Category Archives: Symposium

The 75th anniversary RRS symposium

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The RRS celebrates 75 years.

The Reaction Research Society (RRS) is proud to announce the 75th anniversary symposium at the Ken Nakaoka Community Center in Gardena, California. The symposium will begin at 9:00AM on Saturday, April 21st. This will be an all-day event with a short lunch break. We hope to have local food vendors near the community center. Also, Gardena has many restaurants along Western Avenue and down at Artesia Blvd.

Ken Nakaoka Community Center
1670 W. 162nd Street
Gardena, CA, 90247

Mapquest – Ken Nakaoka Community Center

Google Maps – Gardena Recreation Center

first flyer for the RRS 75th anniversary symposium

We are proud to have speakers and exhibitors on topics of amateur and professional rocketry featuring guests from industry, academia and other rocketry organizations. Our list of speakers is below:

75th anniversary RRS symposium, speakers list

Exhibitors at the symposium include China Lake Historical Society, UCLA, CSU Long Beach, USC, UC Irvine, UCSD, Magnolia Science Academy, Spaceport L.A., our fellow colleagues at the Rocketry Organization of California (ROC), Los Angeles Air Force Base’s (LA AFB) Space and Missile Center (SMC) and officers from Los Angeles Police Department’s (LAPD) Community Safety Partnership (CSP).

pulling up the banner

Our educational non-profit group’s humble beginnings were a group of students in Glendale in 1943. Founded by George James, the Southern California Rocket Society was renamed the Glendale Rocket Society to avoid confusion with another local group. Later, the Glendale Rocket Society would become the Reaction Research Society to encompass more aspects of propulsion than rockets.

RRS founder, George James, with his “Slim Jim” rocket

These RRS members took their passion for rocketry and science sharing it with other like-minded people ultimately leading to vibrant society persisting for three-quarters of a decade. We hope to have a photo montage from the long span of our history on display.

We will have many great exhibitors including regional universities sharing their projects. Our public event will be a great event for all. Contact Frank Miuccio, our symposium coordinator, with any questions.

vicepresident@rrs.org

RRS 75th anniversary symposium

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The Reaction Research Society is proud to announce their 75th anniversary symposium on Saturday, April 21, 2018 at the Ken Nakaoka Community Center in Gardena, California. Our 501(c)3 educational non-profit group is the oldest continuously operating amateur rocketry society in the United States. This is a milestone year and we are very proud to share our legacy, history and commitment to our passion for responsible science and learning.

Ken Nakaoka Community Center
1670 West 162nd Street
Gardena, California 90247

Built on the success of last year’s symposium we expect to have an even bigger event with presenters and exhibitors from the aerospace industry, academia, private groups and government agencies. Speakers at our public event will talk on subjects of professional and amateur rocketry. We have already begun our preparations and have confirmed some of our speakers.

Our 75th anniversary symposium is coming soon!

Our symposium coordinator and society vice-president is Frank Miuccio who is happy to answer any questions about the upcoming symposium. We will have updates and more specifics as we progress towards the symposium date in April. You can follow us right here on RRS.ORG

vicepresident@rrs.org

We encourage all of our membership to help us in preparing for this great event. It is also a good time to consider joining the RRS as we have many great events and projects planned for this milestone year. Hope to see you there!

2017 RRS symposium was a success!

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The RRS held its 2017 Rocket and Space Exhibition and Symposium today, April 22nd, at the Ken Nakaoka Community Center in Gardena.

pulling up the banner

2017 RRS symposium

In attendance was Orbital-ATK, Aerospace Corporation, Tyvak, Navy Air Weapons Center at China Lake, the China Lake Museum, Rocketry Organization of California (ROC), University of California Los Angeles, University of Southern California, California State University Long Beach, University of California San Diego, University of California Irvine, Cal Poly Pomona, California Institute of Technology, Oregon State, Mars City Design, Spaceport LA and the Magnolia Science Academy.

Many of the university groups and private companies were exhibitors at the event.

UCSD SEDS group

UCLA Rocket Project

USC Rocket Propulsion Laboratory

The Rocketry Organization of California (ROC) had a great exhibit.

Rocketry Organization of California (ROC)

Mars City Design and Spaceport L.A. were both at the exhibition.

Mars City Design

Mars City Design

Mars City Design

Spaceport L.A.

