The Range Head, July 2000

Jack Hagerty, LUNAR #002

JULY MEETING

This month's meeting will be at the usual place (the Carnegie Building) at the usual time (7:30 to 9:30) but not the usual date. Due to scheduling conflicts with the other people who want to use "our" field, the launch this month will be on the fourth Saturday (July 22) rather than the third. This puts the meeting on Wednesday, July 19.

About the only meeting agenda items are the discussion of NARAM (which starts one week later) and the auction of the penultimate (look it up) batch of Lynn Kissel's motors he donated to the club earlier this year. We've already sold the black powder motors (March) and the single use composites (May). This time will be selling the composite reload kits which range from "B" to "G" with most of them fitting the 18/20 casing size ("B" to "E") and the rest 29/40-120. After these are gone, the only thing left will be the two casing sets which we'll sell off in September. I'll have more auction comments further down.

NEW LAUNCH EQUIPMENT

Following up on my item from last issue, the new high power pads are well under way. Some people, though, are convinced we work miracles. You may remember Ron Galien who writes the great letters. Last May he sent the following enthusiastic missive:

“The additional high power pads really impacted the wait time tremendously. I never waited longer than 15 minutes to fly high power.....NOW THAT IS AN ACCOMPLISHMENT! Thanks for adding the additional equipment......I AM A LUNAR LIFER!”

You're giving us too much credit, Ron. Even a motivated club like this one can't move that fast! The reason the lines were so much shorter is that there were 32% fewer F/G/H flights in May than in March (51 vs. 75).

Since April we've held some board discussions and gave Bill Orvis the OK to move ahead. The equipment design is complete and has been "peer reviewed" by several knowledgeable members. It will require some major changes in the controller and the addition of some boxes out at the actual pads. Bill has purchased the materials and is currently building both the control equipment and the six new pads (which will be based on a heavy duty collapsible stand to make sure they fit in the trailer). There will probably actually be more room in the trailer since the new design does away with all but one of the heavy cables.

It will be really cool when it's done, but it's still in the construction stage and probably won't be ready for several more months. Twice as many high power pads, more energy to the igniters and more space in the trailer. Now, that's what I call progress!

WHILE WE'RE ON THE SUBJECT

I guess my guilt trip over the past few newsletters has finally shaken out a volunteer to handle equipment setup.

Daryl Bird has volunteered to be our Equipment Setup Coordinator, even though he lives in Pleasant Hill (some 30 miles from the field). Daryl has a truck with a hitch and comes to nearly every launch, so most of the year is covered. But the idea is not to put the whole burden of getting the trailer out and opened (and put away after) on just one person. What I want him to do is put together a list of people with tow vehicles who come out to a few launches a year and be willing to commit to taking care of the trailer on a once-at-a-time basis. In this way he can coordinate the trailer pull for each month, even if it's someone different each time.

If you have a truck or van with a tow hitch (the club has both a square receiver and a free standing 2" ball you can use) and are willing to be on Daryl's list, then give him a call at (925) 689-1490. You won't be committing yourself to anything right then, just saying you're willing to be a resource. The trailer is stored less than 1/4 mile from the launch field, so there's not much towing involved.

T-SHIRTS AND OTHER LOGO STUFF

Also on the subject of volunteers, it looks like I won't have to write that column item on T-shirts after all. Just whining about it in the last two issues was enough to bring Doug Blasco (LUNAR #798) to the fore and volunteer. Doug will be conducting a survey over the next three launches to see just what everyone wants in the way of T-Shirts, hats and other logo items.

Before we leave the subject of Doug, I wanted to share with you a message he sent to me about a month before volunteering to do the T-shirt thing:

“You know that you can always count on my son, Cody, to help set up the equipment. And he will be there again at the next launch. But you will notice a distinct difference,.his pony tail is gone! This was done by himself and it was planned. The reason he was growing it (and catching a lot of flack for it) was to donate his hair to "Locks of > Love," an organization which accepts donations of hair (minimum 10") to be made into wigs for children who have lost their hair due to chemotherapy. I just wanted you to know the amount of character that Cody has.

Just One Proud Dad > Doug Blasco, #798”

And now all of you know it, too!

