-----Original Message----- From: Leo Mauler

My high school physics teacher had everyone build a model rocket as the "final project" of the semester, but they had to do something different, not just "rocket goes up, rocket comes down"... two engines fired simultaneously next to each other (didn't work too well that last one ... Go figure! Now there are ways of making clusters of engines, but two isn't all that symmetrical (unless you're talking about a two stage two rocket engine I wouldn't want to be near one of those). I'd think the minimum you'd want to combine together would be about six in a cluster. Of course the number really depends on how many it takes to completely encircle a center engine.

I did a model rocket that could be recovered at night, using a high-intensity flashlight bulb and a couple of N-size batteries in a clear payload. We launched it around midnight on a cloudy moonless night.

A modern take on that would be one of those super bright white leds with a nice big roundish solid plastic lens to throw out a nice wide diffused beam. Hey ,that sounds like a fun experiment. But what about little sensors in the rocket, to track speed and altitude and transmit to a land-based Linux server, running a graphical plot of the rocket? Maybe even add a little spy cam to transmit video back to the server?