University of Idaho Rocket Accident

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dave carver said:
Moscow, Idaho, is a town surrounded by open land. It is not an Eastern Uni in the middle of a huge metropolitan area. A "safe" place is minutes away from the campus. They did it where they did from hubris and arrogance, just like using a freaking water pipe with a rated burst strength of around 200 PSI, big difference from tubing. Every U of I grad I ever met was a self-righteous SOB, once you get to know them.....
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Okay, you don't like U of I. We get it. If any of our members were alumni (and there might be some) this would be really close to a personal attack. We don't allow that here. Please dial your personal bias back a notch, let the investigators do what they do, the university make changes to their procedures, let the facts filter out to the public sphere, and hopefully the truth will lead to better procedures, better safety, and a place where young, inquisitive minds can learn about rocketry the right way.

In the meantime, all of us should stick to the facts. Speculation won't do anyone any good and it tends to start arguments on TRF that gets threads locked. No one wants that.
 
We're all taking news reports at their word that the kids lit the motor with a match. That is reinforced by our prejudices (stupid college kids...) and probably our own experience (how many of us are lucky to have survived past 25?). I'm suddenly skeptical, partly because I don't know how that would work (shove it up the nozzle? would it even light the propellant?), and partly because I don't trust the reporter to have gotten it right. What if they were lighting it with an e-match and the reported didn't catch the distinction? That puts the whole incident in a new light, where they could have been lighting it remotely. Having the test rig on a pallet isn't totally unreasonable if the motor fires either up or sideways.

If you were doing this out in an open field and not a bunker, what are the appropriate safety precautions? Would a polycarbonate shield be enough? How far away is far enough? etc.
 
boatgeek said:
We're all taking news reports at their word that the kids lit the motor with a match. That is reinforced by our prejudices (stupid college kids...) and probably our own experience (how many of us are lucky to have survived past 25?). I'm suddenly skeptical, partly because I don't know how that would work (shove it up the nozzle? would it even light the propellant?), and partly because I don't trust the reporter to have gotten it right. What if they were lighting it with an e-match and the reported didn't catch the distinction? That puts the whole incident in a new light, where they could have been lighting it remotely. Having the test rig on a pallet isn't totally unreasonable if the motor fires either up or sideways.

If you were doing this out in an open field and not a bunker, what are the appropriate safety precautions? Would a polycarbonate shield be enough? How far away is far enough? etc.
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I thought I saw matches in one of the links with video (although it could have been stock footage, looks like they updated the video too so I can;t find it now). I think that safety precautions should obviously be tailored to your location, but protection from a CATO is definitely a first on my list if I am dealing with contained combustion.
 
boatgeek said:
We're all taking news reports at their word that the kids lit the motor with a match. That is reinforced by our prejudices (stupid college kids...) and probably our own experience (how many of us are lucky to have survived past 25?). I'm suddenly skeptical, partly because I don't know how that would work (shove it up the nozzle? would it even light the propellant?), and partly because I don't trust the reporter to have gotten it right. What if they were lighting it with an e-match and the reported didn't catch the distinction? That puts the whole incident in a new light, where they could have been lighting it remotely. Having the test rig on a pallet isn't totally unreasonable if the motor fires either up or sideways.

If you were doing this out in an open field and not a bunker, what are the appropriate safety precautions? Would a polycarbonate shield be enough? How far away is far enough? etc.
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Yeah, I wouldn't trust the local media to get any of the details right either... they did a pretty good hack job on the unfortunate SoCal Boy Scout leader incident awhile back. However, if the UofI students had observed TRA's safety precautions there would have been no issue, and they certainly would not have been doing this in some parking lot at night. Hopefully this doesn't kill their program but forces them to instill in it a set of strict safety standards.
 
BayouRat said:
So the local NAR club has been working with this group. I guess we have no one to blame but ourselves.

https://www.krem.com/news/local/spo...-explosion-is-potentially-dangerous/431423209
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Nope.

From the article describing the students' one visit to a launch: "Yanecek said the students were there just to chat."

Nowhere does it say they worked together, collaberated, or received any kind of direction from the local NAR club. In fact, if they had, Yanecek would probably have told them not to use a galvanized metal pipe, considering his comments in the news article.


 
Steve Shannon said:
The article is flawed and Jadebox is absolutely correct.
Not surprisingly, the author of that article didn't understand or report the position we were already in with respect to the Explosives List. 9/11 just added a lot of additional problems.
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The article still emphasizes the problems that arose from the very fact. It too is correct.
 
Peartree said:
Okay, you don't like U of I. We get it. If any of our members were alumni (and there might be some) this would be really close to a personal attack. We don't allow that here. Please dial your personal bias back a notch, let the investigators do what they do, the university make changes to their procedures, let the facts filter out to the public sphere, and hopefully the truth will lead to better procedures, better safety, and a place where young, inquisitive minds can learn about rocketry the right way.

In the meantime, all of us should stick to the facts. Speculation won't do anyone any good and it tends to start arguments on TRF that gets threads locked. No one wants that.
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....so who's arguing? 4th Amendment, I going to speak my mind just as you have. I just don't have "Moderator" in my favor. Ban me if you must, I'm not an a** kisser. YOU haven't lived under their rule all your life.

People here have a bad habit of trying to tell others how to act and how to be. F that, laterz....
 
MClark said:
Why would a NAR group be involved with research motors?

