I LOVE ROCKETS and I suspect you do, too. We happy few, we band of brothers and sisters, it is in our blood to build and launch rockets. Failure in rocketry is not an option, even though it is often a result. But failure rarely stops us. Even while our last rocket is falling from the sky, or crumpled on its side spewing smoke, we're planning our next rocket, and our next. I think this is what makes rocketeers unique.

I DON'T KNOW if we are just in the right place at the right time, but as a hobby we enjoy one of the highest proliferations of fellow hobbyists on the Internet. As such, that allows us to do some pretty phenomenal things that would otherwise deplete even the most dedicated savings accounts.

THIS IS THE STORY of a slice of model rocket history, and the small part that I played in it. I submit it as an example of how amazing things can result from an unimportant act, as a tiny pebble starts the avalanche. I'm not a born-again rocketeer. I never fully left the hobby; at least once a year throughout my life I was involved in a rocket launch.

In the most recent High Power Rocketry magazine, it features one very accomplished flier's Tripoli certification process of all three levels in one day. Situations such as this always create confusion since it's not the norm. The question was posed recently on Compuserve, to which the fact was pointed out that Tripoli doesn't have a waiting period for the certification process, so as not to penalize those with sufficient knowledge from progressing through the process at their own pace.

IF I HAD IT MY WAY, America would still be the strongly patriotic place that stirred the emotions of great men like Thomas Jefferson, operating on the same courage that caused them to take up arms to insure the freedoms so desirous in Revolutionary America. It would still require that government be a servant of the people, rather than appear to be visa versa.

RECENT DISCUSSIONS on most all of the online discussion areas regarding rocketry have been reeling from the disclosure that more scrutiny is coming soon from the regulatory agencies. The resulting panic that has ensued has been discouraging to say the least, full of hyperbole and bordering on pure hysteria.

A FEW WEEKS AGO, I was talking to a modeler who was getting ready to take the written test portion of the Level 2 high-power rocketry certification. What surprised me was that he didn’t know a lot about the technical or regulatory aspects of the hobby. Basically, he was getting all his knowledge by memorizing the answers in the test “study guide.” To me, this is very scary. But I don’t think that this was the rare exception; as I had a similar experience this past weekend with a different modeler.