September 2019 meeting

by Dave Nordling, Secretary, RRS.ORG


The Reaction Research Society (RRS) met on Friday, September 13, 2019. We had several new people come out to visit including the CSU Long Beach liquid rocket team. They were coming to learn more about the society and our resources at the Mojave Test Area (MTA).

The RRS had a special occasion to celebrate at the meeting which we did with pizza. The RRS now has three new licensed pyro-ops, Osvaldo Tarditti, Larry Hoffing and Dave Nordling. This will help us a lot in holding more events at the MTA.

Abel, Wally, Tustin and Hunter from the CSULB Beach Launch Team, enjoyed our celebration and stayed for the meeting.

Since we had so many new people coming to the meeting, we decided to make introductions and share some of the stories and latest projects before getting to the meeting agenda topics.

Wolfram Blume, new member to the RRS, discussed his plans to static fire a gasoline fueled subsonic ramjet

New RRS member, Wolfram Blume, came to the meeting tonight to discuss his plans to build, test and ultimately fly a gasoline fuel ram-jet called the Gas Guzzler project. He’s been working on this project since 2011 and he presented the RRS president with his test request to conduct a static fire test along with many details of his initial designs. The RRS has not tested a ramjet in many years and this will be a very interesting project as it develops.

Waldo Stakes, RRS member, explains his latest progress with the steam rocket he’s been working.

Waldo Stakes came to the meeting to share with the society his latest progress with a steam rocket he’s been working on for Mad Mike Hughes. Waldo’s projects are always fascinating as he’s worked with a lot of different groups over the years in racing and in rocketry. He’s also been working with Compton College on the planning of their large liquid rocket. The RRS is also glad to be a part of Compton College’s ambitions to build a liquid rocket.

Mario and Oscar of Compton College with RRS member, Kent Schwitkis listen to Bill Behenna present his latest avoinics payload project to be built for the RRS alpha.

RRS member, Kent Schwitkis and a couple of his students from Compton College came to the society meeting. There are many bright students at Compton College interested in working with the RRS and we have already began to assist each student with tasks specific to projects their working at the college.

Bill Behenna shows his latest prototype of an alpha payload to measure acceleration and barometric pressure.

We decided to showcase our membership project first before beginning our agenda which was a very good idea. Bill Behenna has been hard at work on his avionics payload to be built to fly in the many RRS standard alphas we have at most of our launch events.

After calling the meeting to order and the reading of the treasury report, the RRS began our September meeting agenda.

(1) Next Launch Event at the RRS MTA with LAPD CSP and Boyle Heights

The RRS has finished with the last classroom presentation of the series. The students have painted their rockets and are ready for the final launch day, next Saturday, September 21, 2019. After propellant loading, the RRS will be ready to receive our next group to watch their handiwork take flight in the desert.

(2) RRS facility improvements

Osvaldo has been leading the task of evaluating facility improvements to the RRS. The main improvements under consideration are (1) improving our restroom facilities at the MTA and (2) replacing the old blockhouse at the MTA. Osvaldo has made some drawings of the new restroom facilities and is discussing the details with a vendor to get a quote.

In early August, our large adjustable rail launcher was damaged in a failed launch attempt of a large solid motor. Osvaldo began repairs and hopes to have the box rail system restored soon.

The RRS MTA site was also the victim of theft of many things from the George Dosa building. Security at our test site is difficult given its remote location. Several suggestions were made including adding cameras, improving our locks and doors, making opaque window inserts for the building, and simply being present at the site more often. The RRS has been the victim of theft before, but it is something that is never easy to recover.

(3) 2020 Constitutional Committee report

The committee was not able to make their report this month. Several factors have contributed to this delay over the summer. The committee will make its presentation to the society at the next meeting in October.

(4) Society votes on holding the 2020 RRS Symposium

After some discussion last month, the society decided that we will in fact hold the next RRS symposium in the Spring of 2020. Given the increasingly successful events we’ve had since 2017, and the many people who have encouraged us to keep this annual event, the administrative membership voted in favor. Frank Miuccio will again be our symposium coordinator and the RRS will be reaching out to presenters and exhibitors very soon. Our next order of business will be setting the date which is likely to be in the month of April.

