Jim, thank you, thank you, thank you for documenting this history! Your path crosses that of Keith Loftsrom, a friend of mine from Tektronix days, in so many places that I would not be surprised to find that you and he know each other. He was early into the L5 Society, published his Launch Loop concept in Analogue magazine (DEC83), and has a group of followers around the world working on it.
I talked with Bob Zubrin at the Ohio Space Development conference in the 1990s, told him about the Great Lakes Rocket Society Huron project, and still have his business card.
The GLRS "core four" consisted of Mike Jacobs, a tool&die engineer from Toledo, OH who designed and built the Huron rocket structure; Rick Wills, a propulsion engineer at Wright-Patterson AFB in Dayton, OH - our "plumber" who did the tank design and propulsion subsystem; myself, an electronics engineer (the "electrician") who designed the flight computer, launch sequencing, and quarter-turn valve controller; and Ken Weidaw, a Pittsburgh lawyer who taught space law at U. of Pitt and Carnegie-Mellon U. and was a Washington, DC lobbyist for the AIAA. Ken had obtained a 1000 lb thrust Atlas missile vernier engine that became the engine for our Huron rocket project that he bought from Ken Mason in Socorro, New Mexico, who tested engines commercially on his flat-bed trailer.
The Huron project is another story, and I capture some of it in my book, Rocketry & Astrionics, which contains both the explanation of how those rocket equations on T-shirts are derived, using only high-school math. It also has a "case study" chapter of the Huron. If anyone wants a free PDF copy, contact me through my website at innovatia.com via the email address given on innovatia.com/Inquiry.htm
Jim, thank you, thank you, thank you for documenting this history! Your path crosses that of Keith Loftsrom, a friend of mine from Tektronix days, in so many places that I would not be surprised to find that you and he know each other. He was early into the L5 Society, published his Launch Loop concept in Analogue magazine (DEC83), and has a group of followers around the world working on it.
I talked with Bob Zubrin at the Ohio Space Development conference in the 1990s, told him about the Great Lakes Rocket Society Huron project, and still have his business card.
The GLRS "core four" consisted of Mike Jacobs, a tool&die engineer from Toledo, OH who designed and built the Huron rocket structure; Rick Wills, a propulsion engineer at Wright-Patterson AFB in Dayton, OH - our "plumber" who did the tank design and propulsion subsystem; myself, an electronics engineer (the "electrician") who designed the flight computer, launch sequencing, and quarter-turn valve controller; and Ken Weidaw, a Pittsburgh lawyer who taught space law at U. of Pitt and Carnegie-Mellon U. and was a Washington, DC lobbyist for the AIAA. Ken had obtained a 1000 lb thrust Atlas missile vernier engine that became the engine for our Huron rocket project that he bought from Ken Mason in Socorro, New Mexico, who tested engines commercially on his flat-bed trailer.
The Huron project is another story, and I capture some of it in my book, Rocketry & Astrionics, which contains both the explanation of how those rocket equations on T-shirts are derived, using only high-school math. It also has a "case study" chapter of the Huron. If anyone wants a free PDF copy, contact me through my website at innovatia.com via the email address given on innovatia.com/Inquiry.htm