Apr 25 2009
From The Space Library
Amateur rocket enthusiast Steve Eves broke two world records when he successfully launched his 0.1-scale model of a Saturn V rocket from the Maryland-Delaware Rocketry Association’s home field on Maryland’s Eastern Shore. At 36 feet (10.97 meters) and 1,648 pounds (748 kilograms), the model rocket was the largest and heaviest amateur rocket launched and recovered to date. Eves had powered his Saturn V model with nine motors—eight of them were 13,000- Newton-second-N-Class motors and one was a 77,000-Newton-second-P-class motor—that lifted the rocket 4,440 feet (1,353.31 meters) straight up into the air. Eves, an auto-body repair specialist by trade, had begun working on his Saturn V model two years before the launch, after tracking down schematics on the Internet and locating old NASA drawings. Eves had built the skeleton using seven-ply aircraft-grade plywood and the tubular skin using nearly 300 square feet (91.44 square meters) of Luan plywood, which he had coated with fiberglass made out of 14 gallons (53 liters) of resin. The project cost Eves US$25,000, including US$13,000 for the fuel alone. NASA contacted Eves about displaying the model at the U.S. Space and Rocket Center in Huntsville, Alabama, beneath an original Saturn V. Although Eves had considered launching the rocket a second time, he remarked that he would rather not risk a second launch, preferring instead to retire the model rocket and place it on display for people to enjoy.
Davin Coburn, “Rocket Record: The Largest, Heaviest Amateur Rocket Ever Launched,” Popular Mechanics, 28 April 2009.
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