I blame my son. His enthusiasm for reaching the heavens has been contagious. At his urging, we have recently attended several high-powered rocketry launches at the nearby Lucerne Dry Lake Bed with the Rocketry Organization of California (ROC). And if you have even a trace of testosterone in your body, you can’t help but get excited each time one of the large rockets launches skyward with a thunderous roar.

So we started building some smaller rocket kits and have worked our way up to our Tripoli Level 1 Certification, which we achieved at this month’s launch. We had to successfully build, load, launch, and recover our rocket with an “H” size engine. With this certification, we can now fly bigger engines in bigger rockets. This kind of amateur rocketry can eventually lead to scratch-built, cutting edge missiles like we saw at the BALLS 17 experimental launch in Northwestern Nevada over Fall Break. Probably an appropriate past-time for the budding astronaut in the family.

(Here’s some video of our 4″ Goblin ascending on an I-115 W.)