LUNAR NARCON 2013
LUNAR NARCON 2013|
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NARCON 2013 wase hosted by LUNAR in the San Francisco Bay Area February 22, 23, and 24, 2013.
Most of the presentations were recorded and are available on youtube for your enjoyment.
In 2009, local LUNAR member John Beans founded Jolly Logic to create user-friendly rocketry electronics like the AltimeterOne and AltimeterTwo. In this presentation, John will discuss some of the major technical and business factors which are shaping the products that will move from the experimental stage and become widely-available consumer products this year. Topics will include wireless data, advanced sensors, power sources, and mobile device integration.
Basically, my talk is about my early experiences with rockets starting back in the early 1950s when I got my first chemistry set (before there was such a thing as commercial model rockets). Then I talk a bit about black powder rockets that were the forerunners of today’s BP type model rocket motors. From there It’s all about micrograin rockets 1961-1968 and my initial involvement with Rocket Research Institute as a high school and college student.
Then there is a discussion on “Tar Rockets” starting with the small 3? diameter ones with only 2 pounds of propellant in the late 60?s culminating with the construction and launching of a giant 3 stage vehicle weighing over 200 lbs, which was the first amateur built vehicle to reach over 100,000 ft. altitude in late ’79.
There is a brief discussion on modern HTPB nozzleless rockets that we built and flew at Smoke Creek as part of RRI’s effort to make low cost high performance rockets 1981-1985 time frame. In addition, there will be some discussion (with accompanying slides ) concerning the roots of high power rocketry at these early Smoke Creek Launches that shaped future of HPR ( In particular LDRS, and present day BALLS at Black Rock )
Finally there is a very brief discussion of our 25 year regulatory battle, and recent efforts to get the Rocket Ranch operational.
There will be a slide show with the talk. Actually, it will be more of a slide show with incidental talking , as I’m sure the slides will convey the history of what happened far better than mere words from my mouth.
NuSTAR is NASA’s latest space telescope. NAR member Will Marchant was part of the launch crew that put this ambitious X-ray observatory into orbit. Come hear about NuSTAR, using the air-launched Pegasus rocket, and the challenges of flying it from a remote island in the South Pacific.
My talk will consist of three parts – Parachute types, Using weight and packing density to predict packing volume, and deployment methodology In more detail:
Like so like many, I am a born again rocketeer having first started at 8 yars old in the 1960?s. However I have picked up the hobby a number of times since, in College, and a few times after. I have also been very involved in most all types of aero-modeling including sail planes, power planes and helicopters. I got back into rocketry again in January 2007 and have enjoyed it ever since. I am currently L3 certified and also enjoy making my own Ex motors.
I founded Fruity Chutes in 2007 and over the last 5 years we have produces over 1500 parachutes since then.
My “day job” is as a software engineer as Shipwire Inc located in Palo Alto CA where I have worked for almost 5 years.
The dream of space has tantalized many men and women.Today, we can reach space – but it is largely a project left to governments, rather than amateurs and hobbyists. Advances in technology, materials and in electronics now makes the dream of space increasingly accessible not just to governments and corporations, but also to talented teams of hobbyists.
On September 11, 2012, a team of experienced hobbyists reached a milestone on the journey toward amateur space flight: a GPS documented flight to 104k’ AGL with full recovery on only 21000 N*s of propellant.
To find out more, see http://aeropac.org/100k
Casey is a software engineer at Google, where he specializes in networking and embedded systems. Prior to Google, he was a founding engineer and technical lead at MeshNetworks, Inc. where he developed wireless mesh technologies that led to a successful acquisition. He received Motorola’s Distinguished Innovator award and is an inventor of 24 US patents. He holds a BS in Computer Engineering from the University of Florida.
Following a 20-year hiatus from model rocketry, Casey joined LUNAR in 2010 and completed his NAR Level 1, 2, and 3 certifications in 2011. He is also a member of Tripoli Rocketry Association and AeroPac, and a licensed amateur radio operator (KC1C).
Ken, like many amateur rocketeers, made and flew Estes rockets as a young man, looked at Sputnik and dreamed of being an astronaut. Sadly he has no hand/eye coordination, so Plan B was physics and computer science.