M
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Honestly I haven't seen anything related to any affiliations other than its a club at U of I, and the faculty advisor is John Crepeau. The clubs name is Nothwest Organization of Rocket Engineers. They attended a SPARC launch which is a NAR chapter of which Bob Yanacek is a member/officer, as such unless something else is found to indicate a NAR or TRA affiliation they are a school rocket club that is most likely about to be disbanded.
Another thing is I have met Bob Yanacek and a number of other SPARC flyers (some of them fly with my home club frequently) and I highly suspect none of them had any part of this event beyond the KREM 2 news article.
 
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Steven said:
The article still emphasizes the problems that arose from the very fact. It too is correct.
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What are you referring to when you say, "problems that arose from the very fact"???
What I want to know, "why is Bob Yanacek talking to the press in the first place"??? Did they contact him or did Bob contact the press?
 
Frederocket said:
What are you referring to when you say, "problems that arose from the very fact"???
What I want to know, "why is Bob Yanacek talking to the press in the first place"??? Did they contact him or did Bob contact the press?
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Problems as in government intervention.
 
Frederocket said:
Yes they did and they got no place with their effort... Do more searching...
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It's all irrelevant whether or not 'they' got anywhere. My whole point is that the government HAS placed this hobby under scrutiny and it appears it's happened more than once. I've done all the searching I need.
 
Steven said:
It's all irrelevant whether or not 'they' got anywhere. My whole point is that the government HAS placed this hobby under scrutiny and it appears it's happened more than once. I've done all the searching I need.
Click to expand...

Clearly you have not done enough. You should research more to understand the history. It is useful.
 
cbrarick said:
7 knitting deaths, and 2 from blogging. Much more dangerous then rocketry
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My wife is in a knitting club. The president insists they wear Kevlar gloves.

ImageUploadedByRocketry Forum1492482919.035899.jpg

BTW, to clear up a question... the above is NOT MY WIFE.
 
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dave carver said:
....so who's arguing? 4th Amendment, I going to speak my mind just as you have. I just don't have "Moderator" in my favor. Ban me if you must, I'm not an a** kisser. YOU haven't lived under their rule all your life.

People here have a bad habit of trying to tell others how to act and how to be. F that, laterz....
Click to expand...

private forum. 4th doesn't apply.
 
This thread has gone far astray. It's about an accident that occurred at the University of Idaho having to do with rocketry where 4 students were injured. From everything I've read in this thread, that is the only factual statement that can be made about the accident. There really aren't any other documented facts presented in the referenced press reports.......

Institutions of higher education are wonderful places to learn if you know how to learn, but just because they are full of smart people, it is not safe to assume that everyone knows everything. Lots of smart people make mistakes and hopefully learn from them.

Students go to school to learn. Unfortunately many times students don't know what they don't know or need to know, and this is a perfect example of this. It is quite clear in retrospect that neither the students nor their faculty advisor(s) (there were two referenced if you read all the references, one was a PhD ME faculty member and the other a PhD physical chemist. In reviewing their education, publications and research, neither one was knowledgeable about making rocket motors.) spent any significant time learning how rocket motors are manufactured and tested before they tried to make one and test one. Shame on them. Any student in college should be able to perform a credible research study on any subject they are interested in pursuing. It's really not that hard today at any university with internet access if you know how to conduct a research study.

This is reminiscent of the two "smart" high school seniors that blew themselves up in a school playground at night in CA a couple of years ago...

The same can be said concerning the misconception in this thread on ATF regulation of rocketry. If one actually spends a few minutes researching the timeline, one will discover that AFT attempted to regulate high power rocket motors in the late 90s, well before 9/11.......and that the first NAR/TRA legal action was filed in 1999 and was not decided until 2009..... This is covered in gory detail in the TRF archives.....
 
bobkrech said:
This thread has gone far astray. It's about an accident that occurred at the University of Idaho having to do with rocketry where 4 students were injured. From everything I've read in this thread, that is the only factual statement that can be made about the accident. There really aren't any other documented facts presented in the referenced press reports.......

Institutions of higher education are wonderful places to learn if you know how to learn, but just because they are full of smart people, it is not safe to assume that everyone knows everything. Lots of smart people make mistakes and hopefully learn from them.

Students go to school to learn. Unfortunately many times students don't know what they don't know or need to know, and this is a perfect example of this. It is quite clear in retrospect that neither the students nor their faculty advisor(s) (there were two referenced if you read all the references, one was a PhD ME faculty member and the other a PhD physical chemist. In reviewing their education, publications and research, neither one was knowledgeable about making rocket motors.) spent any significant time learning how rocket motors are manufactured and tested before they tried to make one and test one. Shame on them. Any student in college should be able to perform a credible research study on any subject they are interested in pursuing. It's really not that hard today at any university with internet access if you know how to conduct a research study.

This is reminiscent of the two "smart" high school seniors that blew themselves up in a school playground at night in CA a couple of years ago...

The same can be said concerning the misconception in this thread on ATF regulation of rocketry. If one actually spends a few minutes researching the timeline, one will discover that AFT attempted to regulate high power rocket motors in the late 90s, well before 9/11.......and that the first NAR/TRA legal action was filed in 1999 and was not decided until 2009..... This is covered in gory detail in the TRF archives.....
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This only re-enforces my earlier statements concerning governmental intervention regardless of the timeline or the reason. That's why I brought up the concern of future intervention possibly stemming from the situation in Idaho. People didn't think it would happen before and were proven wrong regardless of the outcome. If one goes back to post #30, you'll see my first statement regarding this whole issue. Then people became dismissive and I gave SOME articles that reverberated the reasons for my concern. Clearly someone else added even more to this which only re-enforced my initial point even further. Yes, the government HAS stepped in before and I see no reason why it won't at some point in the future.
 
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