KLC Open House

Well, the KLC open house was on Saturday. After hours of preparation for it (I helped with the parking planning), it finally arrived and was over in 5 short hours. It was a beautiful day - blue sky with very few clouds, warm, just an amazing day sandwiched in by rain on Friday and Sunday. I was in charge of launching the model rockets. We had a total of 4 rockets to launch (1 A/B/C engine rocket, 1 E engine rocket, 1 F engine rocket, 1 G engine rocket) and we got in a total of 10 launches.

The first two launches were successful, as we launched the A/B/C rocket, which is almost foolproof. Then we launched the F rocket, where the shock cord ripped right out. We found the nose cone/parachute part, but not the body tube/fin part.

Then we launched the really big one - the G engine rocket, which is about 4" in diameter and about 4 feet long. It was big enough that I found some raw eggs in the kitchen, and packaged one in bubble wrap and put it in the rocket. However, this rocket was quite large and heavy, and we only had F engines. Well, we launched it anyway, and it probably didn't go much more than 100 feet up. The parachute came out about 10 feet off the ground, slowing the rocket just enough that the raw egg survived. All the spectators were amazed, of course.

Then we launched the E rocket for the first and last time (we only had one E engine). It was a successful flight. Then we launched the G rocket again, with a raw egg for show. However, this time the parachute came out about 1/2 second too late. The rocket smashed into the ground, cutting up the plastic nose cone, egg everywhere, and rocket quite damaged. Well, we were down to one rocket now, the A/B/C engine one, and we only had 2 engines left.

We launched the A/B/C rocket once more while I tried to tape up the G rocket to keep launching it since we had a bunch more F engines. The we got the professional photographer to come down and take pictures since he could get 5 or 7 frames per second with his camera. We staged it for the photographs, so we had the tall launch tower in the background, a crowd of people, then me with one to three kids that we chose out of the crowd, and then the rocket. We launched the G rocket again, and this time the parachute again came out about 10 feet above the ground, but it didn't unfurl and slow down the rocket. We put it back together again, and in the mean time, launched the little A/B/C rocket.

The photographer was apparently getting great pictures from what I heard - about 4 or so frames of the rocket off the pad with the smoke/flame underneath it. The kids were having a great time, and they all wanted to come up and help by pushing the button to launch it. We had the crowd do the countdown, and then the kids would run after the rocket after the launch.

Finally, we launched the G rocket one last time before everybody had to leave, with the photographer still there as well. This time, it didn't go quite so well. It went straight over the IPF (one of the buildings on site), and went "thunk." I thought it had landed on the roof of the IPF, however, it had completely cleared the building. It had hit a truck that was parked there in the parking lot! When we all got over there, we saw that it had left a dent and some paint marks on front of the truck. And the ironic thing is that the truck was owned by the company that trucks the rockets (the big rockets that are launched at KLC) out to the range. Now they can say that they deliver the rockets to KLC, and they got hit by a rocket!

Anyway, everybody there probably has pictures of the damage the rocket caused. The rocket didn't turn out so well either. A fin was broken off because of the impact. Since the photographer was still there, they had me explain how the rocket works to the kids, while he snapped pictures the whole time. They should have plenty of good pictures for whatever publicity publications they will make in the next few years.

Although it was a long day, it was a lot of fun launching the rockets, and watching the kids get so excited about launching them. I would love to come back just to launch the model rockets for the open house.

Anyway, here are some pictures I took on Saturday:

Here you can see the mountains as seen from the IPF/SCAT.

Here I zoomed in on the one mountain.

Here is another view from the IPF/SCAT.

Here is a view of the layers of mountains shrouded by the mist and haze, as seen from the MSF.

Here you can see the MSF (Maintenance and Storage Facility), and the mountains behind it. Compare the mountains in this picture to the last time I took the picture (4 or so weeks ago). You can see how much greener everything got.

Here you can see the LSS (left), SCAT (middle left), IPF (middle right), and PPF (payload processing facility, right, hidden behind trees).

Here is the IPF (Integration and Processing Facility, I think).

Here is the SCAT (I don't remember what this one means). It moves on tracks between the IPF and the LSS. I was launching the rockets with the help of one of the other KLC employees, between the IPF and the SCAT (you can see the safety cones).

Here you can see the LSS (I don't remember what this stands for either, but I know it is one of the launch pads). This is the big tower.

Here you can see the damage done to the truck by the rocket.

Here is the broken rocket that did the damage.

Well, here are the new mileage totals after a few days:

Foot: ~40 miles
Bike: ~60 miles
Car: ~2600 miles (It is 95.6 miles roundtrip to the range. I have driven about 6 of these miles!)
Boat: ~6 miles
Plane: ~3450 miles