An Evening on Mars

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RRS president Osvaldo Tarditti and RRS VP Frank Miuccio attended, “An Evening on Mars”, hosted by Mars City Design and Digital Hollywood on May 25, 2017 at the Skirball Cultural Center. Over 125 people attended this exciting and very successful evening. The RRS has been glad to collaborate with Mars City Design over the past year.

Mars City Design
Digital Hollywood

Attendees of this sold out event got to enjoy a Martian-themed dinner to experience what dining might be on Mars. Skirball Center chefs prepared a variety of foods grown by different organizations including Martian Farms, Martian Vineyard wines and vegetarian butchers.

Martian Farms – Facebook
Martian Vineyard

One of the main guest speakers at the event was the mayor of California City, Jennifer Wood. Mayor Wood gave a brief background of California City and discussed how the projects from Mars City Design would become an asset for the city.

Mayor Jennifer Wood, California City

Mars City Design is looking to place a prototype 3D-printed building at the RRS Mojave Test Area (MTA).

At the event the artist and filmmaker, Jan Frojdman, presented a beautiful flyover video compiled from the HiRISE camera orbital footage of the red planet. The link below is a sample from an article posted on CNET.com

Jan Frojdman – Mars Flyover (CNET.com)

The RRS donated a standard alpha rocket to Mars City Design for the event. The winner of the raffle was the organization, Space Nation. Although they decided not launch the rocket, since they really loved it and wanted to keep it intact, Space Nation did attend our launch event at the MTA with UCLA on June 3, 2017.

Space Nation

One of the highlights for the evening was the announcement of Mars City Design’s Challenges 2017 Finalists. The link below has more of the rich details on each of the winning design finalists.

Mars City Design – Finalists 2017

The RRS would like to thank Mars City Design and Digital Hollywood for producing a great event. We look forward to partnering with Mars City Design in further projects coming soon.

blue sunset on Mars, courtesy of JPL

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RRS attends the 48th RTG meeting at AFRL

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The RRS was glad to be invited to attend the 48th meeting of the Rocket Test Group (RTG) held at the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) at Edwards Air Force Base, California, on April 11 and 12, 2017. I had the honor of representing the RRS at the event and would like to thank Phil Rice of AFRL and Tom Jacks of NASA Stennis Space Center (SSC) who are the current chairmen of the RTG.

The RTG is an entirely volunteer organization of rocket test facility operators where they share experiences and safe practices in an effort to pass knowledge between private industry, government and academia.

Rocket Test Group (RTG)

The RRS was glad to make a presentation introducing ourselves and sharing our long rich history. It was great to see the presentations and listen to some of the new developments and issues among the country’s different rocket testing organizations. Presenters at the event included AFRL, Purdue University, Parabilis Space Technology and Aerojet Rocketdyne. Also in attendance was XCOR, Blue Origin, Aerospace Corporation, Johns Hopkins University and NASA SSC.

Dave Nordling presents at the 48th RTG meeting at AFRL

Photography was only permitted inside of the meeting hall which had some great exhibits of historic rocket engines including the Agena upper stage and a recovered SCUD engine.

the venerable Agena upper stage engine at AFRL

recovered SCUD motor on display at AFRL

Also in a display case at the AFRL meeting hall were flight prototypes of laser light propelled disks invented by Dr. Leik Myrabo, researched by the Rennselaer Polytechnic Institute and developed by the company Lightcraft Technologies in 2001.

Lightcraft Technologies Incorporated

It was a fascinating experiment showing how a powerful ground-based laser system (such as those developed under the former “Star Wars” program from the Cold War) could be used to propel a very small spinning disk payload to high altitudes and perhaps even to orbit.

laser light propulsion prototypes tested at AFRL

Link to a USA Today science article (2/16/2001) on this project:
USA Today, Science, 2001-FEB-06

In addition to the presentations, our Air Force hosts gave us a tour of the research and testing facilities. We got to witness a solid grain test firing at Area 1-32, tour the AFRL liquid rocket stands, the Space Propellants Environmental Facility (SPEF) and the AFRL Electric Propulsion laboratory.

RTG 48 group photo at AFRL 1-A stand

Photography wasn’t allowed on the tour, but we had a group photo taken in front of the historic AFRL 1-A stand where the F-1 engine was proven in the 1960’s and the RS-68 engine started development in the late 1990’s. It was truly a pleasure to see so much history at AFRL.

