ARGONIA, Kansas USA — An attempt to replicate the launch of the first American into space ended in disappointment when the model of the rocket blew up on the launch pad.

The one-third scale model of Alan B. Shepard Jr.'s Redstone/Freedom 7 rocket and space capsule barely got off the ground Monday after Shepard's daughter pushed the launch button.

No one was hurt in the explosion, which generated a brief fire of intense heat.

"Oh no," Laura Shepard Churchley said. "Oh, what a shame."

The launch was designed to honor Shepard at a five-day convention of experimental rocket makers. The launch was to have been the highlight of the annual Tripoli International High-Power Rocket Launch.

The rocket was about 30 feet tall with a miniature Mercury space capsule and escape tower on top. It was to have soared nearly a mile into the air under 3,200 pounds of thrust, said Bruce Lee, project director.

"The rocket motor apparently over-pressurized, and it split the motor casing down the side," Lee said. "It just laid down on its side and burned up.

"When you get into projects as big and as aggressive as this one, these things sometimes happen."

Lee, from Omaha, was one of 28 rocket enthusiasts from Nebraska who spent more than 1,500 hours and $5,000 on the project.

Churchley, who said she watched her father's 15-minute suborbital flight in 1961 on television at the boarding school she attended in St. Louis, had been invited to push the launch button after she heard about the attempt.

Shepard, who died last year at 74, had gone 116 miles high to become America's first man in space.

"This is so neat," Churchley said before the failed launch attempt. "Daddy would have loved this, especially all the kids being here."

Copyright © 1999 The Associated Press