Back in October of 1959, NASA Langley sent up the first vehicle for testing of project Echo, the first passive communications satellite experiment for the United States. Although the test was a failure but was not disclosed to the public due to the space race with the Russians, for years, I've found this small rocket interesting. Interesting enough that I've wanted to build one. I've only seen 2 pictures of the Shotput (I also see it written as Shot Put). One from the original 4 rockets testing Echo and another from 2 left over rockets used in a joint venture with the Italian San Marco programme. Doing some digging in the NASA archives, I came across a case file from Norman Crabill titled "Ascent Problems of Sounding Rockets" presented in the Netherlands in 1961. In this file, Crabill included some, but not all, dimensions of the Shotput. Seems this is where Peter might have gotten his dims since they are all duplicates. I'll do my best recreate the Shotput as well as I can. I'll use a 56mm tube for the core and another 56mm tube wrapped twice with cardstock to get close to the required thickness of the fairing. I've done the initial math and found that the boosters will need to be 16mm in diameter which is close enough to the BT20 18mm tube for me. I'll make all three cones from paper (fairing will be a learning experience with the rounded nose), approximate how much nose weight, add plywood fins made from thoughtful estimations for the leading, root and tip edges, turn the nozzles for the boosters and add a 24mm motor mount. I hope to be able to use an Estes D12-3 but will extend the motor mount in case I need to use the longer E motors. I've only used plywood fins once before on a Juno/Jupiter C and some of my ply has warped. I'll need to investigate how to prepare plywood fins to prevent that warping. Bet I can find that right here on the forum. I hope to be pleased with the completed product and suggestions and comments are always welcome.
