BALLS 13 - September 10-12, 2004

These pictures are from my trip out to the Black Rock Desert in Nevada with Steve Marshall to check out BALLS 2004 - the mother of all experimental rocket launches. We flew into Reno on September 9th, stayed overnight in a hotel, and got up early to pick up the RV and drive up to the desert. We arrived around 3:00 in the afternoon, in time to witness a couple of commercial launches (K impulse class and above only), allowed only during the setup of the event. After getting our badges we roamed the line to check out all the awesome projects.

The big projects to look forward to included:

All in all, only a couple of the big projects made it into the air. It gave me a new appreciation for how much effort NASA must put into their flights. Even NASA can be plagued with failed chute deployments, explosions on the pad, and similar problems that rocketeers experienced this weekend. I applaud the individuals and groups that made the leap to challenge themselves with the big stuff, despite the final outcome.

More good pictures and videos of BALLS 13 here.

Now, on to the pictures!





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Author: Adam Boggs