The July 12^th meeting was quite an active one with about 13 in attendance and some interesting things to be shared. To accommodate Polaris this October the Launch may either be moved up to September or postponed to November. We’ve not officially set the date.

Larry Hoffing and his son did a great demonstration of polyurethane casting a nosecone. They had a mold of the nosecone and they poured in the polyurethanemix which was onepart resin and one part hardener by volume. They poured in some of the mix and rotated the mold as it hardened to make a layer of urethane around the walls of the mold. They did a few layers like this. The mold can be left like this to be hollow or as they did it can be filled the rest of the way to make a solid nosecone. The finished product can be sanded and it can be drilled out to make it hollow as well. The process is less precise than machining but significantly reduces tooling costs.It was discussed that the mold was originally from George Dosa for the Alpha rocket, and that Frank has some of the original forms from George Dosa for making the molds for casting nosecones.
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At the last meeting a few copies of the RRS beta plans went out. (I’ll eventually have a PDF of the plans on the new web site) With an impressive turnaround time Keven Tice came back this month with a finished rocket. He did an excellent job with the rocket and it looked great. He made some modifications to the design. He increased the diameter of the payload section, and he made a fin can instead of using straps. He also changed the fin shape from a parallelogram to a symmetric trapezoid.It total he spent around 40hrs building his beta. Since he changed the OD of the payload section he will have to make an adapter for the launcher. We look forward to seeing it fly at the next firing.

The 3D printed rocket competition has finished and I had to opportunity to share the end results and talk a little about the engine that we submitted. The winners will be announced around the end of July. If you want to know more you can see everything from us and the other competing teams at the contests site. http://www.openspaceuniversity.org/#!designs2/cun6

 
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Frank brought an RRS patch from the late 80’s and an RRS hat. He also brought and gave out some extra copies of an old RRS newsletter. (Volume 58, number 1, march 2001)  He also mentioned to me that from his stint as the secretary of the PRS (there equivalent of the RRS president) he has a copy of all the PRS newsletters that he wants to bring to the next meeting of the RRS so I can scan them for the RRS library.

I think the best treat of the meeting was something Frank brought to share. Frank showed a very interesting sort film featuring the RRS. Around the late 50’s early 60’s a college student from UCLA for a school film project create a short film originally recorded on 16mm film called “Whity” I won’t describe the whole thing here but it takes place at the MTA and Whity is a young boys pet mouse who’s is set to be launched in the nose cone of a large rocket when the boy has second thoughts about his pet’s safety.The film was well directed and well shot with believable and relatable characters and compelling story telling with a clear climax and resolution. The film felt like a little slice of history especially with every one dressed normally for the time. One of the characters also reminded me just a bit of Biff from “Back to the Future”

We were informed by John who was active in the society around that time about the concept for the rocket used in the film. It originated from the fact that typicalzinc-sulfur rockets seen at the RRS would have very high accelerations and would fly so fast that they would be very difficult to photograph and impossible to follow the rocket through its flight on film. To make a rocket more conducive to filming they made a very heavy rocket to slow its flight down so it could be filmed more easily. The rocket made use of a galvanized flue pipe for an outer skin and generous amount of wood on the inside.The crash as filmed was real and the parachute deployment was a special effects.

Frank has this film on DVD and I hope we can get it up on the new version on the web site. Since we don’t have contact with the original creator we may have to post it for members only. However most artists love to have their work seen, and I’m confident that if we got ahold of him they would be fine with making it publicly available.
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I also wanted to share these pictures I found of Microcosm’s Scorpius S-RM launch vehicle with 20,000lb of thrust being static tested at the MTA.

-Richard Garcia

Osvaldo returned to the MTA and found his rocket. (Along with a few other pieces of unidentified rockets) It looked like the parachute tangled on deployment possibly due to the shock cords being too short. His apogee detector broke and the main body tube was bent.

Osvaldo also brought the drawings to the RRS Beta and I’ll be scanning them soon, so now we can look forward to having those. Additionally he also brought the accompanying text to the RRS composite motor class, and I will also be scanning that to add to our RRS library.

The meeting was attended by an older one of our members John Mariano. He has been active in the past and he is currently working with the Endeavor exhibit at the California Science Center. He has noticed that over the past few years an interest in spaceflight and rocketry that he has not seen since the space race era. He is in an advantageous position to promote the RRS and he is interested in doing so and we discussed some of the possibilities.

John also brought a very interesting RRS artifact. It was a Copy of a small news article accompanied by an illustration. In 1948 the RRS proposed to build a 4 stage hydrogen oxygen rocket capable of delivering 100lb to orbit. This obviously never came to be, but I admire the ambition. I haven’t checked their numbers for their vehicle, but I have been working on designing a nano-satellite launcher for the 3D printed rocket engine contest and I do think a small launch vehicle delivering a payload on the order of 5 to 10 kg is doable at the extreme end of the amateur scale. (It would probably be something comparable to Copenhagen Suborbital’s second manned configuration, but with more stages.) He also mentioned some other interesting historical items from the RRS. There was an article about the RRS in a 1960’s edition of an encyclopedia. [Rocket Encyclopedia Illustrated – Herrick] There was also a RRS TV spot that John was in that aired on a local news station in the 1960’s. If you have anything like this from the RRS in your position, let’s get it convert it to a digital format so we can put it up on the website. Send me an email if you’re interested or need any help. (I had someone working at the Gardena recreational center make a copy of it for me but it was too large for him to get on one page so after I scan and edit it back into one image I’ll post it.)

We discussed an idea I had recently about trying to use an aqueous solution of potassium nitrate as a liquid oxidizer. I wasn’t sure how we could test if it would burn with a liquid fuel. If we just mixed some with ethanol and took a blow torch to it how we would know whether the ethanol was burning with the potassium nitrate solution or just atmospheric oxygen? Well someone clued me in on the fact that if the potassium nitrate was combusting there should be noticeable color change in the flame. I thought it was a good idea and I gave it a try the other day and I got positive results. I took a video and posted it to the RRS YouTube channel. I’ll be moving forward with a potassium nitrate solution/ethanol test stand engine design to see if this kind of propellant combination is a viable amateur alternative to liquid oxygen, nitrous oxide, Nitric acid and hydrogen peroxide. I plan to write an article about this and hopefully we’ll have a newsletter to put it in by then.

I’ve been working on the web site which Eric has set up in its own section of the server the site is currently on. It’s now under development and will not replace the main page until it’s more finished. Here is the address: https://rrs.org/ Any feedback positive or negative is welcome and appreciated.

We’re still on for an October 5th firing.

The next meeting will be July 12th at the Gardena Recreational Center, 1670 West 162nd Street Gardena, CA