RIVERSIDE, California USA — Joe Cox and son Charlie are building a Really Big Nuke in the family garage.

They are not terrorists and they do not build missiles. They are amateur rocket builders who say launching their creations thousands of feet into the air is a real blast.

Charlie Cox, 30, of Riverside, holds up a small rocket he built with his daughter Allison, 4. Photo: Caitlin M. Kelly.

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VIDEO: Joe and Charlie Cox work on a 14-foot rocket

Their newest rocket is modeled after a small prefabricated kit rocket called the Big Nuke, but the finished product will be much larger — hence the name, Really Big Nuke, the Riverside residents said.

A large portion of the new rocket is made from parts salvaged from a summer flight that went awry. The launch, which took place on a Nevada dry lake bed, was featured on a recent episode of Daily Planet, a science program on the Discovery Channel network.

The $2,200 rocket soared about 5,900 feet before coming back down. It was a perfect launch, but the landing was a problem, they said.

"Our recovery system failed," Charlie Cox said.

The parachute on the nose end opened and allowed the nose cone to float to the lake bed. But the parachute on the back end shredded and the aft section plummeted to the ground. It was destroyed in the impact. A video of the 12-inch Talon launch can be found on the Internet at YouTube.com.

In keeping with the Cox family rocket-building tradition, the father-and-son team fired up the lava lamp that sits on a shelf in the garage and went to work. They pulled a fiberglass sleeve over the heavy cardboard that will house the rocket motor. Then, they smoothed on the epoxy. Building a rocket is similar to building a boat, Charlie Cox said.

They're building the rocket using plans they designed on a rocket simulation software program and it will meet California launch standards for size of the motor.

Joe Cox, 58, of Riverside, left, smoothes epoxy over a fiberglass sleeve that will be the end section of a new rocket he and his son Charlie are building in the family garage. The rocket will measure 14 ½ feet long when it is done and will contain up to seven motors. Photo: Caitlin M. Kelly.

The 12-inch Talon — so named for the diameter of the rocket — was 20 feet tall and 220 pounds. The new rocket will have a smaller motor, the largest allowed in a rocket launch in California, Joe Cox said.

"Overall the rocket will be 6 feet shorter. It'll be 14 feet long and will weigh about 100 pounds less," Cox said. "With the new configuration, it could fly up to 12,000 feet and break the sound barrier (at 760 mph)."

New rocket plans also include mounts that will allow the Coxes to install up to seven motors that can be fired in a variety of configurations. The rocket can launch in a simultaneous two-motor burst, then be pushed farther into the air with a later firing of another motor, they said.

The rocketeers won't have their new rocket built in time to fly at Roc Stock, one of the three largest rocket-launching events in Southern California. But that won't stop them from attending the event this weekend in Lucerne Valley. Charlie Cox said he plans to take his 4-year-daughter, Allison, who has a 24-inch rocket of her own.

"High-powered rocketry is a family thing," said Joe Cox's wife and rocket parachute-maker, Kathy Cox.

Copyright © 2007, The Press-Enterprise.