Except for the curving smoke charge trail, the entire cloud consists of the cremated ashes of Don Mulhalland.
Don was an avid rocketeer and spent many memorable weekends in the desert with his son. One comrade reminisced “Don was a long-time Aeropac flyer and turned up regularly at our launches with lots of home-made cardboard rockets. He crashed almost half the rockets he built, but had a great time doing it.”
His son delivered the eulogy before the count down.
Richard Hagen’s ARLISS airframe performed like a champ, and the techniques of high altitude cloud-making had been practiced before with water. The ash cloud remained remarkably cohesive as it drifted over the playa.
My son asked me if I would want to go this way, and I said that we should try another V-2 to be assured of ending up at least six feet under ground from the likely lawn dart. =)
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