Mon, Apr 17, 2006
Teams Will Meet in Fly-Off May 20
To think, it all began
with ancient Chinese fireworks... and continued through the
experiments of Robert Goddard and up to the modern rockets employed
today in the quest for space exploration. It all
began with simple (and, sometimes not-so-simple) model
rockets. Perhaps some of the space pioneers of tomorrow are
now among the top 100 model rocket teams in the US, who will
compete in the Team America Rocketry Challenge next month.
The Aerospace Industry Association (AIA) announced their
finalists for the contest Friday. The teams will face off on May 20
at Great Meadow in The Plains, VA for the title. A total of 678
teams from 47 states and the District of Columbia took part in the
qualifying round of the competition -- representing close to 7,000
middle and high school students.
AIA President and CEO John W. Douglass said there is momentum
gathering in TARC, helping the core mission of attracting young
people to aerospace careers.
"We are already seeing some TARC alumni studying
aerospace-related subjects in college," Douglass said. "It looks
like this year we have another good group of students who hopefully
will be our future engineers and scientists."
As was reported in Aero-News last
September, this year's competition is a little more
complicated than previous editions. Students will be shooting for
an altitude of 800 feet and an exact flight time of 45 seconds --
the first time the contest has included both elevation and duration
criteria. The one-raw-egg payload must return safely to the earth,
and each flight receives a performance score based on how close it
came to the goals.
AIA created the contest three years ago as a one-time event to
mark the 100th anniversary of flight, but overwhelming interest
turned it into an annual event. The goal is to promote aerospace to
students to attract more young people to careers in the industry.
The contest is also sponsored by the National Association of
Rocketry in partnership with NASA, the Defense Department, the
Civil Air Patrol, and 39 AIA member companies.
The winning teams will share a prize pool of more than $60,000
in savings bonds and cash. In addition to that, AIA-member Raytheon
also sweetened the pot this year by sponsoring a trip for members
of the winning team to the Farnborough International Airshow near
London in July.
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