TALES FROM MY SCREWBALL NOTEBOOK: Project Firebird

 

When the summer of 1972 began, my best friend in the world, Jimmy, went on a trip to Florida with his folks. While there they stopped at the Kennedy Space Center. Knowing full well that I was an insane space and rocket nerd, he brought me back a KSC loose leaf note book which had a photo of the Apollo 4 Saturn V on the jacket. That notebook became my prized possession and inside it I recorded all of my screwball rocket projects. After more than half a century it still survives and even became the inspiration for my cartoon series "The Program." Now I'll share some of the craziness.

This volume is FIREBIRD DAY

On July 4th, 1972, our neighborhood of Sheridan Park, in Saginaw, Michigan had a simple holiday. My family celebrated by swimming in our above-ground pool while dad BBQ'd chicken. As darkness set in we kids set off sparklers lit by one of dad's railroad flairs. Privately owned aerial fireworks were unlawful in Michigan as were fire crackers and M-80s. Yet some folks smuggled them in from southern states. Bottle rockets were allowed as long as they didn't explode in the air, (yeah... just try and fine some of those.)

However, Tom Moore, the crazy guy who lived next door to me had a smuggled supply of all sorts of fire works and thrilled all of us kids by lighting them off. Among his dazzling little pyro techniques was a string of fire crackers that were a total failure. When he lit them, most simply did not explode. Instead they sat on the driveway and just spun around and spit a little fire. He quickly decided to get rid of them. That was where his rocket-crazy kid next door asked if he could have one?

"The f&%kin' things don't work," he grumbled to me, "just take 'em all."

And so I did.

Where he saw sparks, smoke and failure, I saw thrust. Retiring early to my room, I constructed a makeshift, balsa wood coated with glue, nozzle for the former firecracker. Removing the fuse, I carefully glued the nozzle in place and added a stick for stability. I now had a basic bottle rocket. Next I molded a Project Mercury style tiny capsule with enough room for one of the ants from of patio to fit into. After all, you gotta have a passenger, or it doesn't count... right? Next I used some balsa scraps to fashion an elevated launch pad with 3 hold down arms to steady the booster. I wrote "F B ONE" down the rocket's body in red pen. My work took me late into the night, but my parents were used to me sitting up late working on some crazy flying things. Of course by sometime after midnight I decided to let the glue dry.

The following morning I was up early and using great care I reinstalled the fuse, caught the hapless ant-stronaut and soon Firebird One was poised on the launch pad.

Once the fuse was lit it took about 5 seconds to burn. With a small "pop" the rocket departed the pad much faster than a normal bottle rocket and zoomed far higher as well. I actually lost sight of it, but was hugely surprised that the dang thing actually flew like a rocket!

There was no wind that morning and I figured it had to come down somewhere close to my back yard. Now the recovery phase began. In our neighborhood, all of the kids knew that when they heard a rocket going off, it almost always came from my house. Shortly after the launch several kids arrived and I told them I was searching for the rocket. That effort went on for the better part of two hours as my crowd of volunteer searchers gave up and dwindled. Then one sharp-eyed kid shouted that he had found the rocket! As a reward I told him that tomorrow's launch was at 11:00, and he was invited. Gleefully he got on his bike and road off.

Apparently that long time sealed in the bee's wax capsule caused the ant to to die- but hey... the faulty firecracker became a rocket. Re-using what parts I could, I started work on the next rocket for tomorrow. Indeed the little kid who had found Firebird One was there at 11:00 on the dot to witness the launch. It was different than what we both expected.

This time the Firebird Two rocket exploded like the firecracker that it was, with a bit of extra power. The launch pad was destroyed and bits and pieces went everywhere. The little kid thought it was beyond cool and road off on his bike telling everyone that this one blew up.

I went back into my room, put on my Apollo 16 tape and wrote the Firebird Two details into my KSC notebook- it was the very first entry. More of that class of rockets blew up than flew up as the summer of 72 went by. I even created an Explosion Prevention System (EPS) which amazingly worked. But the shock killed the payload.

Thereafter I always consider July 5th to be "Firebird Day" when I remember my crazy rockets. Plus, ants always seem to avoid me on July 5th... can't figure out why.