Extreme Hobbies: From Supersonic Rockets to Ballistic Pumpkins

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KEYWORDS

• science
• space
• rocketry

Three...two...one...
A concentrated roar tears open the desert silence as Kevin Lane's V2 replica rocket comes to life. Eight pounds of igniting ammonium perchlorate rake the dry lakebed with flames, propelling the 8-ft. rocket skyward almost faster than the eye can track.

Lane's clean-shaven head swivels back and his long, squared-off beard juts forward as he watches his rocket's smoke trail rise like a chalkmark being scratched onto a slate of blue yonder. As the rocket's roar recedes, Neil Young's voice, briefly obscured, can be heard wailing from the speakers of a nearby pickup truck. Just beyond the roped-off launch area that serves as center stage at ROC-Stock, one of amateur rocketry's premier events, vans and RVs are bunched in a tight crescent. Around 800 weekend rocket scientists and their fans have shown up for this three-day gathering in the Southern California desert. Kids race by, small rockets clutched in their hands, as dust devils skid across the lakebed. And at dozens of campsites, brightly painted projectiles lean against trucks and tents like tribal totems.

After a few seconds of expectant squinting, the corners of Lane's mouth begin to droop into a worried frown. Having reached apogee, the nose cone should have popped off the rocket's booster, deploying a parachute to float the whole device gently back to the desert. But the sky is pure blue; there's no sign of the chute or the rocket on which Lane has spent more than $2000 and a year of labor.

"If it comes down ballistic, it's a shovel recovery," he says, straining his gaze skyward.

• For background information on how punkin chunkins work, click here.