It has been many years since Ray Dunakin told anyone he wants to be an astronaut when he grows up.

But he remembers, as if it was yesterday, the awe he felt as a young boy growing up with the space program. Many a morning he woke early to watch the Mercury and Gemini projects - the first two men-in-space programs. He often imagined what it would feel like to be aboard such vessels.

The moment of ignition, sparks fly a split second before the rocket lifts off. © 1992 Ray Dunakin

And even as his peers' childhood dreams of walking on the moon or dancing in the ballet or being a movie star dissolved into other, perhaps more tangible career paths, Ray continued to fantasize about rockets and space.

"The fire and smoke, the noise, the danger - it was all so exciting and fascinating," Ray said.

And now that he's all grown up, it's no wonder the 45-year-old San Diegan has turned to designing and launching rockets of his own.

Ray currently has several rockets of various lengths and sizes, including one that's four inches wide and about ten feet long. To each rocket he attaches one of four Olympus Stylus Epic cameras, which records the flight.

Over the years, he has taken hundreds of in-flight photos and created about 200 Super 8 movies, resulting in a large collection of images launches and of the earth taken from as high as a mile up.

Ray Dunakin stands with his "Tri-Star" configured rocket complete with multiple cameras.

He has four PhotoPoint albums full of these photos, many of which are accompanied by detailed explanations of the technique and type of rocket he used to capture them, in addition to a brief story about the launch location.

The hobby, Ray says, started two decades ago and has grown into a bit of an obsession.

The first launches

"I started out with small model rockets in 1980, using a specially designed 110 camera sold by Estes, the model rocket company," Ray said. "It had a spring-loaded shutter and only took one grainy photo per flight."

The experimentation had just begun.

In 1987 he joined the Tripoli Rocketry Association and learned the basics of high-power rocketry. First, he experimented with an inexpensive, light-weight plastic Super 8 camera. Later he moved to an Ansco fixed-focus, autowind camera.

A BX-3 roars off from Coyote Wells, CA near the Mexican border. On board is an Ansco camera to recording the flight. © 1990 Ray Dunakin

When the Ansco was destroyed in a hard landing, Ray turned to the Olympus Stylus Epic, which he's stuck with over the years.

The camera is triggered by a small servo motor and has a cam and lever mechanism that repeatedly presses the shutter button, accordingly capturing several shots of the rocket as it races hundreds of feet up.

The motors use solid fuel similar to the boosters on the space shuttle and are available commercially, according to Ray, a software developer and former graphic designer. He usually uses single-use motors, but occasionally uses a re-loadable type.

Ray got his first camera — a two-and-a-fourth-inch Brownie, in junior high school. And in the mid-70s he got a 35 mm SLR to take along on camping trips.

This A8 packed with an Olympus Stylus Epic camera soars above an old mine near the Pisgah Crater cinder cone. © 2000 Ray Dunakin

An avid outdoorsman, Ray often hops into his beat-up, '91 Isuzu Trooper and heads off into the California and Nevada deserts, where he likes to camp out in ghost towns and deserted mining camps.

Which is not to say Ray's always grounded. After all, a man who builds rockets needs to take to the air, occasionally. So, once in a while, Ray heads out to the amusement park and hops onto one of myriad ejection and bungee rides that simulate flight and fall.

And, of course, when he's feeling especially flighty (and imaginative), Ray can pretend he's sitting on one of his very own creations, about to launch into a high-speed journey into the atmosphere.

One look at his in-flight photos makes it easy to understand why, in some ways, Ray has fulfilled his childhood dream of becoming an astronaut.

"To me, it's a vicarious thrill — the closest thing to actually being in the rocket," Ray said of his rocket photographs. "Most of all, my photos are very unique and unusual. Even people who've never had an interest in rocketry are curious about them."