Can HPR survive with $100 J motors?

[DeltaVee]

There's an old saying about 'bring me the man, I'll find the crime.'

So...yes.

For some reason your post made me think of this... but I'm thinking HPR will go on even with 100 dollar J's. After all some folks can put the time and resources into something that'll hit 55+ miles. Besides... $100 is the new $50.

 

[UPscaler]

You could make $100 in a few hours on a Friday night by wearing fishnets and working 5th street after 1am.
Just a thought.

I'll let you test the theory on that one. Be prepared to prove it if you're going to put it out there!

The point is that not everyone is on the same financial scale, as is true with most hobbies and life in general. What's pretty universally agreed upon, though, is that nobody likes when folks more fortunate than them flaunt it and double down on their situation as if getting out of it is simple. Often, it isn't.

Remember, no matter how big you are, there's someone bigger.

Braden

 

[Banzai88]

You could make $100 in a few hours on a Friday night by wearing fishnets and working 5th street after 1am.
Just a thought.

Red or Black, I have both available! Oh, and a sign already made up "Will work for $100 J's"

 

[PayLoad]

To answer the original question, yes, HPR will survive, just with fewer people. There will always be someone willing to shell out the outrageous prices for J+ motors. I can't justify doing so, so I don't. My bet is there are a few people like me who would fly more if it resembled anything close to affordable. But it's not.

 

[AllDigital]

HPR motors can be expensive.

In the last three years I’ve launched over 50 M-Class sugar motors (Sorbitol + KN03). These are big 98mm x six grain motors that will take a four inch rocket to 18,000 feet. Only one of the fifty has cato’d. sugar can be very safe and reliable if cast, stored, and launched consistently and correctly.

The average cost of each M motor was $20 in propellant (I can get it to $1.10/lb) and about $25 in liners/tubes. So, $45 per M motor.

pound for pound you will only get about 65% out of sugar as compared to APCP, but unless you are setting some records an M motor is still an M motor when it launches off the pad.

Anyone that is doing a lot of launches or wants to do a lot of big motors and not take out a second mortgage should consider sugar.

 

[teepot]

Here in Nevada there are counties that have legal Brothels. The county I live in is one of them. I used to go to one for free food and Monday night football. Our landscaper, a lady, invited my wife and I down the first time. The place was a sports bar on one side and girls on the other. We found out that the girls charge $3000 an hour to start and can go up from there. One of the ladies owned an apartment building in California and made $50,000 a month. The place was always busy. So yes there a people that $100 motors are a drop in the bucket. The county Vegas is in it is still illegal.

 

[Rob Campbell]

Worst case is high power will be redefined to 18mm black powder "C" motors.

 

[DeltaVee]

Here in Nevada there are counties that have legal Brothels. The county I live in is one of them. I used to go to one for free food and Monday night football. Our landscaper, a lady, invited my wife and I down the first time. The place was a sports bar on one side and girls on the other. We found out that the girls charge $3000 an hour to start and can go up from there. One of the ladies owned an apartment building in California and made $50,000 a month. The place was always busy. So yes there a people that $100 motors are a drop in the bucket. The county Vegas is in it is still illegal.

I guess that's why your town has the name "Pahrump"! (Which is an awesome name)

 

[SolarYellow]

Here in Nevada there are counties that have legal Brothels. The county I live in is one of them. I used to go to one for free food and Monday night football. Our landscaper, a lady, invited my wife and I down the first time. The place was a sports bar on one side and girls on the other. We found out that the girls charge $3000 an hour to start and can go up from there. One of the ladies owned an apartment building in California and made $50,000 a month. The place was always busy. So yes there a people that $100 motors are a drop in the bucket. The county Vegas is in it is still illegal.

Does Heidi Fleiss still run a laundromat there?

 

[tsmith1315]

We found out that the girls charge $3000 an hour to start and can go up from there.

They must be gifted performers.

