COLORADO SPRINGS, Colorado USA — Starting last Thursday, June 28, 2007, Apogee Components began the difficult and time consuming task of switching its current web site over to a new web server to allow the site to run smoother and provide better performance, quick maintenance operations and process requests quickly.

Apogee's webmaster assured that the site wouldn't be down for long and that customers would be able to place orders soon via the web site. "I just wanted to let you know how terrible I feel that the Apogee Components web site has been down for the last 'too-many' days," said Tim Van Milligan, owner of Apogee Components, before going on to tell about the problem and about his new kits from China. 

"You may have tried to get to our great rocketry web site, and found it is giving a 'Page Not Found' error. Or you may have emailed us, only to have it bounce back to you as undeliverable," Van Milligan stated. "I can send email, I just can't receive any yet." Van Milligan added the following statement, including a special offer:

Apogee Components model rocket company is still in business. It only appears we are not due to these confounded technical problems. Because of these technical glitches with our web site and email, I feel I owe something to make up for the inconvenience all this may have caused. Through the next week (July 1 to July 7), I've decided to give a 10% discount on any order.  To be honest, I really could use an order right now, because with the web site being down for a number of days, we've lost about 1/4 of our revenue for the month of June.

I'm not sure when the web site will be up and running, so if it isn't, please give us a call at (719)535-9335. We can still receive phone calls, thank goodness. We will be in the office at 8:30AM (Mountain Time Zone) on Monday morning ready to help you out. If the web site does come back online, you can order online and use the coupon code: 'web-error'. Note that entering the coupon code won't automatically deduct the 10% of your order immediately, but we will see it and refund you the balance.

Because our web site has been down, you may not have heard that we do have some great new rockets that just came in this past week. They are the seven 'Sky' kits from Shaanzi Zhongtian Rocket Technologies Company in China. Yes, they do fly model rockets in China; we just don't hear about it because of the language and political barriers. You may be pleased to know that they have some unique scale rocket kits that have not been available in the USA until now.

For example, you can now get the nicely-crafted 'Shenzou' model, which is a 1:150th scale replica of the rocket that launched China's first astronauts into space in 2005. To go with it, there is also the 1:150th scale 'CZ-2E,' which is the cargo version of the same rocket. Then there is the 1:95th scale 'Long March 3,' which is another cool-looking satellite launch vehicle.

Give us a call on the phone if our web site is still down, and we'll be happy to tell you of these and other rockets that just came in.

I only sent this out to let you know that we at Apogee Components care about our customers like you, and don't want our web site's technical problems to cause you any additional inconvenience.

Thank you for your previous patronage,

Tim Van Milligan
Apogee Components, Inc.
3355 Fillmore Ridge Heights
Colorado Springs, Colorado 80907 USA
Web site: http://www.ApogeeRockets.com
Telephone: 719-535-9335
Fax: 719-534-9050

Van Milligan asked for others to forward this message to the members in the local rocketry club. It would be a great help to them to let everyone know that Apogee is still in business and that they want to serve the rocketry community.