Girl Power Flies Again and Again and Again

by Sierra Orvis, LUNAR #385

Sierra Orvis' Girl Power. (JPEG 23KB)

Boys play with explosives, girls play with dolls-------- Not anymore! Girl Power is proof. She's a hip rocket for girls only.

Most rockets have boyish designs on them. No way Girl Power is going to have "Air Force One" written on the side. Each fin is a different funky design which flows up the side of the rocket. The three designs are hearts, smiley faces, and peace signs. It was home made. (I've never seen a girl rocket on the market.) I designed it myself with a little help from my dad.

The first flight made a record number of loop the loops (Houston, we have a problem), then hit the ground with a thud. At this point I was ready to change the name to Twirl Power. We had to put a ton of clay in the nose for the next flight.

It's second flight had no twist or twirl. It went straight up and then floated off to the horizon, literally. You've heard of the one that got away? Well, this was it. We searched and searched but never found it. It was lost somewhere out in the arroyo. Later, a nice person found it and took it to the lost and found (thank you).

The third flight also disappeared into the distance. It took my dad an hour or so to find it, but it was found. I'm not sure I should fly it again, what do you think?

Last summer, Sierra (age 11) wanted to build a new rocket to fly at the next LUNAR launch. She had already built a couple of kits so I suggested that she try designing her own. I told her it did not have to look like some sort of a military missile but could be just about anything she wanted it to be. I explained that while it had to have a point on the top and fins on the bottom, she could let her imagination run free as to what it looked like. Girl Power is what she designed, non-symmetric, backwards facing fins with peace signs, hearts, and smiley faces on them. We carefully traced her fin designs onto balsa sheets, cut them out, assembled, and painted the rocket. The black and white photo here does not do the paint job justice. The smiley face is yellow and black, the heart is red, and the peace sign is white, red, and black. The hearts marching up the side of the rocket are red with a black outline. Smiley faces and peace signs march up the other sides.

Information date: Mar. 16, 1999 lk