Rocketry covers a wide range of rocket types and sizes. Some rocketeers look for more challenges in their hobby, and expand on the size and complexity of the rockets they build and fly. Here are some hints that it may have gotten a smidge out of control.
- You have to enlist two or three of your buddies to help carry your rocket out to the launch pad.
- You buy more of your rocketry supplies at Home Depot than at your local hobby shop.
- You’ve bought a new truck, van, or trailer because your old vehicle wasn’t big enough to carry your rockets to the launch site.
- If something inside your rocket needs to be fixed or replaced, you can just reach in with both arms and do the work.
- Your house is furnished with tables and chairs made from the scrap wood left over after cutting out your rocket parts.
- You use more duct tape than masking tape when prepping your rockets.
- You read Consumer Reports for help selecting house paint, but can go on for hours about the virtues of different brands of epoxy, carbon fiber and fiberglass cloth.
- Your igniters cost more than the “Standard” motors the kids fly at the park.
- You own more and bigger parachutes than anyone in the local skydiving club.
- You’ve been stopped by the police and accused of being a terrorist based on what was in, or strapped on top of, your vehicle.
- You know exactly when all the local farmers are planning to plant and harvest their crops.
- You spend more time filling out government forms for your rocketry hobby, than preparing your tax return each year.
- The total memory and processing power of the electronics in your rockets exceeds that of the computers NASA used to control the Apollo missions.
- Airline pilots have filed UFO reports based on observing your rockets in flight.
- Launching a dog or a small child in a rocket is merely an ethical problem, not a technical one.
- You’ve had to use a backhoe to recover a rocket.
Adapted from the original with permission of Greg Smith of Central Illinois Aerospace.