Amateur rocketry

Amateur rocketry was an especially popular hobby in the late 1950s and early 1960s following the launch of Sputnik, as described in Homer Hickam's 1998 memoir Rocket Boys.

Blackmon's rocket was examined at Redstone Arsenal and eventually grounded on the basis that some of the material he had used was too weak to control the flow and mixing of the fuel.

The subsequent publication, in 1960, of a book entitled Rocket Manual for Amateurs by Bertrand R. Brinley provided even more detailed information regarding the hobby, and further contributed to its burgeoning popularity.

[5] The Reaction Research Society conducts complex amateur rocket projects, utilizing solid, liquid, and hybrid propellant technologies.

[6] An amateur spaceshot refers to a rocket launch by non-commercial entities that successfully reached or exceeded the Kármán line, the internationally recognized boundary of space.

[9] Prior to that, the Reaction Research Society on November 23, 1996, launched a solid-fuel rocket, designed by longtime member George Garboden, to an altitude of 80 km (50 mi) from the Black Rock Desert in Nevada.

[10] For Series 9, Episode 4 of the BBC's Top Gear, a group of amateur rocketeers were given four and a half months to convert a Reliant Robin into a space shuttle with the assistance of an engineering firm.

[citation needed] On 22 March 2007, Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, Daytona Beach launched the two-staged Icarus rocket from NASA Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia.

This vehicle set the world record for highest altitude launch by a student team with an apogee of 37.8 miles (200,000 feet), with a maximum velocity of Mach 4.04.

On April 21, 2019, the USC Rocket Propulsion Laboratory (USCRPL) launched Traveler IV,[8] an eight-inch diameter vehicle from Spaceport America.