News Years Eve and Looking Back...

Well, kiddies, tis that time of year again when we reflect on days gone by before focusing on days coming up; all the while completely forgetting about day right now. That made sense. Really.

Anyway, 2013 is winding down and I for one couldn't be happier. Any year when you discover the definitions of both "slab leak" and "psoriasis", well hanging is too good for it!

That's not to say nothing good happened. The newsletter was handed off to the very capable hands of Gary Briggs (who is doing a great job with it!) and this blog was born!

Still, I would rather look a little further back on this New Years Eve.

In my collection, I have an NAR 50th anniversary release of one of the first mass produced model rockets.  Bill Stein of Quest put these out a few years ago, and several club members bought one (or two). For those who may not know, Bill is the son of G. Harry Stein, the man that designed and marketed this model.

The re-released kit is full of retro- tastiness. The parts are simple and the instructions seem to be patterned after model airplane instructions. This makes sense, since the kit was marketed in model airplane magazines of the day. (As an aside, I recently picked up about 400 model airplane magazines from the 50's and 60's. I know there is at least one ad in them for rockets, but I need to dig through and find them all. Future post, maybe?)

Anyway, I guess my point is that in this day of GPS tracking, altimeters, and high power craziness, maybe its good to remember where it all started. A couple of balsa scraps, a cardboard tube, and some good old imagination can do miracles.

So, to all of my DARS friends, Happy New Year and fly 'em fast and high!

We Wish You....

...a merry merry Christmas! May your day be merry and bright, and may all your rockets light!

Of Stuck Up Rocketeers and Little Boy Birthdays...

What do you do when you write a weekly blog and you suddenly realize that it's the first part of the week and you haven't even thought about what the post will be? You go to your phone and look at the pictures! Not that I would ever find myself in that situation of course...

So, here is the first picture I got off my phone:

John Dyer

This is John. John is a good friend and an all around great guy. John is also a "rocket expert." John would probably never call himself a "rocket expert" but I will because it makes the next statement funnier. John has glued himself to his rocket. Now, if the truth be told, we have probably all done this from time to time, but seldom in a public place, and seldom where a guy has a phone that they can snap pictures is hanging out.

That'll learn ya, John.

I'm pretty sure he's calling his wife, Nina for help.

By the way, go to http://redriverrocketry.com/ and buy cool rocket stuff. Just sayin'.

The next picture is this:

Coolest Little Boy in the World

This is my grandson, Ayden. I say he's the coolest little boy in the world because,
1. He is, and
2. The title of "coolest little girl in the world" goes to my granddaughter, Kyrie.

Anyway, it's his fourth birthday today. As you can see, he is reprograming Wall-E to do his bidding and take over the world. I see great things for this kid.
Happy birthday, kid!

Until next time fly 'em fast and high!

Cardboard and the Conquest of Space

A fellow DARS member sent in the following picture in response to my GI Joe Space Capsule entry. It seems he wanted to show me up...and he did! Now I've seen ads (and actual pictures) for cardboard submarines and tanks, but this one was new to me. Here is the picture:

An intrepid DARS member heads into space!

 Looking up the name on the side of the craft (ain't Google grand?), I found this:

Ad for the above mentioned spacecraft!

As far as I can tell (which isn't much) Power Mite II was a GE brand of photo bulb...and a totally cool space capsule! Cross promoting at its finest! The comic book promoted both items quite well. I wish I had more than the first page. Maybe someday... sigh...

Anyway, your job, STB readers is to figure out who our astronaut is! The first reader who correctly identifies the mystery space explorer will win something grabbed at random out of my rocket room when I rush to the meeting. You must attend the meeting to win, since I don't want to mail it....whatever it ends up being...I really don't know...

So until next time, fly 'em fast and high!!!

LEMS of Paper, Dreams of Glory

You know, the space race in the 60's seems to be a theme that keeps creeping into this blog, and I really don't have any problem with that! The 60's were a time when all things seemed possible, and the entire country (if not the entire world) was caught up in the rush toward "the final frontier."

Part of that push was merchandising. Yep, it is American as Apple Pie (for sale at your local grocer). If there is a popular fad, grab hold and sell, baby sell! I'm not saying that's bad at all. Some of our greatest treasures from that time period are things that were produced to cross-promote space and...well, just about anything.

A case in point is the Gulf Oil LEM paper model. It was given away at Gulf stations in 1968 to celebrate the moon landing. (As an aside, I really miss the times when gas stations sweetened the pot of shopping with them with giveaways and special offers. I have Disney LP albums, Dallas Cowboy drinking glasses and other stuff from that time. It seems they could do that again and maybe make up for the fact that we are getting totally ripped off with every tank. Just saying...)

