Sure, some of the projects I'd been doing were somewhat big. Take my 1/72 scale space shuttle Challenger model, or how about my Millenium Falcon of no particular scale? True, they were relatively big, compared to some of my rocket projects. But then again, they had one major problem: they didn't do anything. All they can do is sit there and wait for me to dust them. They look cool, but so do the trees in my front yard.

I needed a big dynamic model, something that would do something and go somewhere.

Finally, relief came in the form of an e-mail. My brother Ted forwarded something he had recieved from someone named Chuck Guest. This person had seen this webpage and was amused and intrigued by my narratives on my dynamic rocket projects. He said that he and some of the other people in his office wanted to sponsor a rocket to be designed, built, and flown by the WAEC.

After fixing the problem that forced Chuck to send his e-mail to Ted instead of me, I replied to him. I told him that he had a truly singular idea, and I'd love to participate.

I didn't hear from him for quite a while, and I went back to scribing the stupid tile detail on my space shuttle. Then, in March of 2002, I recieved another e-mail from him. This one fleshed out in greater detail his idea. He would "pass the hat" at his office, then send me however much money he collected. It was then up to me to design and build a large rocket.

Since two of the benefactors came from Texas (although they now work in San Francisco), Chuck wanted the rocket's decoration to be some sort of Texan theme. I was afraid that I might have to put some company logo on the side. As much as I hate advertisement, I'm sure I would have given in and ended up with something like the WAEC Microsoft Missile.

The last part of the agreement was that I describe my efforts and toils both "clinically and colorfully," which is what I'm doing now.

This excited me like nothing before. Instead of simply getting a little money here and a little money there to do with as I pleased, I was now being commisioned to do one specific project.

After the excitement wore down just a tad, I realized that I needed some sort of design for this new rocket. Without question, it would need to be big. Also, I decided then and there that it would be highly cool to power it with the new Estes E engine, which is twice as powerful as anything I've ever used before.

In early April, I recieved the generous $100 donation from what was at first called "Chuck and the Consortium," then later simply the "Triumvirite." Before I allowed myself to spend any of this money, I carefully drew up plans for this exciting new project. They called for a rocket over one meter in length, based around a BT-60 body tube, with four fins, an ogive nose cone, and an E engine mount.

As for the Texas-themed decoration, I decided on the simple, but bold, state flag pattern, and with the name of the rocket being Lone Star. I'm glad my benefactors weren't from Florida.

I made a list for all of the different parts I would need for this new rocket, and I found that most of them could not be aquired around Boulder. I would have to order them through the mail, which is always a dampener to progress.

When I finally recieved all of the requisite parts, I began construction. Unlike some of my more recent projects (like the unorthodox Discovery from 2001, and the obscenely complex Apollo-LES, Lone Star was a fairly easy build. After I added the fins and glued the two body tubes together, I really got an impression of the scale and magnitude of the project on which I was working. This was the essence of the WAEC.

The run of this project was the smoothest of any yet in WAEC history. It only really had one notable setback, and that was when I glued on one of the fins crooked, and had to cut it off and reglue it. That wasn't difficult.

Finally, at the end of May, I was truly ready to launch Lone Star. I decided that it would be truly excellent to document the life out of this event, for the benefit of the Triumvirite. Still pictures from a 35-mm film camera were a must, as was footage from our 8-mm analog camera. I also needed to get publicity shots beforehand of the rocket posed in various positions by the cool-looking trees in my front yard.

I meant to launch on Sunday, the 26th of May, 2002. Before I could get people interested enough, however, winds around the launch site picked up and scrubbed the launch.

The next day was Memorial Day. On every Memorial Day since the 1970s, there's been a major 10K race called the Bolder Boulder, in which half of the town participate (that's about 40,000 people). Even though I didn't do it this year (why, I don't know), launching Lone Star in the morning was totally out of the question, since I absoloutely had to ride my bike to the stadium where the race ended to watch the F-16 fighter jets fly overhead as part of the Memorial Day Festivities.

The afternoon of that day was definitely out of the question since the fell winds from the day prior still persisted. I had to wait till the next day, May 28, before I could finally launch.

After supper, my parents and I headed out to the launch field to fire off Lone Star on its maiden flight. I was quite thrilled about this, as usual, especially since I had loaded into the rocket a D engine, and I hadn't used one of those for a year and a half.

After a bit of set up, and inviting some random ten-year-olds to watch, I was finally ready for launch. After a pompous countdown, I stabbed my finger onto the launch button. Riding on a column of flame, Lone Star streaked skyward. After its engine completed its burn, it arced over and deployed its parachute before drifitng lazily earthward. The flight culminated in a soft landing on someone's back porch.

Lone Star suffered no noticable damage from its first flight. Its paint scheme was unscuffed, its airframe uncompromised. It could have flown again, had it not been that the clouds above the launch site seemed to threaten us with rain. We packed up and headed home.

The summer following was a big dissappointment for rocket launching.  In Colorado, we had an exceptionally dry drought.  This turned the whole state into a gigantic tinderbox, and any slightest provocation caused the whole state to burst into flames!  There were some major, major wildfires, causing slurry bombers to fly overhead often to create firebreaks with their red clay slurry (seeing those planes was cool, I must say).  The smoke from the fires could be seen from our house, burning up from behind the mountains.  This caused the sky to turn red as it does at sunset at about five in the afternoon.

I did not want to tempt nature.  While rockets don't pose any true fire danger, it's the small chance that they will cause problems was too much for me.  I didn't fire off any rockets during the summer of 2002.

But, come September, the winds changed and brought us rain.  We had rain, tremendous, thrashing, phenomonal storms that gave me the confidence that a rocket launch at this point would be safe.  Well, maybe the storms weren't actually very amazing, but that's sure what it seemed like at the time.

I launched Lone Star the second time on September 22, 2002.  This time, the ordinarily pointy nose cone of Lone Star was replaced with a bulbous egg capsule, which I had converted from a plastic easter egg.  In it, I flew a raw hen's egg.  Both the booster and the capsule came down in the woods next to the launch site; I recovered them fine.

The third flight of Lone Star was on October 11, 2002.  Instead of an egg in the payload capsule, I had a live crayfish, lovingly named Earl.  The Triumvirite requested that I fly a "sufficiently heroic biological payload" in Lone Star.  I decided that a crustacean was my best option.  Earl landed safe and sound (I released him into the "wild" the next day), but the booster had a tough landing on a roof.  I was able to get it down in one piece, before heading home.

The fourth, and so far last flight, used the newly-rereleased Estes E9 engine.  On January 26, 2003, I fired Lone Star high into the blue (actually gray), using a larger field than before.  The launch was truly awesome, with the large, thundering engine burning long and hard to give me an impressive altitude.  The booster sustained a little damage on landing, but that just means I'll have to fix it, and fly it once again.

So, what's next for Lone Star?  I have a slew of wild ideas for this project, including an elaboarate camera setup, and an inertial guidance system.  I doubt that I'll be able to do either with my dwindling amount of spare time.  But only the future can tell.

My mission is complete. Finally, I have a large model that actually does something. I wouldn't ever have been able to do it without the help of the Triumvirite.