Today, Saturday, the SystemsGo team had seven schools and twenty rockets to launch on this, their normal full day of launching at the Houston location. It was a productive day, albeit a long and tiring day for the team at the range. The action finally ended and the Livestream shut down about 9:15 this evening.
Weather at the site was sunny with only slight clouds and some wind. Reports from recovery members say it was a beautiful day for launching rockets.
Phil and Rebekah had a very special guest at Mission Control today. Norman Chaffee, retired Deputy Director of NASA Johnson Space Center, was there.
He consults with some of the schools in the area on their rockets and STEM programs. In the interview today, he remembered coming to Fredericksburg in the early days of these launches to consult with Brett Williams, program founder, on safety and logistics. It was a genuinely interesting interview as he recounted all his work history through the years with the space program, all the way to where he is now retired and helping young high school students learn.
Later in the day, Phil took time to talk to Christy Bible Glass about her history and how she came to work for SystemsGo. Unfortunately I didn’t get to hear much of hers because my system crashed on my phone and computer about that time, which is why the quality of her picture is so bad, and she appears to have a monocle over one of her glasses. 
Sorry about that Christy, maybe you can say you were practicing for the upcoming Pirates movie. “Arrgh!”
What I was able to hear and see was a really nice and interesting interview.
In spite of issues on my part, the team still had a great day on the range. Here are a few of the better screen grabs I managed to get today.
The rest of today’s screen shots will be posted on Facebook at the following address for public sharing:
https://www.facebook.com/ginger.burow/media_set?set=a.1471968966157563&type=3
The link below is screen shots from yesterday’s action at the range. Chelsea Burow, pad operator, may add more to either of these albums later. I know she took some really nice pictures from the pad.
Apparently students, teachers, parents and other humans were not the only spectators watching the rockets. This fellow was sent in by recovery team member, Steve Burrow.
The current launch schedule for Sunday is shown below and may also be downloaded from SystemsGo website at the following address: http://www.systemsgo.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/Flight-Schedule-Rockets-2017-Houston-4-4-17-.2.pdf
| Sunday, May 22, 2016 | ||
| School Name |
# 1st Level Tsiolkovsky |
# 2nd Level Oberth |
| Booker T. Washington HS Dr. Nghia Le |
1 | 1 |
| Northstar High School Alan Stone |
2 | 1 |
| Schools Launching 2 | ||
| Totals | 3 | 2 |
| May 22nd Total Rockets | 5 | |
Public access is available at this new site this year. A map to the location as well as directions are available at the SystemsGo Events page found here:
http://www.systemsgo.org/events/
There will also be Livestream from there again this year so friends and family can watch the action online, provided by Phil Houseal and Zach Pooser .
http://livestream.com/systemsgo
Zach and Phil provide a great experience for both viewers at home and the students and team on site while helping to bolster the STEM program. Allowing the public to share in the actions and see what these students are accomplishing as they apply all they have learned and continue to learn from their launch results helps SystemsGo to grow interest in the future of the STEM program and the hands on approach to learning.
Please remember that since there is pubic access to this event this year, there are tickets for order and those may be found on the SystemsGo website as well at this link: https://www.greateventseats.com/events.php?lID=92
Event details will be available here each day of the event. Daily reports featuring schedules, school names, results, pictures if available, and some editorial content will also be posted.
www.systemsgo.org as always is the place for more information on this program. You may also email them at info@systemsgo.org .Take the time to get your school involved, the future of your students will be greatly benefited.
On the Wings of Angels 