We had a launch at the Argonia Rocket Pasture this weekend and I witnessed stupidity of the highest order EVER from a rocketeer.
If you aren't familiar with the Rocket Pasture, we have a 40 acre pasture surrounded by farm (crop) fields in all directions. The fields are cut by roads running in a 1 mile square grid. It is flat here, really flat and you can see a long way in every direction. There are very few trees. It is quite typical high plains farm country.
Saturday afternoon, several of us were conversing and noticed a vehicle coursing back-and-forth in a zig-zag pattern for several minutes IN ONE OF THE FARMERS CROP FIELDS. This guy is looking for a rocket in a farmer's field from his vehicle. We can't believe our eyes and after a few minutes one of us heads out to tell this stupid goober to get the hell out of the farmer's field. A couple of our guys are farmers themselves in different areas and they are beside themselves.
Stupid stunts like these cost clubs their launch sites ... city folk showing up and acting with total disregard and disrespect for landowners' livelihood.
If you attend a rocket launch anywhere, don't drive a vehicle in a field unless you get explicit permission from a club official. Ever. This bothers me so much that if you are the person who did this, feel free to never come back to a launch at Argonia. We work our tails off at landowner relations and we're just hoping our efforts haven't been dealt a severe blow and set back years.
--Lance.
If you aren't familiar with the Rocket Pasture, we have a 40 acre pasture surrounded by farm (crop) fields in all directions. The fields are cut by roads running in a 1 mile square grid. It is flat here, really flat and you can see a long way in every direction. There are very few trees. It is quite typical high plains farm country.
Saturday afternoon, several of us were conversing and noticed a vehicle coursing back-and-forth in a zig-zag pattern for several minutes IN ONE OF THE FARMERS CROP FIELDS. This guy is looking for a rocket in a farmer's field from his vehicle. We can't believe our eyes and after a few minutes one of us heads out to tell this stupid goober to get the hell out of the farmer's field. A couple of our guys are farmers themselves in different areas and they are beside themselves.
Stupid stunts like these cost clubs their launch sites ... city folk showing up and acting with total disregard and disrespect for landowners' livelihood.
If you attend a rocket launch anywhere, don't drive a vehicle in a field unless you get explicit permission from a club official. Ever. This bothers me so much that if you are the person who did this, feel free to never come back to a launch at Argonia. We work our tails off at landowner relations and we're just hoping our efforts haven't been dealt a severe blow and set back years.
--Lance.