(5) RRS to present at the CATIE conference at Antelope Valley College

Dr. Khalil Dajani of CSU Long Beach has invited the RRS to be one of the presenters at the Space Responsiveness Workshop and Exhibit at Antelope Valley College at the Hellenic Center in Lancaster, California. The 2019 California Aerospace Technologies Institute of Excellence will be held on Wednesday, September 18th where members from industry and the government will hear our presentation introducing the society and our capabilities at the Mojave Test Area. We hope to make some great contacts at this event and begin some new partnerships..

https://www.avc.edu/news/2019/Sept/space_responsiveness_workshop

(6) RRS social activities in planning

The RRS has focused a lot on educational and project activities, but we don’t often plan simple gatherings for fun. Larry had talked about having the RRS visit Mt. Wilson as a private group. At the meeting, we also talked about having a simple barbecue at the MTA as was done in times past. We plan to revisit this discussion again. Other members are welcome to share their ideas.

(7) RRS history project – Garboden archives

Lifetime member, George Garboden, has many boxes of papers and reports from the RRS in his possession that he would like to pass back to the society for archival. In support of the RRS history project, the society is always glad to get articles, clippings and any kind of archival materials and make them more available to our membership. Frank, Larry and I have been working on the logistics of getting a new storage location, but the most important step is finding the time to carefully make quality scans.

(8) Social media improvements

Alastair Martin announced the next pending episode of his podcast, Rocket Talk Radio. Other fellow RRS members, Dave Nordling and Richard Garcia, will take part in the next installment of the “Before SpaceX” series on September 28th. In this episode, we will be interviewing Jim French. Jim has had a long and interesting career as a rocket development engineer for the H-1 and F-1 engines at Rocketdyne in the 1950’s and later at TRW in the 1960’s with the Lunar Descent engine during the heyday of Apollo. His book “Firing a Rocket Engine” is available on Amazon.

“Firing a Rocket” by James French

Jim French also worked for a startup company called the American Rocket Company (AMROC) in Camarillo in the late 1980’s and early 1990’s. We hope to have a great conversation and learn a lot about his experiences at this commercial space company.

(9) Memories of George Dosa

As our last order of business, we shared with the society that we lost one of our oldest and most beloved members of our society. In our long history, George Dosa, had a profound impact on the society and many of our past and present members.


The RRS adjourned our meeting after a long series of very interesting discussions. We are thankful to all for coming and we will be holding our next monthly meeting, October 11, 2019. If there are any changes or additions to make to this monthly report, please notify the RRS secretary.

secretary@rrs.org

A Tribute to Mr. George Dosa

by David Crisalli, Reaction Research Society


Some time in October of 1966, I had hitched a ride and gone down to an RRS meeting in Gardena. I was 13 and still in the 8th grade. At that meeting, I met Mr. Dosa for the first time. I met several other RRS members that evening, but Mr. Dosa was the most memorable. He was warmly welcoming, very enthusiastic about rocketry as a field of study, and also excited about having new students like me join the Society. 

As I attended more meetings and began to get involved in designing and building rockets, Mr. Dosa was always ready to offer help of all kinds from the loan of technical documents to the manufacturing of parts on the lathe and other tools he had in his garage. I spent many an enjoyable hour with him making steel nozzles, aluminum adapters, and fiberglass nose cones.

At one particular meeting in 1967, Mr. Richard Butterfield showed a 16 mm film of a hydrogen peroxide liquid mono-propellant rocket built and launched by RRS members David Elliot and Lee Rosenthal some 15 years before. I was completely captivated as I watched the two high school students in the film machine parts, fabricate sheet metal components, static test a liquid rocket motor in Mint Canyon, and then successfully launch the rocket in the Mojave Desert. Mr. Dosa saw my interest and enthusiasm and talked to me at some length about liquid rockets after the film. Then he asked if I would like to see the one he was working on. I jumped at the chance. 

The RRS meetings in those years were held in an old, small, wooden building on an isolated piece of property owned by a division of Pratt & Whitney in Gardena. It was really a shed but the RRS had been given permission to hold its monthly evening meetings there and store some of its equipment there. On the same piece of property, some 50 or so feet away, was a slightly larger wooden structure. Although larger, it was more of an empty garage and was not as suitable for meetings as the smaller building. When I told Mr. Dosa I would love to see the liquid rocket he was working on, he led me out of the meeting building and across the dark space between the buildings. It was probable nearly 10 PM by this time and there were no lights in the areas around either building. 