The RRS was also glad to be accepted into the RTG organization as an educational non-profit group and we look forward to attending the next bi-annual RTG meeting later this year.

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June 2017 meeting

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The monthly meeting of the RRS was held June 9, 2017, at the Ken Nakaoka Community Center in Gardena. The meeting was called to order at 7:45pm.

The launch event with UCLA was successful. We accomplished a lot with many different groups present. Again, we thank Dave Crisalli for being our pyro-op for the event. The RRS discussed the event and how we could manage these events in a more orderly fashion.

Several steps for improvement were discussed including tighter control of incoming vehicles and setting our operating procedure into written form for publication. In the future, the RRS should require all attendees to the MTA send their indemnification forms well in advance of the event so we know how many people we are expecting. Also, we need to use a full 10 second count instead of the 5 second count which will allow more time for the spotter to stop the launch if a problem is detected. An earlier draft of the RRS operational safety codes exists and was approved. The RRS secretary will circulate a new draft to the executive council before the next meeting on July 14th.

Minor facility improvements were discussed including how to mitigate the stifling heat at our desert site. Frank was willing to buy a water-fed misting fan that might help some people inside the Dosa building or perhaps inside the bunker. If the device works well, the RRS may consider buying a second unit to help create a small cooling space for those who are most affected by the heat.

I sat in my truck’s air conditioning a few times that afternoon as wearing the fireproof suit for the micrograin loading operations only added to my mounting heat exhaustion. Dave Crisalli had mentioned there are vests that hold flat ice packs that can be worn inside of protective suits. This will buy some time to work more comfortably under hot conditions.

Hydration, sunscreen and proper clothing for the desert heat are always important to all individuals to protect themselves both before and during the events held at the RRS MTA. The Mojave Desert is a tough place. It’s this attention to these details that are key parts of everyone having a successful event. As we do operate year-round through the hot months, there will always be this hazard to manage.

We reviewed the video shot from the launches. It has been suspected that the existing micrograin launch rails are a little too short resulting in the rockets leaving less than straight from the rails. We discussed newer longer rail launchers. It was decided to try to recover an old rail system that is already at the MTA as a backup.

Frank brought several old paper copies of the RRS newsletters. Some of these date back to the early 1950’s and others were from the 1960’s. The RRS is actively working to electronically archive as much of these newsletters as part of our on-going RRS history project.

RRS News, Issues 104 and 103

RRS News, Issues 98 and 101

Issue 101 mentions a story where the RRS was on the old Louis Lomax show which was a local semi-weekly news program in Los Angeles from 1964-1968. John Mariano and George Dosa were there and we hope to someday find the archival footage and post this to our YouTube channel. (I think it was Issue 101? Someone correct me if I am mistaken.)
Louis Lomax – Wikipedia

The RRS has in fact set the date for the upcoming 75th anniversary symposium which will be April 14, 2018. We will have it at the Ken Nakaoka Community Center as before. We have already begun the process of contacting speakers and exhibitors. We hope to make this event even better than this last year.

John Mariano brought his rocket on a string. This is a classic demonstration of the fundamental principle of propulsion using a CO2 cartridge guided on a plastic clothesline. The rocket was easily able to traverse the full length of the Ken Nakaoka Community Center ballroom, even uphill to the stage where Larry was holding the stop. Bill and I took video of the event and its on the RRS YouTube channel. Link is below:

CO2 rocket on a string

YouTube channel – RRS

After some false starts in getting the spring loaded puncturing device to work, we got it to work. Simple, but very fun! This demonstration of the fundamental principle of jet propulsion is a favorite in our educational events.

John Mariano gets ready with his rocket on a string

pool noodle segment, nose cone, plastic guide rods, CO2 cartridge, clothesline

Rocket on a string, Larry catches on the stage

The RRS is looking forward to doing an educational event with the students of Nickerson Projects in Watts. After the teaching sessions, the launch event is scheduled for July 22nd. Larry has an RRS standard alpha for the demonstration. The RRS is grateful to the LAPD CSP program for helping put this together.

RRS standard alpha for the Watts program in July 2017

We adjourned the meeting at 9:10pm. Next meeting will be July 14, 2017, just before the launch event with Nickerson Projects in Watts that next Saturday, July 22nd.

If there is anything I missed or mistated, please let me know.
secretary@rrs.org