. Good times.
Then girls, school, sports, work (you know the drill). I didn't think about rockets for years. 5 years ago a guy walked into my work with a big box. Said he had owned a hobby shop that had closed years ago and found all of this stuff in his basement. He was moving and did I want to buy it? The box contained about 40 estes kits, as many packs of motors and ignitors, half a dozen launchers, a couple of launch pads, and various and sundry other rocket stuff that you would have found in any mid-western hobby shop with a rocket section around 1985 or so. I paid $50 bucks and split the cost and the loot with my best friend. We had an awesome summer of bulding outrageous kit-bash monsters and trying out ideas we had wanted to try when we were kids but never had the $$$ to do back then! That fall my buddy returned to his first love (table top minatures gaming) and I inherited the rest of what he had left as well as my own stash.
Since then I have never looked back! I have built kits, upscales and pure scratch designs. I have clustered and multi-staged. I have experimented with fiberglass and composites and new construction techniques trying to find out what works best for me. I'm convinced that the challenges and obstacles I face and then overcome in getting a rocket built and flown successfully help me do the same with challenges in my professional and personal lives as well. More than just a hobby, I tell my wife, I'ts therapy!
As I move into my second childhood (age 40 - ???) Rocketry will be a large part of my life. It is even more special now that my son James is old enough to start enjoying the hobby with me! I get to work on something with him that we both love so much and then get outside and enjoy the fruits of our labor in an exciting blast of fire and smoke! this is why Rocketry has endured and will endure. Cheers and I'll see you on the range!
