LONGMONT, Colorado USA — Art Hoag’s neighbor gave him a present he didn’t really want for his eighth birthday: a model rocket. When he tried to launch the thing, it didn’t even work. But the unwanted, unworkable gift sparked Hoag’s passion for rockets.

Last year, Hoag and his friends Joe Cowan and Troy Hummel on three occasions launched the largest amateur rocket to fly in Colorado. Hoag designed the rocket; all three built it.

HobbyTown USA manager Joe Cowan stands Sunday next to the 21-foot-tall rocket that he and two partners built over a period of two years. The rocket has flown three times and was the largest amateur rocket to ever fly in Colorado, according to Cowan. Photo: Times-Call/Geyer.

“I’ve always wanted to do something really big,” said Hoag, 19. “I started with the smaller stuff; I had crashes and burns and rockets come at me, but it all adds up to doing something like this.”

The 21-foot rocket — christened “Event Horizon” — was on display at HobbyTown in Longmont over the weekend but was shipped Monday to the Denver Museum of Nature and Science. The rocket will be part of the museum’s temporary display at Denver International Airport before it goes on display at the museum. 

Hoag, Cowan and Hummel — who live in Windsor, Longmont and Greeley, respectively — met through the Northern Colorado Rocketry Club and decided to build the huge rocket together.

“We wanted to do something big, and Art already had the idea,” Cowan said.

They started piecing the rocket together in the spring of 2005 — first in Hummel’s garage, then in Hoag’s parents’ garage — and completed it that fall. But they didn’t have a chance to launch it until their club’s popular launch event, Mile High Mayhem, in May.

The rocket has three motors — hollow tubes filled with solid propellent, the same material used in space shuttle boosters. At 4 inches around and 4 feet long, each motor costs about $900.

With three motors, fuel and other costs, each launch runs about $2,500.

Although the men shelled out some of their own money, sponsorships and donations helped pay for launch costs. 

“We’ve had a lot of help along the way,” Hoag said.

They launched the rocket a second time in July during LDRS 25, the Tripoli Rocketry Association’s “Large and Dangerous Rocket Ships” national event in Amarillo, Texas.

That flight landed the men an all-expenses-paid trip to the X-Prize Cup in October in Las Cruces, New Mexico, a national convention focused on personal spaceflight innovations. X-Prize representatives who were looking for projects met up with the men in Amarillo and watched the launch.

“I never expected to launch this three times,” Hoag said. “I was excited to do it once.”

Event Horizon also landed on the cover of two rocketry magazines, and a documentary filmmaker from Boulder recorded its maiden flight in May.

Although Event Horizon won’t fly again — “I wanted to retire it before it got destroyed,” Hoag said — its journey isn’t over.

The short film about the rocket and its creators landed Hoag a chance to speak at the museum; the museum president listened to Hoag’s presentation and asked to display the rocket.

Event Horizon will be on display from April through September on the Concourse A bridge at DIA before it becomes a permanent display in the Space Odyssey wing of the Denver Museum of Nature and Science.

“Most rockets like this just go back in the garage,” Hoag said. “For something we built in a garage to end up in the Denver Museum is really cool.”

Cowan added, “I never expected this to blow up as much as it did. I thought we’d build it and maybe launch it once a year. I never dreamed it would be this popular.”

‘Event Horizon’ by the numbers:

• 21 feet long
• 11.5 inches around
• 375 pounds
• 11,440 feet highest launch
• $2,500 retail cost per launch
• $12,000 estimated value

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