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October Meeting Minutes (10/6/2007)

The October 2007 MASA meeting was held on the 4th at the Science Museum.

10 people attended the meeting.

• It's now official.  MASA will be hosting NARCON 2008 on March 14-16 in Rochester.  Put it on your calendars and plan to attend!  The web site will be www.narcon2008.org
• The launch on September 22 went well.  It was a nice day although the breeze kept the overall number of flights down a bit.
• The next launch will be on October 27 at the sod farm near Nowthen.  The themes are "Halloween" and "Missiles of October".  A Goblin drag race is planned.
  NOTE - A volunteer or volunteers are needed to serve as launch coordinators (bring equipment to the launch and take care of activating the waiver.)
• The next meeting will be on November 1.  We may change the location of the meeting because there is a hockey game at the Xcel that night.  Also, a topic is needed for this meeting.  2008 MASA officer nominations will open at this meeting.
• Jeff welcomes your contributions for the Planet newsletter.  The deadline submission date for the next issue is October 25.
• There are several Outreach opportunities coming up the end of this month.  Details have been posted to the mailing list.
• Rick Vatsaas gave a treasurers report.  There is currently $357 in the treasury (not counting some money from NARCON 2007).  There are currently 16 individual memberships, 20 family, and 4 junior.

Show -n- Tell

• Rick Vatsaas brought his Custom "Ion Pulsar"
• Ken Jarosch brought his Estes "Executioner" that he is currently rebuilding with a baffle and zipperless recovery.

Sputnik

Through one of those wonderful coincidences, this meeting coincided with the 50th anniversary of the launching of Sputnik in 1957.

To mark the occasion, Alan Estenson put together materials to build flying Sputnik rockets ("odd-rocs").  A number of those present at the meeting built Sputniks on the spot or took the parts home to build later.

They were built from "Estes Industries Rocket Plan #15" for the "Sputnik-Too" (vintage 1964). http://www.dars.org/jimz/eirp/eirp_15.tif

One change to the plan was to run the launch rod through the foam ball along the motor mount tube instead of gluing on an external launch lug.

Look for some of these Sputniks to fly at upcoming launches!

Thanks to everyone who attended the meeting!  See you next month.

(Alan Estenson)