Our June meeting was held by teleconference on June 12th starting at 7:30pm as planned. Some people did not seem to get the email link with the information to call-in. As always, members are responsible for keeping their contact information current including their emails. Please contact the RRS treasurer with your updated contact information so that all active members can be on distribution.
We had over a dozen people calling in which is a fairly good turn-out under these quarantine circumstances. Some of our members actually appreciated being able to call-in rather than travel all the way to Gardena.
RRS members from around the city call into the June 2020 monthly meeting.
Chris Lujan, our treasurer, was able to set this meeting up for us. Based on the success of the last two meetings, the RRS will make teleconferences a regular part of our meetings even when we return to in-person meetings. It allows more of us to connect around our local area. Many of us miss the face to face interaction which we hope will return some day soon.
The RRS has it’s second monthly meeting by teleconference due to COVID-19 concerns.
Dave Nordling and Larry Hoffing gave an update on the next flight of the hybrid rocket. A new rocket body is being made and a better means of ignition will be attempted that should more reliably sever the nitrous fill line.
New rocket body still in build. Hybrid motor was fitted, but recovery system needs to be installed.
Wolfram is still working on subsystem tests of his Gas Guzzler ramjet. He has rebuilt damaged parts and is conducting burner tests to verify important aspects of his design. He may not return to testing at the MTA until October 2020 when the weather is likely to be cooler.
Wolfram Blume’s Gas Guzzler two-stage ramjet prototype sits on display.
John Krell has built a pair of custom avionics chips that can record altitude and accelerations at rapid data rates (1 kHz). They are small enough to fit in a standard alpha payload tube. Integration activities are underway. Frank has many of the recovered alphas in storage which often have their payload tubes intact for re-use after some clean up.
A recovered alpha payload tube ready for re-use with another alpha propellant tube.
Keith Yoerg recently retired his latest rocket after 10 flights and achieving certification with it. He may start a new build but that remains open.
Next MTA launch date was tentatively set for July 25th. We hope to fly some alphas including one with a longer propellant tube (4-feet) in order to compare the results from John’s avionics.
Bill Inman has decided to rejoin the RRS after being away for many years. He was the builder of the Scalded Cat steam rocket and is working on a new design iteration to fly soon at the RRS MTA. A reprinting of his March 2001 article on the Scalded Cat will soon post to our website for those wanted to see this work in detail.
Bill Inman (right) at the RRS MTA working on his launch rail.
The next monthly meeting of the RRS will be July 10th. We are presuming this to be another teleconference only unless LA County lifts the quarantine restrictions and the Ken Nakaoka Community Center re-opens.
Waldo Stakes will be holding a memorial service for Mad Mike Hughes at 12 noon, July 18, 2020, at the 247 Cafe in Lucerne Valley, CA. Mad Mike was killed in the last flight of his steam-powered manned rocket flight outside of Amboy, CA, on February 22, 2020.
Mad Mike Hughes (left) and Waldo Stakes (right) in front of the “Juan Pollo” manned steam rocket at the 2019 RRS symposium in Gardena, California.
Mad Mike wasn’t a member of the RRS but he was one of our exhibitors at the 2019 Symposium last year. He had his rocket, the Juan Pollo, on display and many people had the chance to meet him. He will be missed by his family and friends including some of our membership.
The Reaction Research Society held another launch event with the LAPD CSP. This event was with the students of Boyle Heights. We had ten standard alphas launched into the blue Mojave sky that day including some model rockets made by Russell Hoffing and my grandson.
A lot of different groups came out for this launch event at the RRS MTA, 09-21-2019
We had students from the CSU Long Beach liquid rocket team come out to make some measurements for sub-system testing that they are planning at the RRS MTA this year.