 

[AeroTech]

State of the NAR presentation, April 2012: "Not enough age 25 –40 adults to grow into key positions in future."

That was the no BS assessment almost 11 years ago. The many kids flying in TARC 20 years ago are in their 30's. Is their an emerging "returning TARC BAR bump" in the usual bimodal distribution of NAR membership?

I don't believe $100 J motors or other perceived expenses to be the problem. But I also don't see disaster looming on the horizon.

From the NAR Town Hall Meeting during vNARCON last weekend. NAR now has over 9,000 members.

 

[cerving]

That bimodal curve is a bit deceiving, because it's TARC and college members on the low end. You'll see how they fall off, then come back up when they have the time and the means to pursue it again. This is true of a number of hobbies, not just rocketry.

 

[boatgeek]

That bimodal curve is a bit deceiving, because it's TARC and college members on the low end. You'll see how they fall off, then come back up when they have the time and the means to pursue it again. This is true of a number of hobbies, not just rocketry.

It would be interesting to know what that graph looked like 10 years ago. Would the right-hand spike peak at 50-55, indicating a "pig in the python" that might not be sustainable, or would it stay at 60-65, indicating that's when people have time and money for rocketry?

 

[astronwolf]

That bimodal curve is a bit deceiving, because it's TARC and college members on the low end. You'll see how they fall off, then come back up when they have the time and the means to pursue it again. This is true of a number of hobbies, not just rocketry.

You are saying that the future behavior of the present group of young people is going to be like the present group of old people. This one graph by itself does not predict future behavior.

 

[cerving]

You are saying that the future behavior of the present group of young people is going to be like the present group of old people. This one graph by itself does not predict future behavior.

Perhaps, but by the number of current BAR's it seems so now.

 

[astronwolf]

From the NAR Town Hall Meeting during vNARCON last weekend. NAR now has over 9,000 members.
View attachment 560464

From Town Hall meetings in the past.

 

[PayLoad]

That graph is clearly showing a "Pig thru a Python" bulge. That is not good

 

[SolarYellow]

Would be interesting to see similar info for TRA. It's a somewhat different culture and therefore potentially a different demographic.

 

[AeroTech]

That bimodal curve is a bit deceiving, because it's TARC and college members on the low end. You'll see how they fall off, then come back up when they have the time and the means to pursue it again. This is true of a number of hobbies, not just rocketry.

I think it's a new, growing demographic and it gives me hope that we have sufficient interest and participation from the younger generations to carry this hobby into the future, regardless of how many of them may fall off and come back later.

 

[KenECoyote]

Here in Nevada there are counties that have legal Brothels. The county I live in is one of them. I used to go to one for free food and Monday night football. Our landscaper, a lady, invited my wife and I down the first time. The place was a sports bar on one side and girls on the other. We found out that the girls charge $3000 an hour to start and can go up from there. One of the ladies owned an apartment building in California and made $50,000 a month. The place was always busy. So yes there a people that $100 motors are a drop in the bucket. The county Vegas is in it is still illegal.

Me to wife: Can I go to Vegas?
Wife: NO way.
Me: How about I buy a few hp rocket motors instead?
Wife: Knock yourself out.

 

[rharshberger]

Me to wife: Can I go to Vegas?
Wife: NO way.
Me: How about I buy a few hp rocket motors instead?
Wife: Knock yourself out.

Either way the money is "burned"......

 

[KenECoyote]

Either way the money is "burned"......

Yes, but I think rocketry is safer.

 

[astronwolf]

That graph is clearly showing a "Pig thru a Python" bulge. That is not good

I think that's all it shows about one of the peaks. Note how it marches to the right in the 2004-2009, 2017, 2023 graphs. The 16-21 demographic is static. What is a bit troubling is not seeing a bump up in the 30-40 age range. TARC has been around for long enough that if there was going to be anything like "BAR Behaviour" among the younger generations like the "BAR Bump" of the boomers, I'd expect to see that emerging now. The large peak of boomer-aged people existed when us old people were all in our 30's.

