Rocket Lobsters February 7 from Chixulub on Vimeo.
I put the kites in the car thinking it'd be windy again (Friday had been gusty), but when we got to the park, all the kite flyers were frustrated by the total lack of sustained breezes.
Which was no hardship for me and Mo, we also had the range box and the pitiful remains of Lobster Fleet's flying stock (many repairs to do this spring).
This cute little boy was so fascinated with the rockets, and then I got to talking to his Dad who turned out to be a Russian aerospace engineer, though not one who works on rockets. He was very knowledgeable on the subject of rockets, but apparently his career has been more with airplanes.
I talked up the Kansas Cosmosphere, told him that you'd have to hit the Smithsonian to beat it and with his son's obvious enthusiasm for the subject it'd be a home run.
And we had fun talking about the Cold War, the War on Terror, China's human rights record and how Russia is really run by the same people today, they just don't call it Communism anymore.
At some point, his kid asked me if I was going to launch another, and I allowed that I might if I ever shut up and prepped another one.
Then Mo needed the restroom, and the ones at the park aren't open yet (I'm sure there are good reasons to close them 'for the season,' but it sure does suck when you have to go driving to find a john).
So then we went to Celebration Park in Gardner which is a nearly perfect launch site. Mo did her sidewalk chalk and I launched a couple. It was getting too dark to launch, really, but it's such an open area it's practically impossible to lose a rocket. No mature trees to speak of, and only one smallish water hazard. You could strand it on the roof of one of the small buildings, and could wind up having to clime a fence around a softball field, but other than that it's perfect. Borders on Molly's school, which also has few rocket-eating components and a sod farm.
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