Big, Bad Black Rock

1. Big, Bad Black Rock or, How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love . . . Dust Dave Lindbergh – CMASS

2. Contents(or, questions to be answered) • What is the Black Rock Desert? • How do you get there? • Is it a good place to fly rockets? (yes) • What happens there? • Do you want to go there next year?

3. CHAPTER 1 Where is the Black Rock Desert??

4. Planet Earth

5. U.S. of A. Black Rock Desert you are here

6. In north western Nevada Black Rock Desert

7. Launch Site

8. Nowhere Central Nearest city = 80 miles

9. CHAPTER 2 OK, what’s so great about it?

10. The Black Rock Desert • Dry lake bed, “considered one of the flattest surfaces on earth” • 100 miles long, 10 to 40 miles wide • 4000 feet high • 80+ miles from nearest city • Owned by the Bureau of Land Management (public land) • Wikipedia: “See also - High Power Rocketry”

11. playa (“ply-ahh”)— Spanish word, meaning “surface of incredibly huge and flat dry lake bed”

12. The “playa”

13. CHAPTER 3 How do you get there?

14. We did it this way

15. Vehicle & Operators • 1986 Coachmen 28’ motorhome • 3 drivers, in shifts 51 hours door-to-playa

16. Route • I-90 to Chicago • Then I-80 to Nevada • Or, you could fly • to Reno, then drive • But then how would you get your rockets and motors there? • And what would you live in there?

17. Good place to store rockets & stuff

18. Is that the same place they do that Burning Man thing?Yes.

19. CHAPTER 4 OK, what does it look like already?

20. First view - dawn

31. Setting Up

32. Blowing Dust

35. XPRS Launch Site • Waiver to 100,000 feet (& they use it) • Closest power line – 20 miles • Closest object > 3 inches tall – 5 miles • No plants, no animals, no insects • No rocket-eating trees (no trees)

36. XPRS = eXtreme Performance Rocket Ships • September each year, hosted by AeroPac • Association of Experimental Rocketry of the Pacific • http://www.xprs.org

37. ARLISS launch

40. Another ARLISS flight

46. Toward sunset

48. Flightline

50. Cars making dust