And...we're back.

I'm back to Blogger!

Didn't want to shell out the $$ to renew the website, and I wasn't able to dedicate as much time as I had wanted to do a great job. Hopefully a slower pace will help. My re-rebirth of this blog will be used to continue my learning and investigation into everything involved with high power rocketry. This includes electronics, support equipment, construction methods, testing, etc.

My first concentration is to build or buy the right tools to do the job correctly and easily. Designing rockets is fun, getting fins on straight and at the right angle is hard. The old adage - "You need the right tools for the right job" is extremely true. I need to build an accurate, adjustable fin attachment jig to help me easily and quickly attach fins to rockets. Once I have the right tool for the job, I can start testing other construction methods and techniques.

I'd like to build:

Fin Alignment Jig

Flexible Launch platform

Electronic (wired) Launch controller

Basic radio communications receiver

Basic radio communications transmitter

Basic radio communications antenna

Electronic Altimeter

Wireless flight control transmitter

Wireless flight control receiver

Flight camera

aaaaannnnd I'm getting carried away. You get the idea. :)

Web hosting

I usually don't do this. Well, actually I never have. I just signed up for some web hosting and I'm extremely happy with it, so I wanted to share it with the whole world. And I'm in their affiliate program, which gives me credit for referrals.

So if you are looking for a website, look here first. Host Monster has a TON of great features. I was looking for web hosting with cPanel 11, and stubmled on Host Monster. Here is a list of what I got for $5:

300 GIG (yes 300) of storage
3000 GIG (yes 3000) transfer per month
Unlimited: Domain hosting, email accounts, subdomains, ftp accounts (and more)
cPanel 11 (auto installs, wordpress, image galleries, wiki's, polls, etc.)
100 databases (not tables, databases)
PHP/Perl/Ruby/Javascript/Flash (and more)

My last web host gave me 1 Gig storage and 40 gig transfer for $10 a month. Needless to say this is a great deal. Anyway, if you need a website, help me out and click on this image below, or the Host Monster link and sign up. Thanks!



[CLICK HERE TO SIGNUP FOR HostMonster.COM]

Noteworthy Spacenews

We aren't the only one's who have sent satellites to the moon, Russia and others have been there with various satellites. Japan's Kaguya lunar probe, launched Sept. 14 is the newest resident. Right now it's deploying these baby satellites to get a gravity map of the moon. I don't know about you, but I just think it's awesome to see pictures with the moon so close. I imagine myself riding in that spacecraft, the moon filling up my view. /daydream....

AHEM...(sorry)

In other rather interesting news, NASA awarded a contract (3.1 million dollars) to Denco, Inc for the construction of the Launch site facilities for the Orion Launch abort system. Am I the only one who has (up until now, I guess...) thought "I'll believe it when I see it" about the Orion spacecraft and the mission to the moon? Well, here is some real, concrete evidence of the project and planning. I know it's quite a ways off, and it could still be cancelled but how freaking cool is that?

I is broken.

I broke a finger, which has significantly halted MRM operations. I am not dead, although let me just warn you: If you are looking for stock photography (for this blog post) on Google images, DO NOT type in:

Broken bone

I almost puked all over the MRM keyboard. You have been warned. I'll be back soon.

The flood is scary.

A few days ago, I entered Halo 3 hibernation. This is a state where I took off work to play the Xbox 360 video game, Halo 3. 3 years in the making, and it was worth the wait. I've probably not even scratched the surface of what you can do in the game. The campaign mode is extremely interesting so far, with epic backgrounds and massive battles. The multi-player game is fun as always, I haven't even experienced the forge yet, and barely have done anything with saved films/screenshots. For those non-halo fans out there, I apologize. Your regular fix of rockets is back. :)

OGame.org - space strategy game

A friend has gotten me onto this web based strategy game called OGame. It's a "strategic space simulation game with thousands of players across the world competing with each other simultaneously." So you can create an account, name your planet and start building your galactic empire. SOLD.

My planet is a cold planet, rarely reaching the positive side of celcius degrees. Natually it is named Hoth. My planet is located in the first galaxy, 13th system. My nefarious rebels and I will dominate all who live in the 13th system. Join up!Once your planet is established you need to build things in order to grow your empire. It's a very simple, yet fun game. It receives the full MRM stamp of approval.

Link jettison

Here is a release of some important ModelRocketMission links.
What is this blog???
The GOAL
Mercury-Quark project
Rocket construction


http://del.icio.us/modelrocketmission - My collection of rocketry links (If you have any links feel free to send them to modelrocketmission@gmail.com)

Do you ah....Halo? Be ready to finish the fight next monday night. Halo 3 will finally be here. :)