Tag Archives: Bill Claybaugh

75th anniversary symposium was a success!

Posted on by

The Reaction Research Society (RRS.ORG) was happy to celebrate its 75th anniversary as the country’s oldest continuously operating amateur rocketry society on April 21, 2018. At the Ken Nakaoka Community Center in Gardena, California, we shared this special occasion with over 300 people from the Los Angeles and San Diego area and welcomed several guests from places further away.

(left to right) Osvaldo Tarditti, Bill Janczewski, Dave Nordling, Jim Gross, Frank Miuccio, Larry Hoffing, Alastair Martin, Richard Garcia, Bill Claybaugh, Drew Cortopassi, Chris Lujan

RRS member, Michael Lunny mans the front desk at the 2018 RRS symposium

RRS members, Jim Gross and John Mariano at the 2018 symposium

Osvaldo Tarditti, George James, George Dosa and Jerry Irvine at the RRS symposium

Bill Claybaugh and RRS founder, George James, at the 2018 RRS symposium

The RRS had a display of some of our society projects past and present. Also, some of our members had their projects on display including Richard Garcia’s liquid rocket and Bill Claybaugh’s massive two-stage rocket.

Richard Garcia discusses his liquid rocket vehicle at the 2018 symposium

An early liquid rocket test motor from George Dosa, furfuryl alcohol and nitric acid

RRS micrograin rockets on display with historical notes

Bill Claybaugh, Osvaldo Tarditti and Bill Janczewski stand before Claybaugh’s two-stage solid rocket on display

Photo montage of micrograin rocket launches

All thirteen RRS mail flights from 1947 – 1990

We had copies of the special 75th anniversary edition of the RRS Astrojet newsletter available for sale at the symposium. Thank you to Bill Janczewski for his hard work in making this high quality newsletter and the bright sign on the column for everyone to see as they came in. The Astrojet can still be purchased through our RRS.ORG website at our PayPal button if you write a note for “Astrojet, (X) copies” and send your mailing address.

Or just simply contact the RRS by email.
secretary@rrs.org

75th anniversary issue of the Astrojet newsletter on sale

We shared our exhibition space with the Los Angeles Air Force Base’s (LA AFB) Space and Missile Command (SMC) as they presented the long history of SMC. Our thanks to Lt. Col. Porter and his team for having a huge display of the Air Force’s contributions to space, national security and improvements to our daily lives. Also, the air-driven rocket launcher demonstration in the courtyard was a big hit.

Karen Austin, Director of SMC History at the 2018 RRS symposium

LA AFB SMC history on display at the 2018 RRS symposium

Lt. Col. Porter speaks at the SMC history exhibit

Also, just outside the Ken Nakaoka Community Center in Gardena, was our colleagues at the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) Community Safety Partnership (CSP). Officers who have supported and participated in the rocket build classes we’ve had with Watts and Compton area schools were on hand to answer questions and show off the fun we’ve had over this last year.

LAPD CSP at the 2018 RRS symposium

We had several universities exhibiting and presenting at the RRS symposium including University of California Los Angeles (UCLA), University of Southern California (USC) and California State University Long Beach (CSULB). All of them had impressive work to show with flights pending in just a few weeks before the semester or quarter ends.

CSU Long Beach exhibits and presents at the 2018 RRS symposium

The Additive Rocket Corporation of San Diego exhibited and presented their unique technology.

The Additive Rocket Corporation of San Diego exhibits and presents at the RRS symposium

Other exhibitors at the RRS symposium was our fellow amateur rocketry group, Rocketry Organization of California (ROC).
Rocketry Organization of California

ROC on display at the 2018 RRS symposium

The Notre Dame Academy was also present at our symposium.
Notre Dame Academy – WIkipedia

Notre Dame Academy at the 2018 RRS symposium

Our friends at the China Lake Museum also had a display to show the Navy’s contributions to rocketry and the national defense.
China Lake Museum

China Lake Museum on display at 2018 RRS symposium

U.S. Rockets was also exhibiting at the RRS symposium.
U.S. Rockets – Jerry Irvine

U.S. Rockets exhibiting at the RRS symposium

We had several speakers presenting on current and historical topics of professional and amateur rocketry including Jacky Calvignac of Northrop Grumman, our founder George James of his organization, The Rocket Research Institute (RRI), John Steinmeyer of Orbital-ATK and David Krause of NASA Goddard Spaceflight Center’s Wallops Island Flight Facility in Virginia who called in by Skype.