As Mr. Dosa opened the door into the very dark second building, he told me to wait there until he could turn on the light. “The light” was a single low wattage bulb hanging on a wire from the high ceiling. When the light came on, even in that dim glow from a single bulb, what I saw took my breath away. There, lying horizontally on a plywood table, was a bi-propellant liquid fueled rocket with the upper half of the skin removed. All of the tanks, plumbing, bulkheads, stringers, and longerons were precisely made and beautifully assembled. The rocket was more than 15 feet long and about eight inches in diameter. It was designed, Mr. Dosa explained, to run on 90% hydrogen peroxide and ethyl alcohol. I marveled as each piece of the structure and propellant plumbing was explained to me. The design was also unique in that Mr. Dosa had made the fuselage octagonal rather than round. This left him “corners” inside the rocket skin that he had used to run plumbing and wiring. The beautifully made fiberglass nose cone and boat tail were both round and the structure smoothly transitioned from octagonal to round at both ends. Mr. Dosa, a master at many fabrication techniques, had fashioned incredibly precise sheet aluminum sections that perfectly mated with the octagonal structure on one end and the perfectly round nose and boat tail on the other.

I could have stayed and talked to Mr. Dosa for hours, but it was very late now and my ride was leaving. Needless to say, I was completely stunned by what I had seen that evening and over the next several months and years, I must have made quite a pest of myself often keeping Mr. Dosa on the phone for long periods asking questions and listening to his patient explanations. From our first meeting in 1966 until I left for the Naval Academy in 1972, I met and worked with Mr. Dosa at RRS meetings and at rocket firings in the desert many, many times. Each and every time, it was a great joy to see him, talk to him, and learn from him. 

When I left for the Navy in the summer of 1972, “George” as he now had me call him, told me that he had been in the U.S. Navy during World War 2. He had met his lovely wife, Ann, overseas and brought her back home after the war. He wished me the best of luck in the Navy and asked me to stop by and see him whenever I got back to southern California.

After being gone for 18 years, I did find my way back to an RRS meeting and renewed my old acquaintance with George. In the intervening almost two decades, he had changed very little and was still as welcoming, enthusiastic, and as patient an instructor as ever. In the early 1990’s, I volunteered to restart publication of the long dormant RRS News. George was more than a little excited as he was always a huge proponent of documenting all of the projects that RRS members undertook. We began a very enjoyable and several year collaboration writing, editing, and publishing the RRS News more or less, once a quarter. 

During that same time frame, a few members of the RRS and I had started teaching a solid propellant class. As part of that class, several of us had written a course handbook. At the beginning of that course book, Niels Anderson and I had written a dedication to George because of his long, tireless mentoring of so many students and RRS members over the years. I include it here because I believe it captures the essence of who George was within the Society…


“Since the days of Dr. Robert Goddard, the United States has always had its share of rocket enthusiasts and experimentalists. In 1943, even before the end of the Second World War, the young students who founded the Reaction Research Society were hard at work experimenting with propulsion systems. As the “Space Age” dawned, the imaginations of millions were fired with the possibility of flight beyond the atmosphere of Earth. But to members of the many amateur rocketry groups forming during those days, flights of the imagination were not enough. Those with the interest, drive, and courage to try, designed and built fantastic rockets that exploded out of their launch towers on towering pillars of fire and smoke. These were not cardboard models with minuscule motors producing ounces of thrust. These were thundering metal machines, many feet long, producing thousands of pounds of thrust, and flying into the clear desert skies at unbelievable speeds. 

It was a great time of advancement, adventure, and experimentation. Some of those who built these great, unforgiving machines also became the mentors for hundreds of others who followed. These special few not only pursued their own projects, but stopped to share what they had learned with others. Guiding, advising, encouraging, they were tireless in their belief that there was much to be learned in the pursuit of amateur rocketry and they helped all who came and asked. Amateur rocketry, as a whole, owes a debt of gratitude to the few who trained and directed those of us too young and full of wild enthusiasm for our own good. They taught us many things, fed our enthusiasm for learning, encouraged us through failures, and kept us safe all the while with their knowledge and experience. 

This course is dedicated to one such man, Mr. George Dosa. George has been an active rocket propulsion experimentalist for many years. In many ways, he can truly be considered one of the founding fathers of experimental rocketry. George Dosa was the state of California’s first licensed solid propellant rocket pyrotechnic operator. He has been the back-bone of the Reaction Research Society for the last 38 years and still serves today as the Director of Research for the RRS. 

