Saturday was another great day of launches. Let’s see who is paying attention, we had 21 rockets on the schedule and we launched 23. The answer is later in the story. After storms came through the area over night and early this morning, causing a two-hour rain delay, rockets finally started flying around lunch time. The sky finally opened a window of opportunity.
Even though launches started late, Stages 1 and 2 continued on schedule. This meant that when weather finally permitted launching, the spectator tent where rockets wait to go down to Stage 3, was full with more waiting than I have ever seen there.
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This evening after launches were completed for the schools, two more rockets were sent up as a tribute to retired FHS STEM teacher and SystemsGo founder Brett Williams. They were both recovered in short order and taken to the Willow City Fire House where a dinner was hosted in his honor. He developed the program that all these schools use to teach the STEM curriculum across Texas and now New Mexico as well.
Several people gave a tribute address honoring and telling stories about Mr. Williams, including Scott Netherland, Andrew Matthes, Rebekah Hyatt, Dave Cambell, and Tom Moser.
Tom is a retired NASA rocket program member who became involved with the program. He served NASA as Deputy Associate Administrator for space station and space flight. These were just one of his many duties at NASA. Tom is one on a list of many influential people who Brett recruited to support the program over the years. After his address, he presented Brett with a NASA Citation for his work and contribution to the STEM program and student education.
Below is the launch schedule for today, Sunday. There are 5 schools launching a total of 16 rockets.
| Sunday, May 21, 2017 | ||
| School Name |
# 1st Level Tsiolkovsky |
# 2nd Level Oberth |
| Alamo Heights High School Colin Lang |
3 | |
| Hardin-Jefferson High School Mike Fogo |
3 | 1 |
| Manor High School Will Davis |
3 | |
| New Tech Odessa Richard Linder | 1 | 1 |
| Roosevelt High School Jared Warsing | 3 | 1 |
| 5 | ||
| Schools Launching | ||
| Totals | 11 | 7 |
| May 15th Total Rockets | 18 | |
The following is a link to the album of pictures from today’s launch. Have a look, you and your school rocket just might be in there.
Here is the second album link to the pictures from Brett William’s party.
Good luck to all the schools launching on Sunday. I will update the blog after we complete our day again tomorrow. Here is the link to the live stream again.
http://livestream.com/systemsgo
Please remember that although there is no charge for the event, and these launches are open to public viewing, parking and seating is limited due to safety requirements. For this reason, SystemsGo has a provided a link for you to pre-order tickets for those in your party. That link can be found at SystemsGo Events page. This also provides SystemsGo with a way to monitor the number of people in attendance each year. This is in no way meant to discourage your attendance, but is instead to help them provide a great experience for students and spectators, while doing all possible to monitor safety issues and attendance numbers at any one time during the launches.
Event details will be available here each day of the event. Daily reports featuring schedules, school names, results, pictures 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.
#SystemsGo #Rockets2017 #FredericksburgSTEMAcademy #Launcher01 #SystemsGoNewMexico
You just never know who you will find in this rocket science business. Thank you for the musical treat Ian.
Here is Ian’s team cheering their launch.
These were provided by pad team member, Chelsea Burow. Seen here with the Sunday Pad Team.
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.
Sorry about that Christy, maybe you can say you were practicing for the upcoming Pirates movie. “Arrgh!”
fellowship, fun, parades, football, hunting, church, prayer and thanks. We share sheer joy at just being together. Our gifts for this particular holiday are our food, our joy, our love, and our companionship. We wrap them in smiles, hugs, tears and laughter.
I know that is what I am going to do. Actually most of them are coming to my house. I wish every last one of them was, but unfortunately some due to circumstances just cannot. I pray that where ever they are, they are safe and have a wonderful day anyway.
On the Wings of Angels 