The Reaction Research Society is proud to announce our 80th anniversary symposium to be held at the Mary Star of the Sea High School in San Pedro on Saturday, April 15, 2023, from 8am to 5pm. We have 15 speakers and over 20 exhibitions which is on par with our last symposium four years ago before the pandemic.
Mary Star of the Sea High School is at 2500 N. Taper Avenue in San Pedro, California, 90731.
Gates will be open at 7:15AM for exhibitors to set up. The event will start at 8:00AM sharp.
The gymnasium will hold our exhibitors. Room 108 will have the presentations. Seating is limited. All speakers must be present at least 15 minutes ahead of their speaking time.
Below is a tentative list of our speakers. The list is subject to change without notice.
Opening and first session, 8:00-8:30am, Dave Nordling, President, RRS.ORG
8:30-9:00am, by remote, Ichiro Ausin, et al, University of Michigan
9:00-9:30am, Dr. Steven Chambreau, Air Force Research Laboratory, Edwards AFB
9:30-10:00am, Eric Schmidt, Exquadrum Inc.
10:00-10:30am, Mark Ventura, Ventura Energy Systems
10:30-11:00am, Dean Theodor, Federal Aviation Administration
11:00-11:30am, Julia Woomer et al, USC Rocket Propulsion Laboratory
11:30-12noon, Blake Spahr et al., UCLA Rocket Project
Lunch Break 12:00-1:00pm
1:00-1:30pm, Dr. Frank Chandler, California Polytechnic Pomona
1:30-2:00pm, Dr. Jerry Fuller, Aerospace Corporation
2:00-2:30pm, Tre Willingham et al, Compton Comet
2:30-3:00pm, Caleb Phillips and Vijay Mepani, CALFIRE
3:00-3:30pm, Jack Caldwell et al, Caltech
3:30-4:00pm, Darrell Chua et al, UC San Diego SEDS
4:00-4:30pm, Patrick Finley, Lander Challenge
Closing and thanks, Dave Nordling, President, RRS.ORG
Free tickets on Eventbrite are still available. Many thanks again to Peter Thorpe for his background artwork and to Mary Star of the Sea High School in San Pedro, California, for graciously hosting this event. Food/drinks/snacks will be provided by Mary Star High School.
For questions, please contact our vice president, Frank Miuccio.
vicepresident@rrs.org
Our April 14th monthly meeting will be also held at the Mary Star High School auditorium at 7:30pm. We will discuss a few items of business but largely we will be preparing the site for the next day.
Our latest flyer design for the 80th anniversary RRS symposium Rough floor plan of the exhibition in the Mary Star High School gymnasiumLaminated impulse scale charts from the RRS will be available for purchase at the symposium for $10 each. Proceeds go to the society general fund.Membership applications will be available at the symposium for those wishing to apply for associate membership. $20 per year for students. $40 per year for all others.
We look forward to celebrating amateur rocketry with the community.
The RRS is glad to announce our list of presenters at the 2019 Reaction Research Society Space and Rocketry Symposium on Saturday, April 27, 2019. This all-day public event will be starting at 8:45am, at the Ken Nakaoka Community Center in Gardena, California and run to 5pm. The community center is right next door to the Gardena Police Department.
Welcome to all space and rocketry enthusiasts!
Sessions will be 25 minutes each with a brief 5-minute question and answer period. We’re glad to have representatives from industry, federal and state government agencies and academia all present for this event. We’re also glad to the many exhibitors including Rocketry Organization of California, Spaceport LA, Aerospace Corporation and Additive Rocket Corporation joining us in the ballroom.
The morning schedule for the 2019 RRS symposium
Breaking the list into two parts, the symposium continues into the afternoon. We have decided not to hold the panel session at the end as we were able to fill our roster quite easily. We’re very thankful to the many presenters able to come share their thoughts and ideas with our public audience.
The afternoon schedule for the 2019 RRS sympsoium
The symposium as of this posting has 380 (free) tickets sold on Eventbrite. We expect to have the same great crowd as last year and hopefully more can share the event with us. This will be our last symposium for at least two years, so please come join us if you can. If not, you can always find us at the next RRS monthly meeting (May 10, 2019).
The Reaction Research Society is proud to hold the 2019 Space and Rocketry Symposium at the Ken Nakaoka Community Center in Gardena, CA, April 27, 2019, starting at 8:45am.
Ken Nakaoka Community Center 1670 West 162nd Street Gardena, California, 90247 (310) 217-9537
Gardena is in the south bay of Los AngelesEasy access from the I-405 on Western Avenue or using the CA Hwy. 91
The RRS held our monthly meeting on April 12, 2019 at the Ken Nakaoka Community Center in Gardena. We had a full agenda with the 2019 RRS symposium just around the corner on Saturday, April 27th.
The symposium is just around the corner
We first welcomed two new members, Keith Yoerg and Jonathan Martinez. Keith is active with Tomorrow’s Aeronautical Museum (TAM) at the Compton Airport and has given many educational programs to local schools. He’s also a graduate of USC and a former member of their Rocket Propulsion Laboratory (RPL). Jonathan Martinez joins the RRS as a student member from Compton High School. He’s been working at TAM and the RRS hopes to help him in his new project to hot-fire a liquid rocket.