The China Lake Museum also had a great display for their museum in Ridgecrest, CA, soon to be unveiled to the public.

China Lake Museum Foundation

China Lake Museum

Also, we were very fortunate to have a lot of rocketry equipment on display (on loan) from Norton Sales.

TRW pintle engine on display, courtesy of Norton Sales

Norton Sales – North Hollywood, CA

thrust chamber on loan from Norton Sales at the RRS symposium exhibition

Rocketdyne Atlas vernier engine

The RRS SuperDosa full-scale mockup was also on display.

The RRS SuperDosa rocket, full-scale mockup

Also a fine piece from Apogee Astronautics, a Viper 3A booster, on loan to the RRS symposium exhibition courtesy of Robert Kleinberger.

Viper 3A booster on loan from Apogee Astronautics

Many current and former members of the RRS were at the symposium.

Larry Hoffing, Niels Anderson, Chip Bassett, George Garboden and John Mariano

Hal Duffy and Osvaldo Tarditti

George Dosa, at the RRS symposium

Richard Garcia, our director of research at the RRS, had his liquid rocket breadboard on display, one of several projects started at the RRS this year.

Richard and his liquid rocket breadboard

RRS liquid rocket vehicle breadboard, work in progress

John Mariano and Larry Hoffing were both on hand at the RRS table all day at the symposium to talk about the society’s rich history and our recent work with local schools including Hermosa, Compton’s Rise Academy and the Girls Academic Leadership Academy of LA USD.

John Mariano at the RRS symposium exhibit

RRS exhibition at the 2017 symposium

The RRS looks forward to doing more events with schools as the importance of STEAM education is increasingly important. To anyone interested in doing rocket build events with the RRS, please contact the RRS at our events email: events@rrs.org

Osvaldo and Frank started off the symposium with the welcoming speech in the exhibition hall.

Frank Miuccio, RRS VP, gives an opening speech

I had the pleasure of giving the first presentation on the RRS’s history, present and future goals.

Dave Nordling, RRS past, present and future

We had presenters running throughout the day. Our presenters gave great speeches. We had a lot of participation from industry, academia and government with a good range of topics.

Warren Frick of Orbital-ATK presents at the RRS symposium speaker series

Matt Walker of NAWC China Lake presents at the RRS symposium

Dr. Jamie Bock of Cal Tech Astronomy Department presents on the CIBER project

Mars City Design has been in partnership with the RRS. Vera Mulyani gave a great presentation on their goals. On behalf of the RRS, Frank donated an alpha to the Mars City Design team for their upcoming “An Evening on Mars” dinner event on May 25th. An Evening on Mars – May 25, 2017 The RRS is glad to be working with Mars City on this ambitious project.

An RRS alpha is donated to Mars City Design

We are very grateful to all who came and to the Ken Nakaoka Community Center for hosting our event.
Ken Nakaoka Community Center – via Facebook

Also, we had a lot of great volunteers who we are indebted for making setup and teardown go swiftly and smoothly.

Dave Nordling, Richard Garcia, Bill Janczewski

The RRS thanks all of our volunteers!

Some of the photos on this post are courtesy of Tony Richards. Thank you for taking those, Tony. If there’s more photos anyone would like to share, please let me know.
secretary@rrs.org

Also, the RRS wants to thank Tacos Los 2 Amigos for providing lunch just outside of the community center. Many people appreciated and enjoyed it!

Tacos Los 2 Amigos – Yelp

In early April, I put out a group of emails to everyone that is on the RRS mailing list that I have. At the symposium, some of our current and former members have said that they didn’t receive the notice. As it seems our mailing list hasn’t been reaching everyone, please email me at: secretary@rrs.org and I will be sure to make the update.

Also, if any of our membership is having trouble accessing the members content on the RRS.ORG website, also, please let me know. I can talk to our webmaster and get that resolved.

The RRS is looking forward to next year’s symposium and if anyone has any feedback or any suggestions for improvement for next year’s symposium, please contact Frank.

vicepresident@rrs.org

We’ll be having a launch event at the MTA this next Saturday, April 29th, with UCLA doing a static firing and a launch. I hope there will be other launches we can do at this event.

Also, our next RRS meeting will be Friday, May 12th, 7:30pm, in Gardena. Please come out as we’ve got a lot of exciting things planned this summer and fall.