Hobby rocketry in fiction?

[WillMarchant]

Of course, Heinlein's classic Rocket Ship Galileo starts off with the youthful protagonists designing their own liquid engines.

And Brinley's Mad Scientist Club series has several stories involving solid propellant research motors.

I wouldn't count things like Tom Swift and His Rocket Ship or Correy/Stine's Star Driver as those are "professional" development efforts...

There must be more...

 

[shreadvector]

Larry Niven referenced a character burning off a fingernail with a model rocket - not a good reference.

 

[jadebox]

Of course, Heinlein's classic Rocket Ship Galileo starts off with the youthful protagonists designing their own liquid engines.

...

There must be more...

Heinlein was NAR #15.

A novel I read recently had kids launching rockets in a park ..... wish I could recall the name of it.

-- Roger

 

[billspad]

And Brinley's Mad Scientist Club series has several stories involving solid propellant research motors.

Is that the same Brinley who wrote Rocket Manual for Amateurs?

 

[jadebox]

A novel I read recently had kids launching rockets in a park ..... wish I could recall the name of it.

Ah ... found it in a post I made to Rocketry Forum ...

Brimstone by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child. The two detectives are following a suspect and are led to a public park where kids are launching model rockets. The suspect is using the rocket launch as cover for a clandestine meeting.

There was a woosh as a model rocket went off to scattered cheers and clapping. All eyes turned skyward; there was a pop and the rocket came drifting back, floating beneath a read-and-white-striped minature parachute.

-- Roger

 

[WillMarchant]

Is that the same Brinley who wrote Rocket Manual for Amateurs?

Yup! https://madscientistsclub.com/author.html

 

[jsdemar]

Postsingular, by Rudy Rucker, 2007
https://www.rudyrucker.com/postsingular/

The main character's friend was killed by a "model" rocket at age 17. It was a home-made AN/Mg rocket. His repressed guilt from this event is what drives him to do crazy stuff throughout the rest of the story. The world is taken over my nanomachines (IIRC, it's been 2.5 years since I read it).

The author's blog has a an excerpt from the beginning of the story...
https://www.rudyrucker.com/blog/2006/10/21/picacio-cover-new-lead-for-ipostsingulari/

He mentions the NAR in the story, and not bothering with the safety code.

-John

 

[MarkII]

As mentioned in another thread a few months ago, the opening sequence for the Davey and Goliath syndicated TV show.

(Hey, it's fictional, and it clearly demonstrates model rocketry. Davey's rocket launches vertically, then goes unstable and does some skywriting, and finally suffers a cato, a shred, or both. Just like the real ones. )

MarkII

 

[tbzep]

If we can go with TV, we can go with comic strips. FoxTrot!

 

[WillMarchant]

Well, I didn't have TV in mind, but what the heck!

There's an episode of The Big Bang Theory where the boys get chased out of a California park after flying their Estes rockets...

 

[tbzep]

Well, I didn't have TV in mind, but what the heck!

There's an episode of The Big Bang Theory where the boys get chased out of a California park after flying their Estes rockets...

Neither of these are portrayed as hobby rocketry, but used hobby rockets.

A classic episode of Emergency! had an accident where a grandfather and his son attempted to launch an Estes Saturn V in the park. Unfortunately, they portrayed it as a Zinc Sulfur rocket, with injuries from the "explosion". They showed a scorched but in tact Saturn V, not what you'd get from a ZnS explosion.

A classic episode of Wonder Woman had a pink Estes Pershing 1A as a missile guided by mind control.

I have some screen caps and episodes listed in a couple of threads over on YORF. If I think about it tonight, I'll find them and edit this post with a link.

 

[slogfilet]

Another Big Bang Theory rocket sighting!

I was watching season 2's "The Griffin Equivalency," and noticed something in the background. Is that a Mirage?! Can't tell what's next to it...

 

[kelltym88]

Another Big Bang Theory rocket sighting!

I was watching season 2's "The Griffin Equivalency," and noticed something in the background. Is that a Mirage?! Can't tell what's next to it...

Also looks like an NCR Space Shuttle as well. In fact, there's alot of rockets in that picture.

I was watching the NFL network the other day, and they were going over some of the old Football Follies episodes and they briefly showed a Saturn V lifting off at one of the stadiums.

 

[jbuscaglia]

I was watching the NFL network the other day, and they were going over some of the old Football Follies episodes and they briefly showed a Saturn V lifting off at one of the stadiums.

But the NFL isn't exactly fiction. Now if it were the WWE...

 

[tbzep]

I was watching the NFL network the other day, and they were going over some of the old Football Follies episodes and they briefly showed a Saturn V lifting off at one of the stadiums.

I've seen photos of the historic Astrodome flight during the Bluebonnet Bowl, but not an NFL Films video. I'd love to add that to my collection.

https://nhrc.homestead.com/Astrodome/hist_ast.htm


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