TRG Recent Activities
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The six books donated are: 

The Mystery of Mars by Sally Ride
Looking for Life in the Universe by Ellen Jackson
The Third Planet by Sally Ride & Tom O'Shaughnessy
To Space & Back by Sally Ride & Susan Okie
Are We Alone? by Gloria Skurzynski.
 
Stop by the Temecula Public Library on Pauba and "check out" these books.

Also, Congratulations are in order for the newly elected TRG Board of Directors.  Annual Elections were held at the April meeting and the new board members are:

The TRG has an exciting year of projects ahead.  It will be fun to work with the new Board in the coming months.  

Thanks a lot to the former Board Members for a job well done this past year.

TRG Monthly Board of Directors Meeting 12-07-07

TRG Members and Family Visit Edwards Air Force Base

Did you ever wonder what it takes to get a fighter jet approved for military use?  Have you ever considered a look back into the colorful and interesting history of US Aviation?  Or are you dying to better understand exactly how Astronauts trained to land on the moon almost 40 years ago?   Many of the TRG members and their families visited Edwards Air Force Base and NASA’s Dryden Flight Research Center this week to learn about these and other fascinating military and NASA facts.  Thanks a lot to Richard Dierking for setting up the tour which encompassed a visit to the Flight Test Museum at Edwards, a private tour of the NASA facility where the Space Shuttle lands when the weather is bad in Florida, and a flight line tour of Edwards Air Force Base.

 Here are just a few of the things the TRG learned on this tour:  

• The base is located on Rogers Dry Lake, which is the largest dry lakebed on the planet.  Rogers Dry Lake has nearly 50 square miles of hard, flat terrain which is perfect for flight test operations.
• NASA has its own separate flight test center on Rogers Dry Lake and NASA shares resources with the Air Force despite being a purely civilian administration.
• When the Space Shuttle lands at Edwards, as it did last month, it is loaded onto the back of a specially modified 747 jumbo jet for transport back to Florida for its next launch.
• The C5A “Galaxy” is the largest cargo aircraft on the planet, with a 247 foot long cargo bay.  We saw one parked on the flight line.
• The Lunar Landing Research Vehicle is one of three vehicles was used by astronauts to train for the moon landing in the late 60’s.  LLRV Number two crashed in 1968 with Neil Armstrong in the pilot seat.  Astronaut Armstrong was not seriously injured, but the LLRV was destroyed.  LLRV Number Two is on static display at Dryden.
• The M2-F1 Lifting Body (AKA “The Flying Bathtub”) was a prototype wingless aircraft test flown in 1963 at Edwards.  It first flew while being towed behind a souped-up 1963 Pontiac Catalina automobile!
• We saw B1B “Lancer” Bombers, F/A18 “Hornet” fighters, CV-22 “Osprey” Tilt Rotor Aircraft, the pilotless “Global Hawk” Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) and many other operational and static display aircraft.
• Of course, no trip to the “ground zero” of aviation research would be complete without seeing parts of the original X15 rocket plane, which set altitude and speed records from 1959 thru the 1960’s.

There is much more to these facilities.  As an old Air Force guy, I felt like a kid in a candy store while reading about all of the flight test projects.  And it was fun discussing aspects of the tour with the TRG members. 

These tours at Edwards are only open to organized groups with pre-arrangement, but if you get an opportunity to visit Edwards and NASA on a group tour, it is highly recommended.  

LDRS-26 Update!!!!!!!!

We're back from Jean Dry Lake and LDRS now. Despite the heat and wind, it was a great time.  Several TRG members attended the 5-day event to launch the bowling ball project on Friday the 13th, July 2007!  Although neither of the 2 ball launches were successful, it would be incorrect to call the project a failure.  Spectators estimated that we had the highest flight of all.  It's really HARD to launch a bowling ball and recover it successfully as we saw only a couple successful flights during the contest!

By the way,  Mr. Smiley flew too, this time on a K-motor.  We really must get him off the juice!  And I got my NAR L1 cert on Sunday on a 3" Goblin during a drag race with Bryan.  Too much fun!

Click here for photos.  If you have any photos of LDRS, please send them to me for posting (kevin@temecularocket.com)