The Gulf Oil Lunar Module Kit was a single sheet of heavy card stock with die cut pieces that could be punched out to give you your very own Lunar Lander (with a bit of folding and assembling). The finished model was actually pretty good, and it has gone down in paper model circles (yes, there ARE paper model circles) as a classic.

The Gulf Oil Lunar Module Kit as seen, framed, in my office.

I happened to run across one on our old friend Ebay a few years ago. It took me a couple of more years to finally get it matted and framed, but now I see it every day in my office. Of course, I would never build it, but if you have a hankering to actually build one, you can. Just follow this link:  http://jleslie48.com/gallery_models_apollo.html and print out your own! I'm pretty sure this can be converted to fly (hey, I've seen plastic ones fly, so how tough could it be) and if you crash, just print out a new one!

In the mean time, fly 'em fast and high!

One from the Storage Locker

It was hot. Very, very hot. Laurie and I sat in our car on the Frisco field, not really knowing what to expect. A van pulled up next to us. A buzzard spontaniously combusted overhead. It was time....

Except that it wasn't. The long day of waiting had actually just started. I guess it really started a few weeks before when Jack Sprague mentioned that he had been approached by Storage Wars Texas to help with an episode. He knew that Laurie and I had experience with the crazy world of storage auctions (actually, they are boring and a TON of work....just sayin') and he wondered if we might be interested in showing to watch and possibly help out.

We said, "Sure!" and that lead to us sweating the day away while all the while trying to stay out of the way of the cameras and production folks. It became quickly obvious that they wanted Jack as their star, and even Suzy needed to be invisible, so we literally hid behind things as filming occurred. Still, it was fun to watch when we could peek out.

A few random thoughts: It takes a long time to film even a short segment. It takes a whole lot of folks to do it. The production team was pretty nice. The stars from the show didn't say much to us (although Bubba seemed to like to talk a bit more). I really don't think they knew what to expect out of the rockets. Yes, I said rockets, as in more than one. They actually flew a couple.

So, all in all, I think it went well. We had fun (in a hot, slightly dull way), and we got to see a side of reality tv that a lot of folks don't. I think Jack represented us well, and even though on the episode they were putting out "nerd alerts" because of the rockets, we came off looking pretty darn cool!

By the way, if you missed the episode, here ya go!

http://www.aetv.com/storage-wars-texas/video/excuse-me-i-think-you-re-stupid-64645699873

 

Jack and the crew setting up. That's a lot of folks you don't see on the show!

More settin' up goin' on!

 



You might think that this screen grab is a picture of Jack. You would be wrong. The real reason I put this in here is the tree in the upper right hand side of the background. If you could chop that tree down you would find Laurie, Suzy, and me hiding there. We missed stardom by that much!


 

When Jack cautioned the camera guy about possibly frying his camera to get this shot, he was informed that "cameras are cheap" Ok, so donate a few to the club!


 

The three amigos!



Of Plastic Men and Final Frontiers

One of the advantages of doing a weekly blog is that you can cover topics that may not be directly related to your main topic. This week’s post is a case in point. A couple of posts ago I commented on how Disney inspired the U.S. government’s space program. Today, I’m going to talk about how that space program inspired everyone else.

One of the coolest things about being a “child of the 60’s” is the toys. Sure, we didn’t have video games and such, but it didn’t matter. We had real toys that did real things. Our toys were massive and flashy and, in the case of many of them, futuristic!

The baby boom of the late 50’s met with the space race of the 60’s to give us such great lines as Major Matt Mason, Billy Blastoff, and Mighty Zeroids. Of course this was also the golden age of model rocketry, with many timeless designs being released every year. On TV, Star Trek was blasting through “the final frontier.”  It truly was a great time to be a red blooded American space-lovin’ kid!

One of my favorite toys from the time was the GI Joe space capsule. It was huge and hefty, and after daring space exploits could actually survive a splashdown! As for what it actually did, well, not a lot. It held a 12 inch Joe (decked out in his Jiffy Pop inspired foil space suit). It floated. And, that’s about it. However, I can assure you that mine travelled millions of miles through my imagination. The fact that it was a pretty good approximation of a real Mercury capsule helped keep the fantasy alive.

I got my capsule when I was a kid on Christmas, 1967. I played with it for years, until it suffered a particularly hard reentry and broke off a nozzle.  After that, I think it fell victim to a garage sale and was gone. Cue mournful music.



Me and my cousin, Tamra, on Christmas, 1967

 

However, years later, we were blessed with something called Ebay. On Ebay, you can find anything (and seller blue_art_dog sells great stuff…shameless plug) Anyway, I was able to get a replacement capsule that was in pretty good shape, for a pretty good price! It now sits proudly in my display case. And yes, I do play with it occasionally…

The Mighty GI Joe Space Capsule

The business end

 

The real business end



The finest in space age plastic seating and restraints

The controls that could take Joe to anywhere in the universe!