George James, founder of the RRS, presents on behalf of the RRI

Jacky Calvignac shows the propulsion programs at Northrop Grumman

High School Rocket Propulsion Lab and new RRS members present their test firings from the RRS MTA

Aerospace Corporation’s presentation on additive manufactured propellant grains

We thank all of our attendees, presenters, exhibitors and just everyone who stopped in and had a good time with us. The RRS would like to especially thank Tony Richards for his photography taken at the RRS symposium.

The RRS will discuss at our next monthly meeting on May 11th if we’ll have another symposium next year in 2019. Based on the overwhelming response, this is very likely.

August 2017 meeting

Posted on by

The RRS met for our monthly meeting Friday, August 11th, at the Ken Nakaoka Community Center in Gardena. We were well attended, but got a late start. After the usual reading of the treasurer’s report, we began the meeting with the first agenda topic.

Frank has been talking with several groups interested in doing alpha build events including the LAPD wanting to serve another set of students in another housing project in Watts. The Watts event at the MTA was very successful and we discussed what went well and what could be improved.

We discussed getting a shared server for running RRS members to run applications related to rocketry. Frank and Chris are looking into options but haven’t found anything yet. Many of us use cloud services to store our files, but the RRS ought to discuss data storage options that can be better accessed by our membership. This topic is on-going.

The RRS history project continues. We received a set of RRS newsletters from Bill Claybaugh (thank you, Bill!). Richard Garcia continues to scan the newsletter stacks he has. We are still interested in getting reports, newsletters and anything else relevant to our history.

Bill Claybaugh was also kind to donate one of his 3-inch nozzles with a graphite insert to the society. In time, we will receive Bill’s propellant test rig which I look forward to examining and using at the MTA.

Bill Claybaugh’s three-inch nozzle

side view of three-inch nozzle with graphite throat

The RRS has made contact with our founder, George James, and some of the other early members of the society. We hope to schedule interviews and help to document as much of our history as we can in advance of the 75th anniversary symposium, April 14, 2018. The RRS is working on a list of our officers going back through the many years to the beginning starting with George James. We appreciate the help we’ve got so far, but there’s still a lot of work to do.

The next launch event at the MTA will likely be in the latter part of September. Some of the potential events with schools will be in October. There is significant interest in the RRS having a launch event for the several members interested in launching their own alphas. Many of our new members, Alastair, Bill, Angel and now Drew, have expressed interest in launching their own alphas. Myself and Larry will likely try to put something together as I continue to work on the parachute system for the alpha.

The council will update our membership once the next launch event at the MTA can be organized and set.

We had hoped to look at the footage from the keychain camera mounted to the fin on LAPD’s alpha rocket. The camera was recovered and the data was good, but Osvaldo did not have the opportunity to edit the footage. Alastair also had some video footage he took from the 7-22-2017 Watts launch event at the MTA, but he was still editing. We decided to push this item off to next month.

We discussed timer chips and other methods of switching on payloads right at launch. I brought my wood block breadboard and worked with Richard to resolve some issues with my circuit not firing. Osvaldo built a cotter-pin based spring-loaded switch that he mounted inside a segment of the alpha payload as an example. The society continues its efforts to learn more about what works with payloads and what doesn’t. I discussed my idea to attempt a flight speed sensor with a pair of barometric pressure sensing chips. Osvaldo said he’d drill a hole in the tip of an aluminum nosecone for the stagnation port.

We adjourned late at 9:22pm. In the future, we need to watch the time spent on each agenda topic. I would suggest we bring a simple battery-powered 6-inch wall clock into the meeting room so all people can more easily keep better track of time without pulling out their phones.

The topic of issuing membership cards and developing a better system of tracking dues collections was not addressed and will also be pushed to the next monthly meeting.

Our next meeting will be Friday, September 8, 2017.

If there is anything I missed or misstated, please let me know.
secretary@rrs.org