Jennifer, after building one model rocket decided she wanted to get a Level 1  Certification. And while I don’t want to discourage anyone, especially a wife who’s interested in your costly hobby, I told her going for a L1 on your second rocket isn’t smiled upon by the rocket gods. But being the dutiful husband, I helped direct her in the construction, let her choose her own dreadful color scheme, and procured an easy to build Cesaroni motor for her. When it came time to do her launch, she was guided through the process by NOVAAR’s great high power coordinator, Mitch Guess. It was a beautiful day for the launch but as the rocket left the pad it was clear that something was wrong. The rocket veered sharply to the right and traveled further horizontally than vertically before deploying the chute. Even then things did not go well, as the chute failed to unfurl and the rocket fell out of sight far beyond the field.

I gave her the last reference point on the horizon and she went off to try to find the rocket (I was busy with a TARC team). As she left Mitch gave her some parting advice: “It’s always further than you think.” After over an hour of looking she returned without finding it, but it was clear from the description of where she had searched, she had not gone far enough.

Once I was done with my TARC duties, I sent one of the kids home with her and my son and I went out to search the field beyond the woods populated with beautiful and HUGE Longhorn Cattle. Luckily, they just watched as we walked the field, eventually finding the rocket in the third field over from the road. Unfortunately, it had lost a fin making it a failed attempt. It will be easily fixed though, and I’m sure she will have more favor with rocket gods the next time she launches.