{"id":8641,"date":"2024-11-21T21:57:17","date_gmt":"2024-11-21T21:57:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/brendans-island.com\/catholic-citizen\/?p=8641"},"modified":"2025-11-25T20:36:41","modified_gmt":"2025-11-25T20:36:41","slug":"aftershock-ii-usc-students-reaching-for-the-stars","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/brendans-island.com\/catholic-citizen\/aftershock-ii-usc-students-reaching-for-the-stars\/","title":{"rendered":"Aftershock II: USC Students Reaching for the Stars"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<span class=\"embed-youtube\" style=\"text-align:center; display: block;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" class=\"youtube-player\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/piX4VbWdADc?version=3&#038;rel=1&#038;showsearch=0&#038;showinfo=1&#038;iv_load_policy=1&#038;fs=1&#038;hl=en-US&#038;autohide=2&#038;wmode=transparent\" allowfullscreen=\"true\" style=\"border:0;\" sandbox=\"allow-scripts allow-same-origin allow-popups allow-presentation allow-popups-to-escape-sandbox\"><\/iframe><\/span>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p>&#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.livescience.com\/space\/space-exploration\/students-homemade-rocket-soars-faster-and-farther-into-space-than-any-other-amateur-spacecraft-smashing-20-year-records\">Students&#8217; &#8216;homemade&#8217; rocket soars faster and farther into space than any other amateur spacecraft \u2014 smashing 20-year records<\/a>&#8221; <br>Harry Baker, Live Science (November 21, 2024)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;A group of U.S. students has smashed a series of world records after launching a &#8216;homemade&#8217; rocket farther and faster into space than any other amateur rocket. The student-made missile soared 90,000 feet (27,400 meters) beyond the previous record-holder \u2014 a Chinese rocket launched more than 20 years ago.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;The record-breaking rocket, named Aftershock II, was designed and built by students at the University of Southern California&#8217;s (USC) Rocket Propulsion Lab (RPL) \u2014 a group run entirely by undergraduate students&#8230;.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;&#8230;The rocket&#8217;s apogee was around 470,000 feet (143,300 m) above Earth&#8217;s surface, which is &#8216;further into space than any non-governmental and non-commercial group has ever flown before,&#8217; USC representatives wrote in a statement. The previous record of 380,000 feet (115,800 m) was set in 2004 by the GoFast rocket made by China&#8217;s Civilian Space Exploration Team&#8230;.&#8221;<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p>I could take many routes, talking about what that bunch of crazy college kids did yesterday (October 20, 2024) in the Black Rock Desert, Nevada.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Taking my cue from Sixties sensibilities that I still retain \u2014 to an extent \u2014 I could ponder the perils which their launch posed to the fragile desert biome. Or I could complain that they didn&#8217;t focus on some sorta-now, sorta-wow, social protest.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Instead, I&#8217;ll say that I thoroughly enjoyed watching 79 seconds of youngsters successfully launching a vehicle past the K\u00e1rm\u00e1n\u202fline. I hope that at least some of them get involved in what promises to be a very interesting era of space exploration.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I like seeing humanity \u2014 including folks from my country \u2014 doing what we&#8217;ve been doing for uncounted ages: seeing what&#8217;s over the next hill.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>&#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/brendans-island.com\/catholic-citizen\/spacex-starship-sixth-test-flight-still-exciting\/\">SpaceX Starship Sixth Test Flight: Still Exciting<\/a>&#8221; <br>(November 19, 2024)<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>&#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/brendans-island.com\/catholic-citizen\/skylon-defunct-radian-pfv01-test-flights-begin\/\">Skylon Defunct, Radian PFV01 Test Flights Begin<\/a>&#8221; <br>(November 16, 2024)<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>&#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/brendans-island.com\/catholic-citizen\/radian-aerospace-pfv01-remembering-max-valier\/\">Radian Aerospace PFV01, Remembering Max Valier<\/a>&#8221; <br>(September 25, 2024)<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>&#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/brendans-island.com\/catholic-citizen\/something-new-polaris-dawn-commercial-test-flight\/\">Something New: Polaris Dawn Commercial Test Flight<\/a>&#8221; <br>(August 27, 2024)<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>&#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/brendans-island.com\/catholic-citizen\/starliner-dream-chaser-and-beyond-the-sky-is-not-the-limit\/\">Starliner, Dream Chaser, and Beyond: The Sky is Not the Limit<\/a>&#8221; <br>(June 8, 2024)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&#8220;Students&#8217; &#8216;homemade&#8217; rocket soars faster and farther into space than any other amateur spacecraft \u2014 smashing 20-year records&#8221; Harry Baker, Live Science (November 21, 2024) &#8220;A group of U.S. students has smashed a series of world records after launching a &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/brendans-island.com\/catholic-citizen\/aftershock-ii-usc-students-reaching-for-the-stars\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"A 79 second YouTube video of the successful University of Southern California rocket launch of October 20, 2024. Plus a news excerpt and my reaction.","jetpack_seo_html_title":"Aftershock II: USC Students Reaching for the Stars","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[154,192,4],"tags":[16,39,28],"class_list":["post-8641","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-discursive-detours","category-journal","category-science-news","tag-america","tag-space-exploration","tag-technology"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7Dwtw-2fn","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brendans-island.com\/catholic-citizen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8641","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brendans-island.com\/catholic-citizen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brendans-island.com\/catholic-citizen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brendans-island.com\/catholic-citizen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brendans-island.com\/catholic-citizen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8641"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/brendans-island.com\/catholic-citizen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8641\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9692,"href":"https:\/\/brendans-island.com\/catholic-citizen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8641\/revisions\/9692"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brendans-island.com\/catholic-citizen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8641"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brendans-island.com\/catholic-citizen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8641"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brendans-island.com\/catholic-citizen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8641"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}