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Old 04-02-2017, 05:25 PM
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tbzep tbzep is offline
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Join Date: Mar 2005
Location: TN
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Well, it is officially a D13-x, probably a D13-3.

Here is an article from The Tennessean, which is a Nashville paper. I'm surprised it made it to their paper. The evidence is a quote from Professor Dooley stating that the rocket made nine pounds of thrust, which is what is listed in the catalog for the D13. However, there are errors in the article such as, "spent five minutes in space" and "eight-inch purple and gold rocket". It was obviously not in space, and if it was in the air 5 minutes, I seriously doubt they could have recovered it on the football field. In addition, the rocket was considerably taller and skinnier than 8". He also sold the Saturn V short by saying it was "a million pound plus", which is more appropriate for the Saturn 1B.

May 19, 1970 issue. The flight itself occured on May 2nd according to most of the stuff I've dug up.
Quote:
Mouse That Roared A-OK After Launch By ROBERT KOLLAR TENNESSEAN Staff Correspondent COOKEVILLE, Tenn. - A tiny black mouse spent five minutes in space yesterday radioing information about its . heartbeat and lungs to Tennessee Tech students studying medical instrumentation. "Cosmouse" roared off his launch pad atop an eight-inch purple and gold (school colors) solid-fuel rocket at 10:05 a.m. for his flight of 1,000 feet into the air. AT 10:10 a.m. his parachute took him safely into the waiting arms of a recovery team about 50 yards from where he had been launched in the middle of Overall Field. A crowd of about 300 elementary and kindergarten youngsters from Tech's lab school cheered and whistled when the rocket lifted off and when the "capsule" stage blasted free of the main engine at the peak of the trajectory. The youngsters cheered again when , Sabina Mackie, one of the students who worked on the project, brought Cosmouse out of the stadium where he had been taken after the flight and showed them he was indeed still alive. DR. ELMO Dooley, a professor of biology and the man who masterminded the project, said the flight was a success, although the wind interfered a little with some of the telemetery signals. "We got good signals, though, and all the information we hoped for," Dooley said. Electrodes were attached to the mouse's chest and then attached to a tiny transmitter the size of the end of a man's thumb. The signals were picked up by a receiver at the launch site and fed into a radiograph that recorded them on paper tape. THE STUDENTS will study the results to determine what happens to the mouse's lungs and heartbeat during all phases of flight. During the flight the mouse wore a space suit of double-knit polyester put on him about 10 minutes before his trip. It was designed by Dooley's wife, Betty. There were some anxious moments around the launch site just before blast off when the transmitter had to be returned. "We had to have the information. That was the whole point of sending the mouse up," Dooley said. HE SAID there was interference on the primary channel. "These students wanted to do something different. They already had all the theory they needed and wanted to put it into practice. They all spent many times the required time working on it a lot more than they would have spent on a library project," Dooley said. He said the students made the tiny space capsule for the mouse to ride in and designed a special antenna for the project. "EVERYONE did something different, yet they all worked together," he said. "The only commercial equipment used were the rocket engine and transmitter, and even the transmitter was modified," he said. "I am very proud of these young people." DOOLEY WAS the man in charge of getting America's first monkeys, "Able" and "Baker" into space and back . at the beginning of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's manned space program. Cosmouse and his backup mouse "Astro Mouse" got a high-protein diet of steak and scrambled eggs two days before blast off "just like our astronauts," Dooley said. The nine pounds of thrust developed by the little rocket yesterday is modest compared to the million-plus pounds of thrust developed by the mightly Saturn V that has carried men to the moon twice, but the enthusiasm of the students was as great as that of the NASA team that sent the first living creature into space, Dooley said. Students who took part in the experiment were Dooley's sons, Leroy and Joseph and 10 students in his instrumentation class including, David M. Jones, Robert S. Becker, Janice E. Lynn, Miss Mackie, Bobby Glen Malone, Glenn E. Mysza, Frank K. Umberger III, Delbert Lee Wynn and Richard Frounfelker.
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