Clare Bell's Blog: The Scratching Log - Goodreads - Posts Tagged "rockets"

I saw the movie "October Sky" last night, with my husband Chuck Piper. This film is based on Homer Hickham's book, Rocket Boys. It has a special resonance for both of us because Chuck is also an amateur rocket builder. He also won a science fair, met Werner Von Braun, and has worked for many years as a rocket propellant engineer. One of his designs for the European Space Agency Beagle 2 Mars mission (a cable-cutting cartridge) is now on Mars. He and his friends began the Smoke Creek and Black Rock Desert rocket launching events that now attract thousands He also built a three-stage 30 foot rocket that flew to 120,000 feet (the edge of space) in the 1970's, which other amateur rocket builders only achieved recently.
Chuck is known as a "Rocket God" in the amateur high-power rocket community. Smoke Creek, Nevada, where the launches began, is called "The Promised Land" by rocketeers, and the remnants from those launches are honored as "Rocket Fossils".

Chuck deserves far more recognition than he has received. If I write his biography, it could be a film.
/CB