February 2006 Meeting Minutes (2/6/2006)
The February 2006 MASA meeting was held at the
Minnesota Science Museum in St. Paul. Eleven people turned out for
the meeting.
There was some initial discussion that included:
-
Kimball TARC team is now starting to design
their TARC rocket.
-
SW middle school (Albert Lea) TARC team has
launched a practice rocket.
-
The F21 motor is TRA certified but on
"production hold".
-
MARSCON [Science Fiction convention] is first
week of March. MASA will have a booth and one general pass to
the convention.
-
NARCON is the second week of March. Primary
guests are Lee Piester (Centuri) and Matt Steele (NCR).
-
It appears that the MASA meatball design won the
badge competition for 2006.
-
MASA will have some TARC launches in the future
as the TARC deadline nears (not surprising).
-
Buzz McDermott has a brochure from Bellville
Discount Hobby to get all the discontinued Estes stuff at a 40%
discount. Buzz wanted to do a group order. If interested,
call Buzz soon!
Ted Cochran then gave his safety talk which is also
his NARCON talk, entitled "Safety in Sport Rocketry". The talk was a
result of NAR trying to improve the safety of sport rocketry. The
impetus for this was a number of "close calls" that occurred last
year around the country. Ted had a number of pictures (some very
cool) and videos of rocket disasters.
Ted also presented a statistical study of model rocket launches
(based on MASA's flight cards) in an attempt to evaluate the dangers
of sport rocketry. The dangers included rocketeers trying to recover
a rocket from power lines as well as getting struck by a rocket.
Based on the statistical study, NAR came up with some minor
modifications to the safety code as well as some best practices.
Best practice is to always have spectators, prep areas and cars at
cross-wind to the launch area. Almost all rockets land upwind or
downwind from the launch area. Having spectators and others off to
the side of the wind direction will reduce the chances of someone or
something getting hit.
(David Whitaker)
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