CSU Long Beach inspects the vertical mounting structure at the RRS MTAModel rockets in the George Dosa building undergoing preparation for launchStudents from Boyle Heights get their orientation instructions at the RRS MTARRS events coordinator, Larry Hoffing; RRS VP, Frank Miuccio and RRS president, Osvaldo Tarditi
Returning RRS member, John Krell, had worked up two prototype instrumentation packages for flights in the ninth and tenth RRS standard alphas on that day. Both rockets were recovered and the results were impressive.
John Krell arms his payload integrated into one of two RRS standard alphas, 09-21-2019One of John’s prototypes survived the flight and is laid out on the table in the Dosa Bldg.John Krell examines the recovered SD memory chips to determine the flight profile from the RRS alpha. Over 100 G’s of acceleration at take-off max’d out the sensor!
Materials have been acquired to repair the adjustable rail launcher that was damaged in early August this year. Osvaldo has been busy at work on the repairs. The RRS has several facility improvement projects in the works and we hope to bring this rail launcher back to service soon for larger rockets (4 to 6 inches).
John will hopefully have a full report and an overview of his design. Both Bill Behenna and Brian Johnson are also working on their own instrumentation designs for the RRS standard alpha. With this recent progress, this should help our others members take better data.
Still photo from RRS alpha #3 of 10 launched at the MTA on 09-21-2019.
We’ll discuss more of the results of this event in detail at the next RRS meeting on October 11, 2019. The RRS meets every 2nd Friday at the Ken Nakaoka Community Center in Gardena, California. Stop in and see how things went.
The Reaction Research Society (RRS) met on Friday, September 13, 2019. We had several new people come out to visit including the CSU Long Beach liquid rocket team. They were coming to learn more about the society and our resources at the Mojave Test Area (MTA).
The RRS had a special occasion to celebrate at the meeting which we did with pizza. The RRS now has three new licensed pyro-ops, Osvaldo Tarditti, Larry Hoffing and Dave Nordling. This will help us a lot in holding more events at the MTA.
Abel, Wally, Tustin and Hunter from the CSULB Beach Launch Team, enjoyed our celebration and stayed for the meeting.
Since we had so many new people coming to the meeting, we decided to make introductions and share some of the stories and latest projects before getting to the meeting agenda topics.
Wolfram Blume, new member to the RRS, discussed his plans to static fire a gasoline fueled subsonic ramjet
New RRS member, Wolfram Blume, came to the meeting tonight to discuss his plans to build, test and ultimately fly a gasoline fuel ram-jet called the Gas Guzzler project. He’s been working on this project since 2011 and he presented the RRS president with his test request to conduct a static fire test along with many details of his initial designs. The RRS has not tested a ramjet in many years and this will be a very interesting project as it develops.
Waldo Stakes, RRS member, explains his latest progress with the steam rocket he’s been working.
Waldo Stakes came to the meeting to share with the society his latest progress with a steam rocket he’s been working on for Mad Mike Hughes. Waldo’s projects are always fascinating as he’s worked with a lot of different groups over the years in racing and in rocketry. He’s also been working with Compton College on the planning of their large liquid rocket. The RRS is also glad to be a part of Compton College’s ambitions to build a liquid rocket.
Mario and Oscar of Compton College with RRS member, Kent Schwitkis listen to Bill Behenna present his latest avoinics payload project to be built for the RRS alpha.
RRS member, Kent Schwitkis and a couple of his students from Compton College came to the society meeting. There are many bright students at Compton College interested in working with the RRS and we have already began to assist each student with tasks specific to projects their working at the college.
Bill Behenna shows his latest prototype of an alpha payload to measure acceleration and barometric pressure.
We decided to showcase our membership project first before beginning our agenda which was a very good idea. Bill Behenna has been hard at work on his avionics payload to be built to fly in the many RRS standard alphas we have at most of our launch events.
After calling the meeting to order and the reading of the treasury report, the RRS began our September meeting agenda.
(1) Next Launch Event at the RRS MTA with LAPD CSP and Boyle Heights
The RRS has finished with the last classroom presentation of the series. The students have painted their rockets and are ready for the final launch day, next Saturday, September 21, 2019. After propellant loading, the RRS will be ready to receive our next group to watch their handiwork take flight in the desert.