Keith Yoerg (left) watches Waldo Stakes (right) show off the gas generator injector he brought to the meeting.New RRS member, Jonathan Martinez (left) and Wilbur Owens (right) at the April 2019 meeting of the RRS.
We next talked about the recent launch event with LAPD CSP and Compton Elementary. The “Rockets in the Projects” program is going strong and we were glad to welcome Compton Elementary to our workspace and launchpad in the Mojave Desert.
Dave Crisalli, our pyro-op for the event, gives the safety briefing to all attendees including Compton Elementary, LAPD and USC RPL
Under very pleasant weather, we had a good launch event starting with a tour, safety briefing and the kids finally getting a chance to see their rockets fly into the blue sky. Osvaldo had a seventh alpha rocket with a parachute system, but somehow failed to deploy. USC static-fired a six-inch custom solid motor.
An alpha assembled at Compton Elementary streaks away from the box rails at the RRS MTAUSC’s six-inch solid composite grain motor burns for full duration at the RRS MTA. A second motor will be integrated into the Traveller IV vehicle that USC will launch from Spaceport America in New Mexico
After Compton Elementary and LAPD CSP went home, Osvaldo, Frank, Larry and I did a little reconnaissance for the alphas we flew at the event. We were able to find 3 of the original 6 and one more alpha from the past MTA launch event. The higher level winds have been carrying the alphas in a more northerly direction west of the launch rails. For reference, Osvaldo recorded the following coordinates for one of the alphas found: 35* 21′ 16.83″ North, 117* 48′ 50.03″ West.
Using the local wildflowers, Larry marks the location of a newly recovered alpha from the last MTA launch event
The 2019 RRS symposium was the next topic. We have over 300 Eventbrite tickets sold at the time of the meeting. The symposium has confirmed a full roster of speakers including AFRL Edwards AFB, Northrop-Grumman, USAF SMC. We decided not to hold the panel discussion this year. The symposium will start at 8:45AM on Saturday, April 27th.
Frank Miuccio goes over the preparations for the 2019 RRS symposium to be held on Saturday, April 27, 2019
The Ken Nakaoka Community Center in Gardena will allow us to set up the night before (4/26/19) at 7pm until they close at 9pm. There’s a lot of work to be done and we hope all of our membership can come out on Friday and help us with setting up tables and hanging the sign outside.
We also hope all of our membership can help at the symposium on Saturday (4/27/2019) as well. The Ken Nakaoka Community Center opens at 8AM, we will have just a little bit of time to get ready before the event begins at 8:45am with our RRS president, Osvaldo Tarditti, giving the introductory presentation.
RRS member group photo from last year’s 75th anniversary symposium (1943-2018)
The next topic of discussion at the April 2019 meeting was facility improvements at the RRS MTA. The society has decided to invest in upgrading our blockhouse and building a new restroom facility at the site for better creature comfort for the increasing number of guests we’re having each year. Osvaldo has been working up the plans for these two facility improvements and will get bids very soon.
We also hope to solicit donations from the public at the symposium to help the society reach our goals for these facility improvement projects. To anyone wishing to make a monetary donation to the RRS, you can use the “DONATE” button on the RRS.ORG homepage which connects to Paypal. Please leave us a note and accept our thanks. The society is striving to improve our facilities as we prepare to have more events this year.
Osvaldo also told us more about the RRS participating with CALFIRE in their review of the state laws governing amateur rocketry. Members of the Friends of Amateur Rocketry (FAR) organization have also been working with CALFIRE on this important committee. It is the goal of the RRS to inform the public and governing agencies on ways to make the law reasonable, practical and just to the amateur rocketry as we uphold our commitment to public safety. CALFIRE has been very supportive of our hobby and we are building stronger relationships with the State of California and our fellow rocketry organizations.
Dave Crisalli (RRS member), Larry Hoffing (RRS events coordinator), Ramiro Rodriguez (CALFIRE) and Osvaldo Tarditti (RRS president) at the RRS MTA launch event on 4/6/2019
Discussion on our last topic on the agenda was about the RRS’s participation with the base11 project. We were not able to talk about this subject in much detail as closing time had fast approached. As an educational non-profit group, the RRS has a charter to support university groups. The base11 project is very ambitious in its goal of student-run teams building and flying a liquid rocket to an altitude of 100 km or higher. This multi-year program will be a challenge on many levels both financial and technical. The RRS is happy to support the base11 Space Challenge at the RRS MTA.
The RRS is proud to support teams for the Base11 Space Challenge
The remaining agenda topics will be covered in next month’s meeting including the quarterly progress update on the SuperDosa project and the RRS partnership with Tomorrow’s Aeronautical Museum (TAM).
The Reaction Research Society meets the 2nd Friday of each month at the Ken Nakaoka Community Center in Gardena, California, at 7:30pm.
The RRS is very exciting about the projects we have planned for this summer. Our next monthly meeting will be Friday, May 10th, 2019 at 7:30pm.
