Project Description
Rocket Day!
At Strathearn Historical Park & Museum, 137 Strathearn Place, Simi, CA 93065
The Fires of Creation ~ a Celebration of the men and women
who worked in the local Aerospace Industry creating our finest hours with the American Space Program.
Our Rocket Day will include “Mission Control” in the big barn with three giant screens showing Rocket Launches, Planetary Missions and Hubble photographs. Our JPL Solar System Ambassador will be on hand to answer questions about the Planetary Missions. Display cases in this area will show Space program and NASA memorabilia. Mission Control feed will be projected into the rafters. All JPL program launches had to have peanuts to munch on for luck in Mission Control Pasadena.
The church building will be designated Santa Susana Field Laboratory with three screens showing Ray Vincent’s excellent powerpoint, the National Park Service’s brand new video about SSFL, and NASA’s new video out this summer about the Simi Hills facilities where 20,000 rocket engine tests were performed over the 60 years the test stands were operational. On the north wall will be a display of beautiful space program photographs taken by Glenn Grossman over the years.
Aerojet Rocketdyne is loaning us a RS-18 engine for display. This was the engine that lifted the Apollo astronauts off from the surface of the moon. Aerojet Rocketdyne is bringing us an Astronaut from Johnson Space Center in a live presence. They are also sending along finger rockets to launch from your hand.
In the Visitor’s Center we will have two sessions of lectures from Frank Winter who is flying from the National Air & Space Museum in Washington, D.C. He will tell us about early Rocketdyne.
Other presentations in this building include Rachel Brachman telling about the 20 years she spent on the Cassini Mission. Display cases in this area will contain space program memorabilia.
In the open barn will be our Burro Flats Mural display of the shaman’s viewing point at SSFL and Dr. Krupp of Griffith Observatory will be on hand to tell us about the Winter Solstice services he has participated in with the Chumash, Tataviam, Tongva and Kitanemuk over decades.
In the open area will be our Rocket Launching activities where foam projectiles will be spring load launched at Pad 39A. Pad 39A will be manned by NASA minions as ground crew and they will dance with joy as “flames” exit the flame bucket.
We are hoping to have a Rocketdyne Retirees Roundtable on the Strathearn House front lawn with retirees chatting about their experiences “on the Hill,” “down at Canoga,” and at the DeSoto facility. Many of them have already brought great artifacts for us to share such as the 4’ X 4’ aerial photo of SSFL from the 1960’s from Tom Bennett.
Our Ham Radio Club members are putting up ways to access the International Space Station by hanging lines and antennae over the trees near the barbershop. We will be selling packaged moonpies, milky way bars, starbursts and astronaut ice cream. Food trucks are being sought for hot dogs, hamburgers and kettle corn.
Volunteers working with us will be Bank of America folks, SVPD Explorers and Royal High School ROTC cadets. Our ever faithful docents will man the historic buildings for their usual wonderful tour talks.
Join us for a fun day Saturday, November 18th from 11 am to 5 pm at Strathearn Park.
Best wishes, Nancy Kidd, Event Chair
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