The President said we will get a man to the moon and return him safely by the end of the decade, not two or three men. So why don't we get there quicker by just sending one man, can't let the Reds win again. With a cluster of 2 D11-P's and a D12-3 we have the power to do it boys and girls. The scale guys couldn't quite place this one; a Mercury Redstone on steroids is what I called it. Super-secret, labeled MR 171 - a big number to confuse the Commies. Don't name them in order like the Krauts did early on with their U-Boats, letting the Allies know how many they built. This is the sixties man - you have to be real smart to beat the Red menace. The scale guys were confused by the oxidizer tank going into the center core, unlike their Titan III E models they brought out. I said all I could tell them was the boosters were solid fuel and the rocket fuel used in the center portion was very environmentally unfriendly. A little bit Redstone, a little bit Titan, and a little bit Saturn V. With the old school paint job it was a real over 50 fantasy job and definitely not soft on Communism.
Actually the story starts when my old rocket buddy just had foot surgery and was taking some big time pain meds. He wanted to go down to Apogee Components but didn't feel like driving, so I drove him down to the Danger Zone. He is a loyal customer so the folks at Apogee treated him right, letting him pick through a pile of tubes and nose cones that had been rejected as not up to quality standards. Like a dirty little child living in the burning trash heaps outside Cairo Egypt, I dove into the trash area a picked out some real useable stuff. In the end I scored some awesome 2.6 tubing and pointy nosecones. With some incomplete plastic parts from an estate (Merc Redstone capsule - Saturn V,) a galvanized nail for top the tower, some model railroad corrugated scale sheet stock, centering rings cut from the back of an art paper pad and soaked with CA, a stuffer tube made from Yellow Estes motor spacers and left over 25mm AT grain casing tubes all glued together, a high power igniter tube launch lug and lots of electrical tape, I was ready to launch. For the first time I would use black labeled motors, D11-P's the LHS was very happy to finally sell, but no black label liquor was allowed.
As you can see in photo #2 the Pad Fuhrer put me way at the back and moved the large crowd back. He called heads up and announced over the PA this could be the first and last time you would see this rocket fly. The Rocket Gods must have approved as just as the launch card came up the winds calmed almost to 0. All three motors lit and with awesome F 34ish power the hefty two pound bird went skyward, nice and straight, ejected fine and chutes out. My brand new TLP Mylar chute on the capsule didn’t fully pop so of course the tower broke off, but it was a clean break and OK’d by the scale guys. With all the children running mad with excitement to the touch down spot I was not able to recover the galvanized nail I had epoxied to the tower that also popped off, but I still have a box of those. The 5 minute epoxy just did not get a good bond with the red plastic. . Maybe with one of those fancy new E12’s in the core we can reach the moon.
Now if I could just get these darn photos to save clockwise and import in. What ever happened to film, fixer, and cropping with scissors and sticking them on with cellophane tape? With that technology we went to the moon and won the cold war!
Actually the story starts when my old rocket buddy just had foot surgery and was taking some big time pain meds. He wanted to go down to Apogee Components but didn't feel like driving, so I drove him down to the Danger Zone. He is a loyal customer so the folks at Apogee treated him right, letting him pick through a pile of tubes and nose cones that had been rejected as not up to quality standards. Like a dirty little child living in the burning trash heaps outside Cairo Egypt, I dove into the trash area a picked out some real useable stuff. In the end I scored some awesome 2.6 tubing and pointy nosecones. With some incomplete plastic parts from an estate (Merc Redstone capsule - Saturn V,) a galvanized nail for top the tower, some model railroad corrugated scale sheet stock, centering rings cut from the back of an art paper pad and soaked with CA, a stuffer tube made from Yellow Estes motor spacers and left over 25mm AT grain casing tubes all glued together, a high power igniter tube launch lug and lots of electrical tape, I was ready to launch. For the first time I would use black labeled motors, D11-P's the LHS was very happy to finally sell, but no black label liquor was allowed.
As you can see in photo #2 the Pad Fuhrer put me way at the back and moved the large crowd back. He called heads up and announced over the PA this could be the first and last time you would see this rocket fly. The Rocket Gods must have approved as just as the launch card came up the winds calmed almost to 0. All three motors lit and with awesome F 34ish power the hefty two pound bird went skyward, nice and straight, ejected fine and chutes out. My brand new TLP Mylar chute on the capsule didn’t fully pop so of course the tower broke off, but it was a clean break and OK’d by the scale guys. With all the children running mad with excitement to the touch down spot I was not able to recover the galvanized nail I had epoxied to the tower that also popped off, but I still have a box of those. The 5 minute epoxy just did not get a good bond with the red plastic. . Maybe with one of those fancy new E12’s in the core we can reach the moon.
Now if I could just get these darn photos to save clockwise and import in. What ever happened to film, fixer, and cropping with scissors and sticking them on with cellophane tape? With that technology we went to the moon and won the cold war!