WORLD WIDE WEB — The Team America Rocketry Challenge (TARC) is the highest-impact program the NAR has ever had to generate interest in our hobby and in a future career in aerospace among middle school and high school students. It has the full backing and support of not only the NAR, but also the Aerospace Industries Association and NASA.

The teams of young people who choose to enter and fly in this nationwide "two stage dual egglofting precision altitude" event learn a tremendous amount about model rocketry and about aerospace design. Last year's event, the first-ever TARC, was the biggest rocket contest ever held and the biggest and most nationally-visible event the NAR has ever been involved in. NAR gained members and national exposure for our hobby, sparked creation of school rocket clubs across the U.S., and in general really "paid forward" to the next generation of rocketeers. An article about TARC 2003 appeared in the August issue of Sport Rocketry about the event.

This year, TARC's second year, the aerospace industry and NASA support is even stronger than last year. NAR's publicity efforts last year got a great boost from the fact that TARC 2003 was an official event of the national celebration of the Centennial of Flight and was listed in many public Centennial calendars as a result. This led to 873 team entries, although only 275 of them managed to complete a successful rocket flight to try to qualify for the final flyoff for the top 100. NAR's goal for the upcoming event is to get more teams entered than last year, and twice as high a percentage of entered teams succeeding to the point of having a successful qualification launch.

This year's publicity campaign for TARC has lacked the Centennial of Flight boost, and right now applications, while strong, are lagging 20% behind last year's rate in numbers as of this date. This means that fewer schools may get exposure to our hobby, the NAR organization, and the tremendous fun and rewards of live "rocket science". The application deadline for TARC 2004 is November 15, 2003. NAR has implemented a "pay forward" campaign by making sure the word gets out to all the middle schools and high schools around you about this fantastic event. NAR encourages rocketeers to step forward and help where necessary to get a team organized and an application submitted wherever there is a spark of interest.

A flyer about the event can be found on the NAR website at http://www.nar.org.