JEAN DRY LAKE, Nevada USA — Every year, the banquet at LDRS is the highlight of the event, and this year's banquet is shaping up to be much better than most.  In addition to great food served in the company of a room full of rocketry enthusiasts at the incomparable Primm Valley Resort, there are also a number of additional attractions.

First, we've lined up two outstanding guest speakers for the banquet.

Our keynote speaker is Rex Ridenoure, who is the President, CEO, and co-founder of Ecliptic Enterprises Corporation, which provides systems for accessing and experiencing space and other extreme environments. Ecliptic produces the world's leading brand of on board video and imaging systems for use with rockets, spacecraft and other remote platforms: RocketCam™.  They also provide one of the most cost-effective systems for getting small payloads into space: RocketPod™.

Rex has had a distinguished career as a space-mission engineer and system architect on more than a dozen space missions, and is a champion of and leader in the emerging market sector of commercial deep-space missions.  Before Ecliptic, Rex was Chief Mission Architect at BlastOff! Corporation working on commercial lunar missions and, before that, Chief Mission Architect at SpaceDev, a commercial space-exploration and development company.  Before SpaceDev, he was manager of the Space Systems Division at Microcosm, Inc., a small space-mission engineering firm.

Rex will be showing some amazing on-board rocket videos from Ecliptic's work with various commercial and NASA space launch vehicles.  This is one show that you definitely don't want to miss! (And, with professional audio and video facilities for the banquet provided by Van Norman Audio Visual, you won't miss a thing — you'll feel like you're actually there.)

Our other guest speaker is Pat Gordzelik, who is the Vice President of the Tripoli Rocketry Association (TRA).

Pat is an entrepreneur, owning and operating a fastening systems company that he founded in 1982, and sharing responsibility for a pharmaceutical consulting business that he and his wife, Lauretta, co-own.

An avid rocketeer for many years, Pat joined Tripoli in 1998, and helped found the Tripoli Amarillo prefecture in 1999.  In 2001, he achieved his Level 3 certification, and was nominated and approved as a TRA TAP member.  Under Pat's influence, Tripoli Amarillo successfully bid for and hosted LDRS 21 in July 2002, and he did it all again for LDRS 25, in July 2006.

Pat is well known to the Tripoli Research rocketry community as the inventor of the "Amarillo Blue" and "Polish Rojo" propellant formulas, and he has helped countless other amateur rocketeers over the years to succeed in their own propellant chemistry endeavors.

Gordzelik also served as safety consultant for the SciFi channel show "Master Blasters".  In his virtually nonexistent spare time, Pat  advises the Center for Engineering Outreach at Texas Tech University on its K-12 rocketry content, and he also teaches an Advanced Rocketry workshop.

Anyone who knows Pat Gordzelik knows that he's always a great source for interesting rocketry stories, and he's agreed to share a few with us all at the LDRS 26 banquet.

Additionally, everyone who attends the LDRS 26 banquet will be given one free entry ticket (and may purchase more) for a special raffle.   This raffle will be held at the banquet, with quite a few great prizes donated by the LDRS 26 vendors.  You won't want to miss this chance!  The prize pool promises to be fantastic, and — with entries limited to just the banquet attendees — your chances of winning something great should be pretty good!

The Tripoli Board of Directors will hold their annual public meeting at the LDRS 26 banquet, and the TRA President, Ken Good, will give his annual "State of the Organization" address to those in attendance.  This meeting is your chance to have your comments and concerns addressed by the Tripoli BOD in a public forum.

Announcements scheduled to be made at the banquet include the results of this year's Tripoli Board elections, and the identity of the host prefecture and location for next year's LDRS 27.

The excitement doesn't end there — the LDRS 26 Banquet will also see the Las Vegas debut appearance of the (in)famous "Mark and Robin Show".

Don't miss it!

Banquet tickets must be purchased in advance.  At only $35/per person, they represent an excellent value, and sales have been brisk so far. Don't let them sell out before you buy yours! Please see the LDRS 26 web site, at http://www.ldrs26.org, to purchase your tickets for the LDRS 26 Banquet, and to register for LDRS 26.