LUNAR’clips
2003
Volume 10, Number 3
LUNAR’clips
2003
Volume 10, Number 3
Livermore Unit of the National Association of Rocketry May/June 2003
Copyright © 2003 by LUNAR, All rights reserved.
Our launch in June was on the first Saturday of the month this year. What gives?
Well, our schedule has to be placed with LARPD every January. At the planning meeting last November, we debated scheduling, and thought that the Tracy site, which was moving right along it seemed at the time, would be up and running by late Spring. To recap from my last column, Charles Winter has been negotiating to use a grazing field on a ranch near Tracy for our new High Power launch field. We were supposed to hold a "check-out" launch in March or April to see how the well field works. When the HSA thing broke, the owners of the ranch started worrying that if they let us fly from their field that they'll suddenly come under all sorts of unwanted government scrutiny. Charles is currently trying to reschedule the test launch, but we don't want to appear too pushy. The best we can say is that the people are still interested. They even came out to the night launch in April and were impressed. Even though the HP launch originally scheduled for later this month has been postponed, the Robertson Park date was set in stone last January. The same goes for next month, so please mark your calendars and check the web site occasionally for updates.
I wanted to keep everyone up to date on the big-time political lobbying underway out here in the name of the hobby.
On May 13, seven of us made a presentation to Senator Feinstein's staff to ask for her support of SB724. That's Senator Enzi's bill that would exempt the hobby from the restrictions of the Homeland Security Act in the same way that antique firearm enthusiasts are exempt from explosives requirements for black powder. The seven people were myself representing LUNAR, Steve Preston, Tony Alcocer and Mike Yamamoto from AeroPac (the local Tripoli Prefecture in San Jose) plus Erik Ebert and Gabriel Bilek who belong to both organizations. Also attending was Professor Robert Twiggs from Stanford, who is a member of the ARLISS project and runs the Space Systems Development Laboratory at the University.
Senator Feinstein was in Washington, so we made the presentation to Senator Feinstein's Aid, Michael Walker. He was very polite and attentive and asked good questions. If you're interested in the actual presentation, here is a link to the PowerPoint file, which should still be up: http://www.sonic.net/~spreston/SB724%20Aeropac%20Presentation.ppt
Steve Preston took the point with the main presentation and we provided backup. Briefly, we took the position that APCP has been erroneously classified as an explosive, and that SB724 simply corrects this mistake for the hobby. We then gave supporting examples of the unintended consequences of this provision in the HSA. Tony Alcocer, who is a career fireman, has been going through an enormous amount of effort trying to get his LEUP, and he's a professional who knows all the ropes! Professor Twiggs showed how he uses the "services" of High Power fliers to launch prototypes of real student satellites to get them debugged before spending huge amounts on real launch systems. I covered the educational and youth angle, using TARC as an example of the tremendous educational impact the hobby can have, and that the flyoffs the previous weekend almost didn't happen due to lack of motors (OK, I exaggerated a little on that one).
Mr. Walker seemed convinced that there is more being imposed on the hobby than is reasonable, and will forward all of our materials and a report to Feinstein's office in Washington. We left the door open for follow-up questions and support information.
Since then, our presentation has been forwarded to the professional lobbyist in Washington that the NAR has retained to argue our case before the legislators.
Speaking of the TARC, we have some wonderful news to report. First, though, I've got a correction from your math-challenged President. Last issue I mentioned how four out of the 100 finalist teams qualified on our field saying "That's 2.5% of all the qualifying teams for the entire country qualified on our field." With all the scientists and engineers in this club, I'm a little disappointed that no one caught the fact that I had my fraction upside down. If there are 100 final teams, then each team is 1% (duh!), meaning that actually 4% of all the qualifying teams for the entire country qualified on our field. Pretty impressive!
So, how'd they do? I don't have the results for Davis High School or Laguna Creek High School, but the two teams mentored by Charles Winter, James Lick High School and Los Gatos High School, finished in the top quarter. One tied for 22nd place and the other finished 26th (I apologize for not remembering which was which). Congratulations to all of the participants!
Here's a great event coming up assuming you get this issue in time. The City of San Ramon is having a Father's Day father/son rocket event at Central Park in that city. Actually, it's not really Father's Day, but the day before, Saturday the 14th. The idea is that the organizers of the event are buying some simple kits that the participants can build, and then we'll help them launch them. They will set us up with a display table so that we can distribute information on the club and maybe pick up a few members.
This sounds like a win-win situation, although it's a little short notice. I thought we'd have at least a month's warning. We can launch a few demo rounds, but the field is very small, so we should keep any demonstrations to a couple of hundred feet or so.
If you want more information on the event itself, you can contact Kimberly Chase (the Recreation Coordinator for the City of San Ramon who's in charge of the event) at: (925) 973-3209 or kchase@sanramon.ca.gov. For our part in it, contact me.
LARPD is doing their Summer Science Camp again this summer after not doing it last year. They've asked for our help with the two launch dates, which are successive Fridays Aug. 8 and Aug. 15. This is really good for us since we have no launch scheduled for August at Robertson Park. Last year we got squeezed out by soccer, so we didn't even try this year, with the hope that our Tracy field would be up and running. The way things are going, this may be our only chance to fly in August.
Presentation group outside of Senator Feinstein's office in San Francisco. Left to right: Jack Hagerty, (LUNAR), Gabe Bilek (LUNAR/AeroPac), Prof. Bob Twiggs (ARLISS/Stanford University) Erik Ebert (LUNAR/AeroPac) Tony Alcocer (VP of AeroPac), Steve Preston (Launch coordinator of AeroPac), and Mike Yamamoto (AeroPac).
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