Oct. 4, 1957: Soviets Put Man-Made Moon in Orbit!

I was 13-14 at that time.

My rocket was an aluminum pipe and the "space" module was a aluminium can of a fluorescent lamp starter with a cone turned from wood.

The first attempt blew up. then finally after controlling the gunpowder blast with some sand a few were launched - (a wee bit short of reaching the planned orbit).

Who else was in the "space race" ?

When I was a kid, I did the ESTES model rocket thing. Enjoyed it quite a bit.

I once took a number of the biggest rocket motors and taped them to a lawn dart. This image is not the correct type, but they were along this line:

I fired 'er off, and promptly lost sight of it. Now considering the 'Where do you suppose it will land' part of a rocket launch, I ducked into the garage.

The nauseating thump that eventually came had a metallic note to it. I guess that is to be expected if it sticks in (goes through, actually) the hood of the neighbors car, which it did.

No wonder psychotherapy thrives in America. My dad needed several sessions.

And here I thought that lawn darts couldn't be made more dangerous, I never even considered taping rockets to them.

Jarckets or rockerts? (The brand we had here in the states was Jarts) Hmmm...

I was nine to the day. I remember how this event spawned some revamping of our education system regarding math and sciences.

Tornado, please accept my belated birthday wish for an enjoyable day.