The Rocketry Project from the Science Channel

Found this on Vimeo. Nice little documentary.
[video=vimeo;28734229]https://vimeo.com/28734229[/video]

Same show referenced in a thread from 2010: https://www.rocketryforum.com/showthread.php?15394-The-rocket-project

dward said:

Found this on Vimeo. Nice little documentary.

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I have mixed emotions about this. I am hugely in favor of rocketry education and STEM learning (I TA both AAE 439 Rocket Propulsion and AAE 539 Advanced Rocket Propulsion at Purdue), but STEM learning includes dealing with both success and failure. Here's more details on flight 1 and flight 2. Tricking the viewer into thinking these flights went "perfect" is a bit too much of a mind game for me.

Also, sadly, no credit to Dick who built the rockets

One of my favorite rocketry memories is playing the "The Rocket Project" drinking game with the Loki guys. Find me at Red Glare and I can fill you in on the rules

I hate shows where they have "Crunch Time" or Deadlines. I'de rather see Folks take as long as they need and have a higher chance of success. I don't care to watch People have to run around just to meet a pre-determined Launch Window, then rush everything at the end. I got to the Point where they were talking about Time being somehow critical,(6:08), then read daveyfires Post, and could not watch anymore.

Well, I like it a lot more than the normal Science/Discovery Channel "YEEEE-HAWWW LEEEEEE-ROY, LET'S BLOW UP A ROCKET!!!! " crap which makes up about 85% of rocketry shows.

You had kids who actually didn't seem like buffoons (although the casting seemed a bit too pre-fab) actually doing stuff that seems logical with the intention of making something that really does work.

I know, of course, the vast majority of people who appear on the cable rocketry shows are NOT buffoons, most are highly competent and really do know how to make rockets that work, but of course the imbecile-level teevee network wants them to do a Bojangles dance and act like screw-loose yokels who don't give a damn how crazy or stupid they look as long as they get to watch crap blow up.

Reality shows need to be nuked off the face of the earth.

So at the point the kids are saying their launch was perfect, do they know that the sustainer failed? Did they recover the rocket? Nothing is real with reality TV.

I love the pumpkin chucking. They are on a clock and have to get it done. Its like rockets sometimes. When it works its cool when it doesn't work its really cool. There is alot of rivalry between the teams each year. That makes for good TV.

Getmore said:

I love the pumpkin chucking. They are on a clock and have to get it done. Its like rockets sometimes. When it works its cool when it doesn't work its really cool. There is alot of rivalry between the teams each year. That makes for good TV.

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Yeah, Punkin' Chunkin' is cool, because the Contestants know they are going to be on the Clock, and that it is part of the Sport.
What I don't like is when they simply use the Deadline to create Drama. I hate "Artificial/Fabricated Drama".

grouch said:

So at the point the kids are saying their launch was perfect, do they know that the sustainer failed? Did they recover the rocket? Nothing is real with reality TV.

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Here's some recovery photos from their flight.

Very neat show. That a group of very intelligent kids.

daveyfire said:

I have mixed emotions about this. I am hugely in favor of rocketry education and STEM learning (I TA both AAE 439 Rocket Propulsion and AAE 539 Advanced Rocket Propulsion at Purdue), but STEM learning includes dealing with both success and failure. Here's more details on flight 1 and flight 2. Tricking the viewer into thinking these flights went "perfect" is a bit too much of a mind game for me.

Also, sadly, no credit to Dick who built the rockets

One of my favorite rocketry memories is playing the "The Rocket Project" drinking game with the Loki guys. Find me at Red Glare and I can fill you in on the rules

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It's funny, I just had a conversation over the weekend about the increasing use of artistic license in documentary film making. In general, I am a huge fan of the documentary, but a lot of the stuff that's out there now is counter-educational as it lends scientific veracity to utter non-sense.

Will take you up on your offer if and when I make it down south.

I think the kids in this show learned a lot about rockets, and they also learned about the difference between "reality" and "reality TV." I doubt that any info about the various ignition/recovery/materials failure was withheld from them: it seemed like the Maverick guy mentoring them was really trying to teach them about real rocketry, no matter what wound up on TV. Those kids are now acutely aware of what happened with those flights vs. how it was portrayed on TV and will be smarter consumers of "infotainment." Being behind the scenes of any kind of news/reality/info show is very educational about that process.

Also, I'd give the kid talking about the "perfect launch" the benefit of the doubt: he probably was thinking of the successful ignition of the clustered booster as the "launch" portion of the whole flight, which did go nicely on the second launch after the failure on the first. I know that my kids care a lot more about the "up" part of our flights than the "down" parts. Recovery is like the chip shot of rocketry: not as flashy as the big-impact tee shot but really the crucial and challenging part of the whole thing.

[I am not a golfer, so this analogy might not hold up, but I'm sure you get my point]

TopRamen said:

I hate "Artificial/Fabricated Drama".

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So do I. I really enjoyed the Discovery Channel's Storm Chasers program, but in their last season, Reed Timmer's vehicle had someone kicked out of it in the middle of nowhere due to a possibly fabricated argument, the abandoned person trying hard to act like they were stranded. I guess I'm not supposed to realize that there's a camera crew there with their own vehicle.

dward said:

It's funny, I just had a conversation over the weekend about the increasing use of artistic license in documentary film making. In general, I am a huge fan of the documentary, but a lot of the stuff that's out there now is counter-educational as it lends scientific veracity to utter non-sense.

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Prime example - anything that deals with the "UFO" that "crashed" near Roswell, NM. A friend of mine who worked in nuclear test ban treaty verification said their building, a restricted area, had a large (long) model of what landed at Roswell for many years before it was finally declassified in 1994. They'd chuckle every time they saw anything about the Roswell's "UFO" landing, actually a Top Secret program at the time trying to detect any foreign nuclear tests:

The Roswell Report: Case Closed

https://contrails.iit.edu/history/roswell/roswell.pdf

The strange, flexible metal was the aluminized paper used on the radar retroreflectors, the "hieroglyphics" were decorative markings on the masking tape used on the retroreflectors which were made by a toy company using their toy box packing tape, etc.

Winston said:

So do I. I really enjoyed the Discovery Channel's Storm Chasers program, but in their last season, Reed Timmer's vehicle had someone kicked out of it in the middle of nowhere due to a possibly fabricated argument, the abandoned person trying hard to act like they were stranded. I guess I'm not supposed to realize that there's a camera crew there with their own vehicle.

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Yeah, like some of the Survival Shows. The guy acts like it is going to be "So Hard" to get somewhere, but the Camera Guy is already there.???
Camera Guys must be wicked Survivalist Heroes.

Very inspiring, One day I will do one.