Canon EOS 5D Mark II
ƒ/7.1
100 mm
1/3,200
500

55 lbs. Two flight computers. RF tracking beacon. Nomex honeycomb wings. Packed with the equivalent propellant of 4,000 Estes A engines.

The last time I flew this configuration, WIRED described it as “a black rocket 7 1/2 feet long that looks like a scaled-down cross between a ’60s-vintage X-15 rocket plane and a surface-to-air missile.”

I had five cameras running, with one strapped on the side of the rocket itself (it barely survived).
Here is the compilation video (or HD version).

21 responses to “My Sweet Sledgehammer – Ground Camera Images”

  1. jurvetson Avatar
    jurvetson

    climbing…
    IMG_0765

    bathing us with a deep subwoofer roar
    IMG_0767

    Reply
  2. jurvetson Avatar
    jurvetson

    And a series of frame grabs from the video, these from Pad Cam One:
    Screen Shot 2012-02-08 at 10.15.20 PM

    Screen Shot 2012-02-08 at 10.15.50 PM

    Screen Shot 2012-02-08 at 10.16.19 PM

    Rock! (no humans near this camera =)

    This was lucky flight #7 for this airframe, with no damage along the way.
    Here are photos of the prior flights.

    Reply
  3. rwoodworkr Avatar
    rwoodworkr

    Congrats. Excellent launch and video. Love that burn time.

    Reply
  4. Project EMP Matt Avatar
    Project EMP Matt

    Great shots! cool, cool, cool! I get excited when I launch a cheap walmart rocket, I could not imagine the thrill of seeing something of this magnitude go off.

    Reply
  5. Pieces of Eye Avatar
    Pieces of Eye

    Awesome!

    Reply
  6. : Nils Avatar
    : Nils

    Did somebody already say "Awesome"? Oh well. Awesome 🙂

    Reply
  7. vennettaj Avatar
    vennettaj

    fire ..

    Reply
  8. jurvetson Avatar
    jurvetson

    Fire is cool!

    Boom!

    Reply
  9. seatonsnet Avatar
    seatonsnet

    This seems an excellent, if original, tool for father and son bonding… How did you settle on such a whoooooooooooooooooosh-BANG hobby?

    Reply
  10. jurvetson Avatar
    jurvetson

    It started with a visit to the hobby shop when my son was three, and we saw the nearly ready to fly Estes kits on the wall… and then, well, here’s a 3 minute talk I gave at TED on the early days…

    Reply
  11. rjp1965 Avatar
    rjp1965

    That thing looks menacing. In a good way of course.

    Reply
  12. seatonsnet Avatar
    seatonsnet

    [http://www.flickr.com/photos/jurvetson] Looks interesting and educational too, but it also looks like people could get killed doing this. I remember a kid in my school, blew his hand off with one the early pencil rockets. The picture of the rocket in somebody’s windshield got me thinking on these lines. What struck me most, living in Europe, was the US government allowing private citizens to launch rockets 100s of thousands of feet into the sky. Wouldn’t it be possible to knock down a plane like that?

    Reply
  13. jurvetson Avatar
    jurvetson

    For launches that could go high enough, the FAA’s permission is needed in advance to clear the airspace. As was done for this launch event. In Nevada, they routinely get permission to launch to 100K ft.

    There have been over 500 million rocket launches in the U.S. so far. Nobody has died. You can’t say that about about many perceived-to-be-safe activities, like golf, where people die golfing every year in Florida alone.

    Perhaps it is because of an appreciation for danger that people are more careful than they otherwise would be.

    Reply
  14. seatonsnet Avatar
    seatonsnet

    [http://www.flickr.com/photos/jurvetson] That was Buck Fuller’s take on safety, he said if measured in miles traveled by accidents, the safest way to travel was with NASA to the moon. My grandfather was run over and killed by a drunken teenager, while crossing the street, which Bucky said is the most dangerous way to travel.

    Reply
  15. jurvetson Avatar
    jurvetson

    Superfreakonomics makes some similar points – that drunk walking is more lethal than drunk driving and that swimming pools are more lethal than handguns at home.

    Reply
  16. Alan Jordan Avatar
    Alan Jordan

    Gearing up for the first hamster in space?

    Reply
  17. chris_starscream Avatar
    chris_starscream

    Well Hamster’s have to get into space sooner or later. Nice shot dude.

    Reply
  18. jurvetson Avatar
    jurvetson

    heh, my rocket buddy Erik’s daughters have hamsters… and well, this reminds me of the fate of the girl’s precious Hoppy, turned cosmonaut…

    Reply
  19. solerena Avatar
    solerena

    ouch, i have just went through this exercise last year, if they have a male and female – babies can come every month, 11 at a time and mom can eat half if not stopped on time… did not know any of this… so the best way to keep hamsters is to keep one hamster in a cage separately from others, so they do not eat each other!

    Reply
  20. jurvetson Avatar
    jurvetson

    It wasn’t my payload, and the conversation was not intended to alarm. That’s why the misinterpretation cracked us up.

    In any case, the national association of rocketry has a rule on what you can fly, and it specifically prohibits vertebrates. I think that might have been a clever way to cover most cases of what might otherwise have been worded "don’t fly your sister’s pet".

    Reply
  21. TomiTapio Avatar
    TomiTapio

    Looking good!

    Reply

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