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Article: Rocketeers: the world's highest-flying kit-built rockets shake the Black Rock desert.(Nevada)
- Article from:
- Popular Mechanics
- Article date:
- February 1, 1997
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1997 Hearst Communications, reprinted with permission of Hearst. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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* Three, two, one zero. A thunderbolt-like crack splits the night sky. Flames lick the desert floor. Almost faster than the eye can track, the rocket arcs skyward. Riding on a tower of white light, it passes 10,000 ft., 20,000 ft. and then 30,000 ft. The cheers die down. A tense second later there is a distant pop, followed by a hush. The cheering starts up again as keen-eyed observers spot the rocket's blinking strobe, and then its parachute billows open.
It isn't just the guys at NASA who get to play with the big rockets anymore. Here in Gerlach, Nevada, in the Black Rock desert, amateur rocket scientists from the Northern California Aero-Pac chapter of the ...