How a $20 Rocket Kit Got Me Hooked

Well, here it is. My “first rocket” story.

Mid-teens, Dad takes me to the local hobby shop. I’m wandering around, just killing time, and I spot a rack of rocket kits. Right then I thought, geez, I’d love to try one of those. I asked Dad if he’d buy one. He looked at the price, looked at me, and said no.

That stuck with me.

A couple years later, I was 17, working, saving. I went back to that hobby shop. Bought a rocket. Tiny little thing. Maybe six inches long, not much thicker than a highlighter. I built it, took it out to a paddock across the road, and sent it up. Flew a bit squirrely but got to about 500 feet, came down under a parachute. I was hooked. Absolutely buzzing.

Straight after, I went back and bought two more kits. One of them launched so high it drifted in the wind and got stuck in a tree. That was my first rocket loss, definitely not the last. The second wouldn’t ignite. Classic early days.

At that point, I was dreaming of building bigger ones. I started hunting for places to launch, found a local club. But I didn’t have my license yet, and by the time I did, life had moved on a bit. Work, other stuff, timing, rockets took a back seat.

Years later, I walked into another hobby shop and something clicked. That itch never really left. I joined the NSW Rocketry Club and got serious. Started building again, each one a bit bigger. Over four or five years, I climbed up through the certifications until I was ready for my Level 3.

That flight changed everything.

It was a simple rocket, nothing fancy. But it flew beautifully. Clean lift-off, stable all the way, perfect chute deployment. Watching it arc back down, I just thought “I can build bigger rockets. I can do this for real.”

That was the moment Sunburnt Space started forming in my head.

Not in a boardroom. Not on a whiteboard. In a paddock, staring up at a dot in the sky.

More to come.