The Thrifty Rocketeer

 The Thrifty Rocketeer blog continues... A couple of years ago, when our local rocket club decided to help "pay it forward" or "sow the seeds" of our hobby in the new generation, we agreed to do some info table appearances at various youth events. One of these was " Yuri's Night ", which I later found out was in celebration of the first man in space, who happened to have been Russian.  Patriotism aside, I thought it was a clever way to attract attention to the event. I also found out that while the event was annually held in the spring, different libraries and youth organizations held them on different nights.  While it may have been named after Yuri Grigorian, it wasn't always held on his birthday.  In fact, there are LOTS of different factors that influenced the date in different communities:  The availability of the venue...the weather conditions expected for stargazing... the availability of various major players (library or vendors)...and the

 The Thrifty Rocketeer blog continues... A recent photo posted in a rocketry forum demonstrated an enterprising rocketeer's conversion of a cabinet into a painting booth.  It was complete with a rotisserie turntable, and an evacuation fan for fumes and paint. It was nice, if you had the vertical height to fit the "booth" into your basement.  Not all of us have that luxury. It started me thinking, wondering how many rocketeers actually have a paint booth. I would think that most low-power rocketeers don't bother with such a thing, but once you cross the threshold into mid or upper power rockets, the sheer square footage of your painting surface might make such an addition to your work shop very worthwhile. Of course, those who live in the deep south, or outside of the northern climes, can paint outside pretty much year round.  But those of us in the snow belt, who have just seen our warm Fall temps drop from 70 degrees to the 30s & 40s, with overnights below freezi