In the process of introducing his 4 y/o son to those same rockets in the early 1990s he discovered “Daddy” rockets and never turned back. Today, Ken has been an L3 flier for about 18 years, is a member of Tripoli (AeroPac) and NAR (LUNAR), the Chairman of the BoD of AeroPac, former BoD member of Tripoli, member of Tripoli’s TAP, Chairman of AeroPac’s ARLISS program and former ARLISS flier, long time (astonishingly) holder of Tripoli’s N altitude record, and leader of Team AeroPac (winner of the Carmack Prize). He volunteers for NAR’s Student Launch Initiative and Team America Rocketry Competition (currently mentoring two teams). With Bob Twiggs (inventor of the CanSat), he created the Virtual Classroom as an instrument to bring rocket science to the Internet.
You can find him flying rockets most often at Black Rock but sometimes at Snow Ranch.
The early pre-Estes years of rocketry are the main course followed by anecdotal Apollo Memories that have not been shared as yet relating to the Little Joe Astronaut Recovery Testing and the 5 mission critical pyro devices he designed for the Apollo Program.
Bill Colburn, a rocketeer, Aerospace Engineer, Propulsion Consultant for over 60 years. In the Rocket Motor Research Society tested 1200 Sugar Propellant Motors (as the apparent originator of this propellant) as well as ram jets, pulse jets, bi-liquid engines and hybrid rocket motors over an 18 year span. Later the President of the Northern California Chapter of the Reaction Research Society.
Bill is the founder of Aerocon, now operated by Bob Fortune, a rocketry supply company.
Bill is currently the project leader for a small launch vehicle, a civilian sector activity.
Do you want to involve kids in your rocket launches? Do you want kids to look forward to going to a launch? Do you want the kids to pester their parents to take them to the launch? Then your launch needs a featured rocket that the crowd can always look forward to seeing and you just can’t go wrong with a Piñata Rocket. Come to the Piñata Rocket lecture and see how the rocket evolved, how to make a Piñata rocket and just what is a Piñata rocket!
As a child of 12 years old Toe-Knee was caught red handed sorting rocket supplies and kits at a local toy store. The man who caught him said that he was doing a great job and offered Tony the job. He suddenly had money with which he could do more than just sort rocket stuff. That year in school, his wood shop project was a range box tediously designed to hold everything exactly where it belonged. He spent about three years building, flying rockets and falling asleep at night with an Estes catalog stuck to his drooling face. Then girls and yearbook took on a more important role. Fast forward 25 years, married and one three year old child and it was time to introduce his child to rocketry. After joining Bay Area National Association of Rocketry (BAYNAR) for a few months, Tony and family found LUNAR. During his very first attendance at a LUNAR launch, he stepped up and worked as LCO. By the third launch, he attended his first board meeting and volunteered to take over membership tracking and his wife took over treasury. The next year he stepped up to Vice President and has server on the LUNAR board since 1997.
The Cape Canaveral Spaceport is entering a period of unprecedented change. From near-exclusive support of U.S. government launches to an emphasis on commercially-centered activity, the Cape will be undergoing a substantial transition in the next decade. This talk will compare historical activity at the Cape with its new plans. It will review the diverse mix of launch vehicles, both new and existing, slated to fly from the Cape in the next decade. It will examine the revitalization of existing Cape infrastructure as they are converted into new uses (such as multi-use launch pads, horizontal take-off and landing facilities, etc.) as the Cape Canaveral Spaceport seeks to re-invent itself.
Patrick McCarthy is the Director of Spaceport Operations for Space Florida. He currently leads Space Florida’s operational programs as their technical point of contact, providing procedural guidance for launch vehicle processing and Spaceport operations. He has been in his current position since Space Florida’s inception in 2006. He serves as one of Space Florida’s customer facilitators with commercial, educational, civil, and military space and aerospace organizations seeking to do business in the state.
Mr. McCarthy has over twenty-five years experience in all facets of space launch operations at Kennedy Space Center and Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. He earned a B.S. in Aviation Management from Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, Daytona Beach, Florida. He has been flying model rockets since 1968 and has been a NAR member since 1972.
