Little Rocket Scientists

Hopefully, this story is the last one about failures and fiascos of the pyrotechnic kind, but then my life might become a real yawner. We’ll see….

This story is about a fund-raising effort by our ward. It was held to raise money for the summer camps of our youth. The bishop asked those who wished to contribute to offer a service of some kind that would be auctioned off at the fund raiser. I decided to offer a family rocket science experience. It turned out to be a popular item in the auction and was purchased by a young family with 4 aspiring little scientists. Here is a photo of the family in front of the barn where the rocket was launched.

First, I went to their house and helped the children build the rocket. It was an impressive rocket that featured a video camera at the base, near the fins. It also had a rather expensive electronic circuit in the nose cone that was designed to use the earth’s magnetic field to sense when the rocket reached its peak altitude. Then the circuit would fire an explosive charge to eject the parachute, allowing the rocket to float safely back to the ground.

Now, I had already flown this circuit in other rockets. It worked beautifully, if I do say so myself. It did have one rather annoying feature, however. The circuit worked by sensing when the rocket tipped over. This normally happens when a rocket has fired its motor and then coasts upward until it finally slows down. The rocket will naturally tip over and come back down with its nose pointing downward, just like an arrow would. This means that you must be very careful when preparing to launch the rocket. Once the circuit has been armed, if you ever happen to allow the rocket to tip over, it will fire the explosive charge.

Because this rocket was so large, it was impossible to slide it onto the launch rail while in a vertical position. The only solution is to slide the rocket onto the launch rail while the rail is lying horizontally on the ground. Then the rail is lifted into the vertical position for the launch. Can you guess what the problem is? This means that the astute rocket engineer must disarm the ejection charge, mount the rocket on the launch rail and then use a ladder to reach the nose cone of the rocket. By carefully lifting up the nose cone, the ejection arming switch is then pressed while the rocket is in the vertical position. Then it is ready to launch.

On the day of the launch, I helped the family do all the preparations for the final countdown. We placed the rocket motor in the rocket body and attached the electric igniter. We attached the video camera to the base of the rocket and tested it to make sure it was working. We even held a trial countdown to make sure the chosen launch engineer could correctly count down from 5 to zero. I mentally went over all the items on the checklist, but I still had a nagging feeling that I had forgotten something. Ignoring the feeling as launch day jitters, we all retired to the launch control area to observe the launch. Just as the young boy said “… two, one, zero” and pushed the launch button, I remembered what we had forgotten. Too late…. The rocket roared into the sky and flew beautifully upward at breath-taking speed. Then, it majestically slowed and finally nosed over at its peak altitude. This is when the ejection charge was supposed to fire, but I knew it wasn’t going to happen. I had totally forgotten to arm the ejection circuit. Consequently, the rocket came back to earth and smashed into the ground just like a large lawn dart. DOOOOUUU!!  50 dollars of delicate rocket circuitry were smashed into oblivion in the blink of an eye.

Even though I knew exactly what had happened to cause the failure, I acted puzzled and didn’t explain my terrible blunder to the family. They never knew what had caused the parachute to fail to eject, but I didn’t want to ruin their excitement. For young kids, a crash is just as memorable as a successful flight, so I suffered in silence as we ran to retrieve what was left of the doomed rocket. Again, it was a family memory that they will probably remember forever, so I reasoned that it was worth the expense in the end.

It’s just so hard to live with my inward shame of yet another failure. I resolved to someday make it right by redesigning the ejection system. It kept me scheming and dreaming for years afterward.