Research Article: Stine, G. Harry

American Engineer and Writer 1928-1997

Engineer, author, visionary, and hobbyist extraordinaire, G. Harry Stine is best known as the father of model rocketry for his efforts to bring science and safety to the building and launching of model rockets. Working as an engineer at the White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico when Sputnik was launched in 1957, Stine watched with dismay as enterprising hobbyists, in the grip of rocket fever, were injured or killed trying to launch their models. He consequently developed and published safety standards for model rocketeers, and founded the National Association of Rocketry in 1958. He also started the first model rocket company, Model Missiles, Inc., around this time. His Handbook of Model Rocketry, first published in 1965, remains the bible of rocket enthusiasts to this day.

As a visionary and advocate for inexpensive exploration and colonization of space, Stine was a proponent of single-stage-to-orbit vehicles,...
(read more)