Sport Rocketry

al for: • Having a sport rocketry static display within the museum on Friday, De- cember 2, the same day as the much anticipated evening Gala dinner. • Placing an event poster at the entrance to the museum detailing our Saturday evening launch schedule. • Including our night launch in the Cosmosphere website's Apollo 17 50th "First and Last Steps" schedule of events. Dave is no stranger to organizing events like these. In 2008, while living in New Mexico, he finally completed a 15 year project building a 1:100 Scale working rep- lica of the Saturn V launch pad, complete with a motorized crane, elevator, white room swing arms, and Saturn V service swing arms. e launch pad is mounted to a base containing a flame trench with mounting for four plugged E9 motors to simulate pre-lioff ignition of the five mighty Saturn F-1 engines. With the com- pletion of the launch pad, why not organize Apollo 40th Anniversary Commemoration events and put-on launch reenactments? Dave pitched his idea to fellow Fellowship of Las Cruces Area Enthusiasts (FLARE) members. His proposal was wholeheart- edly approved, and so the adventure began. Dave led the FLARE effort in organizing the Apollo 40th Anniversary Commemo- rations, starting with Apollo 8 (25 attend- ees) in December 2008 and ending with Apollo 17 in November 2012 (650+ middle school student attendees). Beginning with the Apollo 9 40th Anniversary Commem- oration in March 2009, thanks to FLARE member Gloria Kindig's (middle school science teacher) suggestion, the events evolved into a STEM related activity for Southern New Mexico middle school stu- dents with an impressive community-wide involvement from nearly a dozen different science-oriented organizations located in southern New Mexico. Guests of honor in- cluded Space Shuttle Astronaut Mike Mul- lane (Apollo 12), Milton Windler (Apollo 13 and 14), Gene Kranz and Charlie Duke (Apollo 16), and Harrison Schmitt and Jan Evans (Apollo 17). Impressive! e first collaborative effort between Dave and KOSMO took place during the Cosmosphere's Apollo 13 40th Anniversary Gala event in April 2011. Upon finding out about this event, Dave contacted the Cos- mosphere and pitched a proposal of put- ting-on an Apollo 13 launch reenactment at the stadium adjacent to the museum. e proposal was approved and thus the re- lationship between Dave and the members of KOSMO was initiated. KOSMO member John Palmer (Mr. Scale) did the bulk of the work collaborating with the Cosmosphere. Dave just had to show-up with his launch pad and Saturn V. On launch day, nearly 60 people attended this event. e most note- worthy of the attendees were Apollo Ma- roon Team Flight Director Milton Windler and his grandson Nathan Fike. Mr. Windler was the Lead Flight Director for Apollo 13 and was in Mission Control on the day of the launch. On this day, his grandson Na- than was given the honor of being the Lead Flight Director the event. He sent the scale Apollo 13 alo into the clear-blue Kansas sky. What an amazing day it was. Fast for- ward eleven years and the partnership is SPORT ROCKETRY 7 Apollo 17 50th KOSMO/SLRA static display. Photo by Duane Lanterman. March 2009: First FLARE STEM event at New Mexico State University (NMSU) commemorating the Apollo 9 40th Anniversary. Photo Courtesy of Los Cruces Sun News. Apollo 17 50th Anniversary Commemoration Poster.

• Cover