George has dedicated his life to the continuance, advancement and testing of experimental rocket propulsion systems. He represents the very essence of the golden years of experimental rocketry and has crusaded to preserve the right of new experimenters to follow this fascinating and technical hobby. Giving generously of his own time, he has contributed greatly to the education and encouragement of others. As a consequence, the Reaction Research Society would like to thank George by dedicating this first in a series of amateur rocketry propulsion classes to him personally and to his efforts in behalf of amateur rocketry over the years. ” 

Niels Anderson and David Crisalli, March 1996


George told me once that he had been born 30 years too early…he would have liked to have been that much younger when the age of rocketry began to blossom in the 1950’s and 1960’s. From my standpoint, George was born at exactly the right time. Had he been born later, we might not have met and worked together as we did. George lived for nearly a century and all through that time he was a kind, patient, and enthusiastic teacher, a gentle man with dreams of exploring the heavens. I will miss him greatly and I will say farewell (for now) with an old nautical expression….I wish you fair winds and a following sea, George. In a twinkling of God’s eye, we will meet again.

Most sincerely, 

David E. Crisalli, August 2019


David Crisalli is a lifetime member and former President of the RRS. He also is the owner of Polaris, Inc. in Simi Valley, California, a rocket propulsion testing and consulting company.

December 2018 meeting

The Reaction Research Society (RRS) held its final monthly meeting of our 75th anniversary year, 2018, on our usual 2nd Friday, December 14th.

We were glad to be visited by Waldo Stakes, Curator of the Saxon Museum in Boron, California, and well-known rocket car maker. Wilbur Owens was kind enough to bring Waldo to the meeting.

Wilbur Owens and Waldo Stakes at the December 2018 RRS meeting in Gardena, newly elected RRS treasurer, Chris Lujan looks on

The agenda for December was kept short as the RRS wanted to take some time to celebrate our accomplishments this year.

After coming to order and the reading of the treasury report, we began the shortened agenda.

[1]
The results of the elections were announced by email from our election chairman, Larry Hoffing, who could not attend. The full slate of officer candidates were voted unanimously with no write-in’s.

The RRS officers for 2019 are as follows:

President – Osvaldo Tarditti
Vice President – Frank Miuccio
Secretary – Dave Nordling
Treasurer – Chris Lujan

We thank our appointed election chairman, Larry, for his service.

The newly elected officers will start their new terms at the beginning of the calendar year. All of our appointed positions at the RRS remain the same as the executive council has voted to retain them. We are thankful to all of our new and continuing membership for making this an important milestone year for the society.

[2]
The next topic was to discuss the UCLA hot fire event at the MTA in November. Osvaldo was very impressed with the UCLA team in how well they communicated and their preparation for a safe hot-fire test. Despite having an earlier setback, they recovered to have a hot-fire in the early night hours that gave them valuable data for their next design iteration. The RRS is glad to support university groups with our testing site. It is great when everyone puts safety and organization first.

Osvaldo reads off the list of events we conducted at the RRS over this anniversary year, 2018; Michael Lunny looks on

The RRS has had other university groups express interest in using our Mojave Test Area (MTA). To any groups wanting to use the RRS MTA, please contact the RRS president by email.

president@rrs.org

We also appreciate each group filling out our RRS standard record form to help explain the basics of what they would like to accomplish. The standard record form can be found under “Forms” on the RRS website.

[3]
The last of the scheduled agenda topics was the announcement of the official date of the 2019 RRS symposium. The symposium will be held on Saturday, April 27, 2019, at the Ken Nakaoka Community Center in Gardena. As before, we will have entire first floor and outdoor courtyard.

The 2019 RRS symposium will be held on Saturday, April 27, 2019

The RRS has had great success in getting a range of speakers from industry, academia and government agencies. We plan to invite the Navy China Lake, Air Force Space and Missile Center, NASA Goddard Spaceflight Center, Northrop Grumman, Relativity and the Additive Rocket Corporation just to name a few, as well as several of our local and regional university rocketry groups such as UCLA, USC, Cal Poly Pomona, CSULB and LMU just to name a few. In the new year as invitations go out and we get confirmation, we will update our agenda for the April symposium. We hope to have an even larger turnout both on our stage, at the exhibition and of course our public audience.

The RRS will be holding a 2-hour panel session as the final event in our speaker series. The RRS is working on building this panel from a good cross-section of industry, government and academia to look at the state of affairs in space today and looking ahead to what may come next as the industry expands.

