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To: Young Werther
October Sky

A FANTASTIC movie! It reminded me of when I grew up in the 50's and 60's. A few friends and I were probably the first in our area to build and fly ESTES rockets. (And a few home-made jobs too, hehehehe)

I can't tell you how many times we were chased/warned/scolded by the neighbors, parents and cops for "playing with illegal fireworks".

Interestingly enough and amusing to me, is a program our elementary school has been running for several years. Every October several grades spend time learning about and building ESTES rockets. It culminates with a field trip to the park where the kids get to fly their rockets.

It's a pretty big deal for us with guest speakers at the park teaching the kids how to calculate achieved alltitude, predict where the rockets will land, etcetera. Last year we had three launchers going with a rocket heading skyward evey couple of minutes.

The amusing part to me is sitting back and watching many of the same neighbors/parents/cops who chastised us now taking part in the event. Some of them even help the kids build the rockets or line up guest speakers.

prisoner6

59 posted on 07/23/2002 11:13:23 PM PDT by prisoner6
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To: prisoner6
A Dallas Area Rocket society member told me that water rockets are the "big thing" A 2 liter or 3 liter bottle can be "pumped up" and launched. One of the local members has a two stage water rocket with the first stage being 4 2 liter bottles! I remember in '57 when the first commercial water rockets were available. biggest problem was retrieving them from trees and off roofs!

Easy to find web sites on how to build these "beasties"

62 posted on 07/24/2002 7:22:31 AM PDT by Young Werther
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