Many people these days have seen a model rocket kit in a hobby or toy store, but many really have no idea what the hobby is about or whether it's even safe. The information below should help answer questions about the hobby and it's safety.
The model rocket, and perhaps more importantly, the model rocket motor, were both designed in 1954 by Orville Carlisle, a licensed pyrotechnics expert, and his brother Robert, a model airplane builder. They originally designed the engine and rocket for Robert to use in lectures on the principles of rocket powered flight. But then Orville read articles written in Popular Mechanics by G. Harry Stine about the safety problems associated with young people trying to make their own rocket engines.
During the late 1950's, many people, excited about the idea of space travel, tried to design and build their own flying rockets, just as decades earlier people thought of designing and building their own models of the new airplanes that were taking to the skies. Unfortunately, designing and building a working rocket was not as simple or safe as building a model airplane. Most tried to build their models entirely out of metal parts, and mixed dangerous chemicals to make motors. The results were disastrous. Many of these rockets blew up, injuring their builders and spectators. Some began to call for making the activity illegal, or at least restricting the availability of the chemicals used.
Orville realized that his designs could solve these problems and sent samples of his rockets and motors to Mr. Stine in January 1957. Stine, a range safety officer at White Sands Missle range, built and flew the models, and then devised a safety code for the activity based on his experience at the range. That humble beginning was the start of model rocketry as we know it today.
Model rocketry is, and has been since it began with Carlisle and Stine, one of the safest hobbies available for youths and adults. This is due to the Model Rocketry Safety Code, which specifies the two parts that make a safe flying model rocket: the pre-manufactured motor and the light-weight model rocket itself.
The engine type code printed on the case has three parts:
The inside of a model rocket engine looks like this:
Literally hundreds of millions of model rocket motors have been produced and safely flown in the last 40 years, a testimony to their safe design and ease of use.
The other half of what makes model rocketry so safe is the basic design of, and materials used in the model itself. The following picture shows the parts that go into a typical model rocket.
