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Kevin Houser from Tucson, Arizona is the principle
RocketFarmer. A rocket farmer is someone who’s fleet seems to grow endlessly by
accumulating out of production kits, scratch building, or cloning old kits.
Kevin grew up with the final glory of the NASA space
programs and then became involved with Model Rocketry around 1977 with an Estes
kit (not an Alpha!) and was hooked. Around 1980 a Christmas gift of a boxed
Cineroc with several film cartridges ignited an interest in on-board video
rocketry and flight analysis. By 1981 or so he was competing in Class B events
at NARAMs with meager success. Younger brothers Teddy and Chad were often conned into helping retrieve
wayward rockets raining down over North Carolina piedmont farmland.
After years of watching Apollo launches on television, the
Houser family packed up the motor home and headed to Titusville, FL to see the
first launch of the Space Shuttle in person. After much pleading (begging Ma
& Pa is more like it!) not to leave due to launch delays, the entire family
was treated to a 6 mile away first person display of the future of Model
Rocketry, composite solid rocket motors!
Between 1984 and 1997 all model rocketry activities were
ceased due to the usual teen years male attention shifts. Then university
studies toward a Computer Engineering degree sucked up all available time.
Luckily, software and hardware backgrounds came in handy in future efforts to
find gainful employment. Finally after getting married and having two children
rocketry was re-discovered as a “cool” thing to interest the kids. J
Model and High Power Rocketry activities did not resume in full force until
2002 when he and his son were invited to a rocket launch with some other
families. It was then that he realized that all those nifty electronics
projects developed for R/C airplanes could be tested onboard rockets. And after
getting the contraption airborne, constant attention to piloting the craft was
not necessary.
The RockeTV is an X-Cam
based video transmitter system that’s carried aloft as a payload. This is
Kevin’s modern day solution to Cineroc video cravings. It has been launched
with successively more massive motors. Most recently on top of a Pro38 I205-11 motor for a successful NAR Level One Certification.