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LAUNCH Parties

Vern and Gleda

Estes Industries founders Vern and Gleda Estes sporting LAUNCH Magazine hats at NARAM-48 in Phoenix.

Dars Gang

Apollo 8's Bill Anders and Dot Cunningham, wife of Apollo 7's Walt Cunningham, surrounded by rocketeers at the 40th anniversary celebration of Apollo 7's flight. They include Bruce McLawhorn, Stuart Powley, Bill Gee, John Dyer, James Gartrell and Mark Mayfield.

Mark & Deb

LAUNCH's Deb Martin and Mark Mayfield at LDRS-26 in Nevada.

Steve and Walt - NARAM 50

Rocketeer Steve Kristal goes over the details of his Apollo pad test model to Apollo 8's Walt Cunningham at NARAM-50.

Steve and Emma

Steve Kristal and daughter Emma at NARAM-50.

Mark and Deb

Deb Martin and Mark Mayfield of LAUNCH Magazine looking in four different directions at LDRS 26 at Jean Dry Lake bed in Nevada.

Mark and Lee

Mark Mayfield with Centuri Engineering founder Lee Piester, who is signing the Little Joe II model featured on the cover of LAUNCH's first issue in 2006.

Dot and Walt

Dot and Walt Cunningham with some of the 30-plus Semroc Saturn 1B models built for Apollo 7's 40th anniversary luncheon in Dallas.

Deb at NARAM-48

LAUNCH's Deb Martin at the NARAM-48 awards banquet in 2006.

Carl and Buzz

Semroc's Carl McLawhorn, at right, shows Apollo 11 astronaut Buzz Aldrin a story in LAUNCH at the Team America Rocketry Challenge (TARC) in Virginia. In the middle is Stephanie Mayfield, daughter of LAUNCH co-founder Mark Mayfield.

Betty, Vern, Gleda and Mark

Betty Piester, Vern and Gleda Estes and Mark Mayfield at NARAM-48.

Rocketplane

Mark Mayfield, Deb Martin and Rocketplane's George French III at the X PRIZE Cup exhibition in Alamogordo, N.M.

Dot and Walt

Walt and Dot Cunningham greet a young rocketeer at the LAUNCH Magazine table at NARAM-50.

Mark and Walt

Mark Mayfield and Walt Cunningham share a laugh at NARAM-50.

Estes Scout Anniversary

Red River Rocketry's John Dyer along with LAUNCH's Deb Martin and Mark Mayfield at the 50th anniversary commemorative Estes Scout launch at NARAM-50.

Carl and Saturn 1Bs

Semroc's Carl McLawhorn with some of the 30-plus Saturn 1B models built for Apollo 7's 40th anniversary luncheon. The Apollo 7 command module is behind him.

Buzz with Rocketeers

Rocketeers Stuart Powley, Bill Gee, John Dyer and Bruce McLawhorn with Buzz Aldrin at the 40th anniversary luncheon for Apollo 7 in Dallas.

Deb, Walt, Dot and Mark

Deb Martin and Mark Mayfield with Walt and Dot Cunningham at the Rocketeer's Reunion at NARAM-50.

Redstone Preparation

LAUNCH's Mario Perdue prepping his upscale Mercury Redstone at NARAM-49 while Aerotech's Gary Rosenfield makes a phone call.

Mario and Redstone

Mario Perdue with his xx-scale Mercury Redstone at NARAM-49.

Vince and Mark

NASA's Vince Huegele and LAUNCH Magazine's Mark Mayfield with their scale models at NARAM-50.

Matt Steele

ATK's Matt Steele visits the LAUNCH offices in Manhattan.

Neil and Mark

Neil Armstrong and Mark Mayfield at the 40th anniversary luncheon for Apollo 7 in Dallas.

Charlie and Mark

With Apollo 16's Charle Duke at the opening of the Davidson Center for Space Exploration in Huntsville, Alabama.

Scott and Mark

Mercury astronaut Scott Carpenter and LAUNCH's Mark Mayfield at Carpenter's outside home in Vail, Colorado.

Walt, John and Bob

Apollo 7 astronaut Walt Cunningham with rocketeers John Dyer and Bob Sanford.

Neil and Alan

Astronauts Neil Armstrong and Alan Bean (back to camera) at the 40th anniversary luncheon for Apollo 7 in Dallas.

Cover Shot

The original cover shot for LAUNCH's first issue, taken inside the Empire State Building in New York.

LAUNCH Hat

The iconic LAUNCH Magazine hat.

Frontpage Slideshow | Copyright © 2006-2011 JoomlaWorks Ltd.

My latest project

I've recently received some email asking what I've been doing while LAUNCH has been on hiatus. The answer is that I've been very busy building rockets and writing about them. The down time at the magazine has given me some extra time to build and photograph the new models that I'm building for my rocketry book. Some of you are

probably asking, "What rocketry book?" so I'll tell you a little bit about it.


After I had written a few build articles for LAUNCH Mark Mayfield, Deb and I talked about the possibility of doing a build book that was a compilation of the articles from the magazine. Our thinking was that the articles in the book wouldn't need to be edited for size as much as the magazine articles are so some of the more detailed builds could have additional information in them. Also, some of the building techniques that I use could be explained in greater detail in a book. After a bit of time there were also some builds that I wanted to do that really didn't tie in well with the magazine so those were put on my book build list.

So, what is going in the book? First of all some of the more involved builds from the magazine will get moved to the book - especially the onse that have had follow-on work done to them. These include the 1:12 scale Mercury-Redstone which was given a new paint job as Gus Grissom's Liberty Bell and now has a new home at the Grissom Museum at Spring Mill State Park in Mitchell, Indiana. Also, the Saturn builds and Launch Utility Tower will get revisited. This time around I'll be building both Saturns to 1:70 scale and will also add in the Mercury-Redstone, Mercury-Atlas and Gemini-Titan at the same scale. The Semroc Saturn 1B build will also have some additional build information for making more accurate. The book will also contain some straight clones as well as some up-scales of classic kits. Oh, and some gliders and at least one simple three-fins-and-a-nose-cone rocket.

In the techniques section I'll cover many of the things I do when building my models. Everything from making transitions and nose cones, casting resin parts, assembly, and painting. I hoping the book will have something for everyone in from beginner to advanced model rocketeers with a little thrown in for beginning HPR too.  Publication date is not set and the content is still somewhat flexible so feel free to comment on what you'd like to see here.

Mario

Books


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