A GREAT GROUP

I don't want you folks to get a swelled head or anything, but as long as complementary letters from members seems to be the theme this issue, I thought you'd like to see one from Kevin McGrath. Kevin certified Level 1 in May which was a remarkable month. We had a total of 8 cert flights out of a total of 20 "H" flights. That's 40%!

“Just 7 months ago my daughter and I showed up at LUNAR with our first rocket - a Big Bertha. We looked a little lost and you invited us to share your table and offered numerous tips. We really felt welcomed and included, that first time and every time after. LUNAR is a great group of people, that is for certain!”

Thanks for the great complement, Kevin! I think that reflects on all the membership. One of my unspoken goals is to create exactly this sort of atmosphere for newcomers. I've belonged to clubs (not rocket clubs) where the chief complaint among newcomers is that the established members were incredibly "clique-ish" making them feel like outsiders. I can't tell you how pleased I am all of you are open and helpful to newcomers. It really makes it all worthwhile.

DREAM STATE

In May, I, along with other LUNAR members whose e-mail addresses are listed on our website and other NAR section leaders, got some spam from a Wyn Wachhorst regarding his new book "The Dream of Spaceflight." Since then I've gotten inquiries from some LUNAR members as to whether the book is worth buying.

I guess doing book screenings is just one of those unwritten responsibilities that come with being a NAR section president :-)

OK, so I ordered the book from Amazon and have had a chance to read all the introductory parts (including the Foreword by Buzz Aldrin) and the first couple of sections. As to whether the book is for you, I offer the following litmus test:

The first time you went to see "2001: A Space Odyssey," did you go because it had really cool spaceships, or to experience Kubrick and Clarke's lyrical examination of the cosmos and mankind's place in it? If just the former, then you should probably give this book a pass. If it was any part of the latter, though, you should trot off to your nearest bookseller or online purveyor and get a copy. While $20 might seem a little steep for a book not much bigger than a paperback (list price is $22, Amazon is selling it for $15 plus shipping), it's a remarkable volume and very thought provoking. Wachhorst traces the origins and meanings of our yearnings for other worlds, tying together lots of odd bits of cosmology in unexpected ways.

The hardware to get to space might be fun, but it's also nice to know why we're going.

AUCTION OVERLOAD

It seems that LUNAR is starting to get a rep around here as a place to donate rocket stuff.

Our twice-yearly auction to empty our the Lost & Found box has been temporarily increased to every meeting for this year in order to sell off the stash of motors that Lynn Kissel donated to the club as mentioned earlier. We're exactly in the middle of that effort right now, and over the past month I've received a notice from a guy on the peninsula (not a member) that he wants to donate his large stash of rocket stuff to the club because he just doesn't have time any more. I've also picked up some knickknacks from "Rocket Science Corp" (which is actually a computer company that went belly up) donated by a member, plus Mark Weiss (LUNAR #001) stopped by with the results of a fairly intensive garage cleaning which netted the club's original computer (an AT&T 6312) plus some miscellaneous kits and hobby tools.

I'm afraid that this much stuff will kill the auction format. There just aren't that many members who want to come to meetings and buy rocket things. As good as the bargains are (heck, most stuff is nearly free!) auctioning off this volume of items would get really old really fast and probably have the reverse effect of driving people away from the meetings.

I polled the membership via the "LUNAR-general" discussion list as to the best way to deal with this windfall. The most common response was for some sort of "E-bay" style auction where everyone could log in "somewhere" and bid on it. Others suggested a regular style auction, but held at a launch where there would be more people to bid on items.

My reaction to the online auction is "fine, who wants to volunteer to run it?" Similarly, holding auctions, or any other type of non-launching event, at a launch is doomed to fail. People come there for one reason, and they don't want to have it interrupted for anything. Ever notice how quickly we get volunteers when I announce we're halting flying at shift change until we fill some slots?

Of all the suggestions, the one that I like the best is the silent auction proposed by Bob Fortune. This is where the items are place out for public viewing with a bidding sheet on each one. At the prescribed end of the bidding period the sheets are collected and the winners announced so they can pick up their purchases. The main reason I like it is that it doesn't take anyone to run it (other than initial setup) and it's "asynchronous" so people can wander about it at their leisure, sort of an E-bay without computers.

Unless someone has a better suggestion, I'm proposing that we hold a silent auction at the September launch for all of the items I'm currently holding and may possibly accumulate between now and then. Anyone got a better idea?