Originally Posted by tbzep

Those thruster nozzles are related to our hobby. Back in the mid to late 90's, some friends down in Huntsville decided to do an amateur high altitude project. It was a rockoon (balloon launched rocket). My buddy Jim built the motor hardware and we cast a few propellant grains for the hybrid. However, they wanted it to be a "dirt rocket". I.E. use tar for the propellant grain. Jim's grains were more potent, but the tar was just something they wanted to use because somebody said it wouldn't work. We did test firings at Tim Pickens' (eventual designer of Spaceship One motor) parents' land. The rocket was successfully tested via a ground launch in Manchester, TN that used every bit of the 15k waiver. The balloon was eventually launched off a barge in the Gulf and the rocket made a successful flight, but I don't recall the altitude. It was in Guinness as the highest amateur flight for a few years.

Now to relate it to the space program's reaction control thrusters. A lot of old hardware from NASA ended up in a couple of junkyards in Huntsville. Tim found some of them and used an expansion bell from one to make a mold for the dirt rocket's high altitude motor. The more I think about it, I'm pretty sure it was from Surveyor instead of Apollo, but it's still cool as heck. Maybe Tim, Dan or one of the old crew is lurking and can remember it better than me.