Let the shockwave topple monuments

[sovay]

I felt much more ambivalent about the development of the Bell X-1 after I learned the history of the Miles M.52, but I still recognize the loss of Chuck Yeager. I grew up building and launching model rockets; one of my childhood talismans was a Matchbox SR-71. I can't remember not knowing about him.

Comments

Re: Allow me:

[sovay]

And then there's the source

That's them! We built from kits and we free-handed from parts and flew the same ones year after year as long as we could. We still have a few doughty survivors around the house. Several were eaten by trees and at least one by a power line and I still hope that someone in Boston proper was confused by the one that sailed cheerfully away over the skyline, having been mistakenly turned into a paraglider by a too-large parachute.

We had planned to build model rockets this summer with my niece, too. Fingers crossed for the next.

Re: Boldly Going

[nodrog]

I, too, have some dusty survivors, at static mount in the closet.

Our one attempt at a two-stage rocket was… amusing, in its way:   We didn't realize that a special type of engine was needed for the 1st stage, and used a normal one with its smoke tracking charge…  Giving the rocket plenty of time to lazily tip over to about 30° when the second stage lit at altitude, firing it AWAY down the sky and out of sight as though designed for the purpose!  If we’d had a radio transponder on it I doubt it would have stayed in trackable range - it was GONE.

Re: Allow me:

[nodrog]

Meanwhile, Major Matt Mason, Mattel’s Man in Space® has really been there - someone's recent ultra-high-altitude exosphere balloon carried a small passenger.  I have seen that iconic Project Mercury pressure suit and yellow-visored helmet with the true blue curve of the Earth and black space beyond:  Out of suburban houses and up into actual X-15 country at long last!

(I’ve heard that John Glenn brought one with him when he flew again in the Space Shuttle, but that’s only hearsay.)