Harding student pursues interest in rocket technology
This article was published December 6, 2007 at 2:56 a.m.
LITTLE ROCK — Brett Keller acknowledges that he stands out in the crowd.
The Harding University senior and Searcy native got involved with model rocketry early, even though "most of the hobbyists are middle-aged men." Keller's age hasn't limited his interest in rocketry and research, and he recently won second place in the physics division of a research conference hosted by the University of Arkansas.
Ed Wilson, a Harding professor and NASA researcher, went with Keller to the conference.
"Brett has been building and researching rockets since age 7," Wilson said in a release. "Since none of the rest of the team last year had ever built or flown rockets, we needed Brett to carry us along until we could learn enough to become competitive. We did very well last year and have a very strong start this year."
Keller and a team of students built a rocket and then built an instrument to measure the rocket's exhaust plume.
"We can learn a lot from the combustion of the rocket motor," Keller said.
Keller explained that the rocket they built uses what he called a "hybrid engine."
"It is solid fuel and a liquid oxider," Keller said. "The liquid oxider is nitrous oxide, or laughing gas, and everything is all commercially available. We aren't using anything that is regulated."
Solid fuel is the same type of fuel used by NASA for the booster rockets, the two smaller rockets used on a space shuttle launch.
The competition that Harding has entered is the University Student Launch Initiative, and Harding's team is named the Flying Bison Rocket Team.
Keller said the rocket will have a test run in Memphis before the competition scheduled for April 2008 at the Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., to fly the rockets with payloads.
"Students go through a complete design and researchproject just as a NASA engineer would," Wilson said. "They complete reports and defend their ideas in front of a panel of NASA engineers."
The purpose of the Harding project is to see if they can improve the motor's efficiency and also its impact on the environment.
"People get into it for all sorts of reasons," Keller said of rocketry. "A lot of the guys involved also do it for a living and some get into because of the art that goes into building a rocket. Then you have people like me, who got interested when theywere young and now I can get the school to pay for my toys."
Keller is a member of the National Association of Rocketry (www.nar.org) and "I'm a Level 2, which means that I can fly a certain size motor."
The highest level is a 3 and is what Keller called "high-powered rocketry."
"You have to get permission from the [Federal Aviation Administration] and you don't have them around [Little Rock]. They usually happen over in Memphis." - jpeppas@ arkansasonline.com
Three Rivers, Pages 51, 52 on 12/06/2007