(2) RRS facility improvements
Osvaldo has been leading the task of evaluating facility improvements to the RRS. The main improvements under consideration are (1) improving our restroom facilities at the MTA and (2) replacing the old blockhouse at the MTA. Osvaldo has made some drawings of the new restroom facilities and is discussing the details with a vendor to get a quote.
In early August, our large adjustable rail launcher was damaged in a failed launch attempt of a large solid motor. Osvaldo began repairs and hopes to have the box rail system restored soon.
The RRS MTA site was also the victim of theft of many things from the George Dosa building. Security at our test site is difficult given its remote location. Several suggestions were made including adding cameras, improving our locks and doors, making opaque window inserts for the building, and simply being present at the site more often. The RRS has been the victim of theft before, but it is something that is never easy to recover.
(3) 2020 Constitutional Committee report
The committee was not able to make their report this month. Several factors have contributed to this delay over the summer. The committee will make its presentation to the society at the next meeting in October.
(4) Society votes on holding the 2020 RRS Symposium
After some discussion last month, the society decided that we will in fact hold the next RRS symposium in the Spring of 2020. Given the increasingly successful events we’ve had since 2017, and the many people who have encouraged us to keep this annual event, the administrative membership voted in favor. Frank Miuccio will again be our symposium coordinator and the RRS will be reaching out to presenters and exhibitors very soon. Our next order of business will be setting the date which is likely to be in the month of April.
(5) RRS to present at the CATIE conference at Antelope Valley College
Dr. Khalil Dajani of CSU Long Beach has invited the RRS to be one of the presenters at the Space Responsiveness Workshop and Exhibit at Antelope Valley College at the Hellenic Center in Lancaster, California. The 2019 California Aerospace Technologies Institute of Excellence will be held on Wednesday, September 18th where members from industry and the government will hear our presentation introducing the society and our capabilities at the Mojave Test Area. We hope to make some great contacts at this event and begin some new partnerships..
The RRS has focused a lot on educational and project activities, but we don’t often plan simple gatherings for fun. Larry had talked about having the RRS visit Mt. Wilson as a private group. At the meeting, we also talked about having a simple barbecue at the MTA as was done in times past. We plan to revisit this discussion again. Other members are welcome to share their ideas.
(7) RRS history project – Garboden archives
Lifetime member, George Garboden, has many boxes of papers and reports from the RRS in his possession that he would like to pass back to the society for archival. In support of the RRS history project, the society is always glad to get articles, clippings and any kind of archival materials and make them more available to our membership. Frank, Larry and I have been working on the logistics of getting a new storage location, but the most important step is finding the time to carefully make quality scans.
(8) Social media improvements
Alastair Martin announced the next pending episode of his podcast, Rocket Talk Radio. Other fellow RRS members, Dave Nordling and Richard Garcia, will take part in the next installment of the “Before SpaceX” series on September 28th. In this episode, we will be interviewing Jim French. Jim has had a long and interesting career as a rocket development engineer for the H-1 and F-1 engines at Rocketdyne in the 1950’s and later at TRW in the 1960’s with the Lunar Descent engine during the heyday of Apollo. His book “Firing a Rocket Engine” is available on Amazon.
“Firing a Rocket” by James French
Jim French also worked for a startup company called the American Rocket Company (AMROC) in Camarillo in the late 1980’s and early 1990’s. We hope to have a great conversation and learn a lot about his experiences at this commercial space company.
(9) Memories of George Dosa
As our last order of business, we shared with the society that we lost one of our oldest and most beloved members of our society. In our long history, George Dosa, had a profound impact on the society and many of our past and present members.
The RRS adjourned our meeting after a long series of very interesting discussions. We are thankful to all for coming and we will be holding our next monthly meeting, October 11, 2019. If there are any changes or additions to make to this monthly report, please notify the RRS secretary.