To those who stayed to the end last year, we were provided a rare treat by former member Bill Claybaugh as he presented his assessment of the current aerospace industry. We would strongly encourage everyone to plan to stay the full day as we will be bringing out more special things as the day goes on.

[9]
This topic was on the original agenda, but we thought we wouldn’t have time. RRS member, Alastair Martin, through his company, Production Tribe, is starting a pod-cast called Rocket Talk Radio. RRS director of research, Richard Garcia, and the RRS secretary, Dave Nordling, have agreed to be the first guests on this pod-cast that will talk about current topics in space and rocketry. As the first few podcasts are made, he’ll look to have other guests, to talk for an hour over a range of questions posed by Alastair and the participating audience.

[X1]
Osvaldo went over the long list of events we held at the RRS starting with the Aerospace Corporation launch test of their prototype liquid-hybrid rocket motor, the three launch events we held through the LAPD Community Safety Partnership (CSP) program where we were able to engage 112 kids in the at-risk communities of Watts in Los Angeles. Both USC and UCLA had a lot of success in their respective rocket programs.

Although USC did have a major setback in their Traveller III flight, they are well positioned for a very successful flight on their long journey to be the first university group to break the von Karman line into space with their boosted dart. The RRS is glad to be recurring partner with USC by assisting with their ground testing needs.

UCLA has also had a successful year with their liquid rocket programs and the RRS is glad to continue our support.

New RRS member, Dmitri Timohovich, and myself journeyed out to the MTA on December 2 for a site improvement project to mount the new road sign we had made. As I was feeling very under the weather on that afternoon, Dmitri did a stellar job in helping the society put a visible marker at our big iron gate leading the way into the RRS Mojave Test Area (MTA). The RRS thanks Dmitri for his hard work for the society.

Dmitri Timohovich makes short work of digging post holes with his motorized auger machine.

The new RRS sign at the first iron gate to the Mojave Test Area ready to greet the next visitors

[X2]
RRS member, Jack Oswald, presented his current progress with his large solid motor building project. His team have been working hard this year having some successes and failures, but always learning. His new ballistic evaluation motor design will correct some of the prior deficiencies in the earlier design and is expected to produce high quality results that should finalize his motor design. Jack and his team from the former Chaminade rocketry group have made a lot of progress and have also helped me with my smaller BEM design. Based on our conversation at the December meeting, I think I will have to re-visit some of my assumptions. Many thanks to Jack and his team’s hard work in supporting the society with their ambitious goals.

[X3]
RRS director of research, Richard Garcia, was not able to attend the December meeting, but he did provide a progress update for the RRS standard liquid project. His injector and chamber design is nearly finished and seems to have all the right features to proceed with build. The injector design is based on a previous design used by the RRS in past liquid rocket projects. He is also re-using his ablative chamber liner feature for this smaller 125-lbf LOX-ethanol engine design. His analytical model of the propellant blowdown system seem to anchor his predictions for what will hopefully be a successful hot fire test in this coming new year, 2019. The RRS is working hard to anchor a reliable and simple to build liquid rocket engine system that university groups can use for liquid rocket competitions in the future without having to start completely from scratch. We will provide updates as this project advances.

[X4]
Richard also brought up the idea of building a rocket sculpture to the right of our big iron gate at the MTA. The society welcomed the idea and we hope to bring this concept to life sometime very soon.

Richard Garcia’s rocket sculpture concept; soon to be seen at the RRS MTA

[X5]
Lastly, Frank was presented with a Community Service award by the Los Angeles Women Police Officers and Associates (LAWPOA) to honor the continuing work of the Reaction Research Society with the LAPD CSP. It is with great pleasure that the RRS accepts this recognition and reaffirms our commitment to this strong program that has done a lot of good for the young minds we hope to inspire.

Bill Janczewski holds up the LAWPOA Community Service award presented to the Reaction Research Society; I think I caught Frank a little off-guard in this photo? He was very pleased.

Our next monthly meeting will be on Friday, January 11, 2019. For an update on our intended agenda for each meeting, check the RRS.ORG website under the “Forum” section.

We look forward to starting the new year with preparations for the 2019 symposium and we will need our full membership to help make this event an even greater success.

Also, the RRS is talking about holding one of our monthly meetings at the Tomorrow’s Museum at the Compton Airport. Also, Jack Oswald has been working on getting tours of The Boring Company in Hawthorne and the Point Mugu Naval Base sometime in the new year.

The RRS wishes everyone happy holidays and a happy new year.