The Huntsville Area Rocketry Association invites the public to our Inaugural Open House on Thursday, March 6th from 7:00-8:30pm at NASA’s Educators Resource Center in front of the US Space & Rocket Center.
HARA promotes science & engineering knowledge through hands-on experience, and promotes amateur rocketry to all ages. Our Open House will feature interactive exhibits and displays, and club members will share stories of their amateur rocketry experience.
Refreshments will be provided.
Last year was one of the biggest in HARA’s recent history. As HARA President, I wanted to grow the club’s membership, improve attendance at regular club meetings, & promote HARA to the public. Club meeting attendance has been very high with a lot of new faces. Read more
We are excited to be kicking off 2014 with a brand new website. If you’ve used our site in the past, you should still find all the information you are expecting. However, we have made some big changes. You will find an updated layout with intuitive navigation categories. We are also adding substantial information and resources to the site to better serve our current members, attract prospective members, and provide general information for anyone interested. Expect the site to continue to evolve as we receive feedback on our changes and the 2014 launch season begins. If you have any comments on the new site, we’re happy to receive them. You can submit a comment to this post or email the webteam.
Thanks,
HARA Webteam
“And from the crew of Apollo 8, we close with good night, good luck, a Merry Christmas – and God bless all of you, all of you on the good Earth.”
– Col. Frank Borman, December 24, 1968
December 5th marked the last club meeting of the year. The meeting opened with a short Tech Talk. Duane Mayer gave a detailed step-by-step on how to build homemade rocket motor igniters. Read more
HARA’s TRA Prefect Fred Kepner delivered a great tech talk on parachutes at the September 5th meeting. Read more
“New and advanced aerospace technologies must be taken to flight early to “separate the real from the imagined, and to make known the overlooked and the unexpected problems”
– Hugh Dryden
On July 11th, HARA hosted Jim Jenkins, retired Boeing ground test systems engineers whose long and distinguished career has included testing the Apollo Saturn V stages at MSFC and Stennis Space Center. Mr. Jenkins shared with us a photographic history of rockets, launch vehicles, and test ranges offering a very interesting and exclusive perspective on project Apollo. Read more
“Launching is optional… recovery is mandatory.”
On May 2nd, HARA hosted Michael Wright, NASA Marshall Space Flight Center’s chief historian for a guest speaker session. Mr. Wright shared with us the history of rocketry from Greek and Roman mythology, to their ancient Chinese use in warfare, through the age of enlightenment when rockets transitioned into tools of science, and up to the 1960’s when rockets allowed mankind to make giant leaps for all mankind. Read more
Houston, We have a Problem” ~ Apollo 13 – April 13, 1971
At the last HARA meeting, Walt Stafford, our resident expert composites and XP motor maker brought in some samples of his fiberglass airframes and nosecones as a primmer for the composites workshop we had of April 6th. Read more
Test what you fly, and fly what you test”
Thursday night’s meeting was another success. Attendance has been up 3 fold and the new focus of the meetings on helping people grow in hobby rocketry and show off their projects seems to be resonating rather well. I gave a 45 minute presentation on dual deployment recovery systems in our first in a series of Tech Talks that cover lots rocket building techniques. Read more