I will discuss the technology, culture, and experience of flying in the FAI World Spacemodeling Championships (WSMC) as a member of the United States Team that the NAR sponsors every two years. I have flown in 6 WSMC as a member of the US Team, with the first in 1978 and the most recent in 2012. I will include a number of photos of the Russia’s Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan (site of the 2006 WSMC) as part of the presentation.
Trip Barber ran the world’s oldest and largest association of rocketry hobbyists, a 5400-member non-profit all-volunteer organization, from 2008 to 2012. Led the NAR to 33% growth in 4 years during a period of recession, bringing the NAR to the largest membership it has ever had. Designs, builds and flies sport rockets of all sizes, 6-time member of US World Spacemodeling Championships competition team. Founder and manager of the Team America Rocket Challenge, a national competition for 5000 7th through 12th grade students each year (now in its 11th year) designed to motivate them toward careers in aerospace.
The Education and Public Outreach group at Sonoma State University has received funding from NASA to develop a program that will enable students to learn how to build and program small experimental payloads that can be launched on high-power rockets or flown on tethered weather balloons. This program fills an important “missing link” in NASA’s secondary school K-12 educational pipeline between TARC and sounding rockets. Students will learn the hands-on design and experimentation skills needed to build, fly and analyze data from small scientific payloads based on the Arduino platform. Our design also incorporates GPS, WiFi for real-time telemetry and a variety of sensors so students can make scientific measurements. In July 2013 we will be training teachers to build the payloads, and the following academic year students will build their own experiments. Once completed, the payloads will be flown by partners including: California’s AeroPac prefecture of the Tripoli Rocketry Association, the LUNAR chapter of the National Association of Rocketry (NAR) and the Rocket club of California (ROC), as well as through programs such as the Endeavour Institute’s Balloon Fest. Students will be able to view many of the flights through the use of AeroPAC’s Virtual Classroom, and will be able to collect and analyze the resulting data. This program will provide unparalleled access to the design, development and flight process for hundreds of students involved in the pilot teams, while allowing thousands of additional students to participate online in the flight events and data collection and analysis.
Lynn Cominsky is the Chair of the Physics and Astronomy Department at Sonoma State University (SSU), where she has been on the faculty for over twenty-five years. She is an author on over 100 research papers in refereed journals, and the Principal Investigator on over $12 million of grants to SSU. Prof. Cominsky is the founder and director of SSU’s Education and Public Outreach Group, which supports several different NASA high-energy astrophysics missions and other NASA projects. The group excels at K-12 teacher training, curriculum development, and the development of interactive web activities for students that teach math and science. In 1993, Prof. Cominsky was named SSU’s Outstanding Professor, and the California Professor of the Year by the Council for the Advancement and Support of Education. In 2007, she was named a Fellow of the California Council on Science and Technology, and in 2009, a Fellow of the American Physical Society (APS). In September, 2012, she was named Woman Physicist of the Month by the Committee on the Status of Women in Physics of the APS, and in November 2012, she was named a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. She earned her Tripoli Level 1 certification at Snow Ranch in 2010, and her Level 2 certification at Black Rock in September 2011.
Ken, like many amateur rocketeers, made and flew Estes rockets as a young man, looked at Sputnik and dreamed of being an astronaut. Sadly he has no hand/eye coordination, so Plan B was physics and computer science.
In the process of introducing his 4 y/o son to those same rockets in the early 1990s he discovered “Daddy” rockets and never turned back. Today, Ken has been an L3 flier for about 18 years, is a member of Tripoli (AeroPac) and NAR (LUNAR), the Chairman of the BoD of AeroPac, former BoD member of Tripoli, member of Tripoli’s TAP, Chairman of AeroPac’s ARLISS program and former ARLISS flier, long time (astonishingly) holder of Tripoli’s N altitude record, and leader of Team AeroPac (winner of the Carmack Prize). He volunteers for NAR’s Student Launch Initiative and Team America Rocketry Competition (currently mentoring two teams). With Bob Twiggs (inventor of the CanSat), he created the Virtual Classroom as an instrument to bring rocket science to the Internet.
You can find him flying rockets most often at Black Rock but sometimes at Snow Ranch.
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