But all these trends could just mean is that we don't know what the younger generations are doing, but we know they're not joining the NAR. Maybe assuming that we are growing a crop of NAR-joining people for the future is somehow a fallacy. It doesn't mean model rocketry is dead. I hope I'm wrong.

 

[tjsnakez]

Current active Tripoli membership. Obviously this doesn't tell the whole story, but I will say there is more university involvement than ever before, and I'm seeing a lot of them sport flying besides whatever participation they have within the university projects. There are college kids at just about every Kloudbusters launch I've been to in the past couple years. 10 years ago, there were only a handful of us young guys flying high power in the whole country. I am hopeful for the future of the hobby.

 

[UPscaler]

View attachment 560532
Current active Tripoli membership. Obviously this doesn't tell the whole story, but I will say there is more university involvement than ever before, and I'm seeing a lot of them sport flying besides whatever participation they have within the university projects. There are college kids at just about every Kloudbusters launch I've been to in the past couple years. 10 years ago, there were only a handful of us young guys flying high power in the whole country. I am hopeful for the future of the hobby.

Same here! I'm no stranger to being the young guy at the launch site. Typically, the next youngest would have a good decade on me in terms of age gap. However, there are a LOT of younger folks joining, and it's refreshing to see.

Not to say we don't like you gracefully aging rocketeers. I like MOST of you

Braden

 

[Tom Flint]

Hot take: $100 J motors are a better deal than $39 G motors or $22 F's with less than 60 N-s.

 

[dr wogz]

They must be gifted performers.

it's all in how you play with a ping pong ball..

 

[GuyNoir]

It would be interesting to know what that graph looked like 10 years ago. Would the right-hand spike peak at 50-55, indicating a "pig in the python" that might not be sustainable, or would it stay at 60-65, indicating that's when people have time and money for rocketry.

Here you go.

 

[Banzai88]

For those positing the "Pig through the Python" theory, here are some numbers from those charts posted above, looking at the age of the 'pig' as the curve first peaks (caveat, internet interpretation of the charts on my computer monitor, non-scientific old eyes doing the best I can):

04=44
05=44
06=46
07=48
09=48
17=56
23=60

The trough between the TARC bump and the Pig seems pretty consistent in the early data, namely 20something to mid 30something. The early data shows a clear rise by mid 30something with a steepening slope to peak. The most recent data shows the same rise inception.....but it's a longer curve up to the peak age demographic.

So, yeah, TARC bump, but it's taking longer for that bump to translate into BAR, and the current non-TARC bump bulk of folks are aging out.

On the bright side, the previous years data shows a peak LOW compared to making it BAR by age 40 was a 4:1 disparity, but the most recent data shows that's more like a 2:1.......so YES, more folks are 'staying' with rocketry when they get into it at a young age. That's also shown in the peak low moving from the ~25 to ~35 age demographic.

Further, when you compare membership totals : US population from '07 to '23, a greater percentage of the total population is a NAR member! Not sure how to write it here but here it is:
07(4439:301.2M)=1.47-5
09(4416:306.8M)=1.43-5
17(6550:325.1M)=2.01-5
23(8650:336M)=2.57-5

So YES, rocketry is growing, if somewhat slowly, and faces something of a major age out event in the next 10-15 years. Only time will tell how it plays out and how it compares to other hobbies.

 

[Steve Shannon]

Youth involvement in HPR has been growing faster in the past few years than at any time since Tripoli was formed and we have a lot of really sharp people in every age range. It doesn’t really matter if some age groups have significantly less representation; we still have enough within each group to lead. Finding people to replace us baby boomers won’t be a problem. We already have some really good young Prefects and young board members. I see young people stepping up at every launch. Sometimes the problem is getting us old farts to relinquish control.