Centennial rocket demo a dud
Greenwood Lake. History repeated itself as the rocket demonstration failed to take flight just like the original, but the day will be remembered for years to come.
| 28 Feb 2024 | 04:20
RK1 NASA ambassador Jim Hall fires up a toy rocket using a mixture of vinegar and baking soda Saturday, Feb. 24 outside the Greenwood Lake Elks Lodge. It lifted about an inch off the ground. (Photo by Kathy Shwiff)
Rk2 Warwick Town Supervisor Jesse Dwyer stands with Jackie Lowenberg and her husband, Jon, and their two children, Jameson and Julia, who hold a proclamation declaring Feb. 23 as Gloria Rocket Mail Day. The Lowenbergs are descendants of Gloria Quakenbush, the namesake of the rocket airplane that carried mail across Greenwood Lake from New York to New Jersey on Feb. 23, 1936. (Photos by Peter Lyons Hall)
RK3 Jackie and Jon Lowenberg stand behind a scale model of the Gloria rocket airplane launch created by Greenwood Lake resident Tony Donato.
NASA ambassador Jim Hall fires up a toy rocket using a mixture of vinegar and baking soda Saturday, Feb. 24 outside the Greenwood Lake Elks Lodge. (Photo by Kathy Shwiff)
On Saturday, Feb. 24, an attentive and patient crowd watched outside the Elks Lodge on Chestnut Street in Greenwood Lake as NASA ambassador, Jim Hall, demonstrated what took place on a cold winter day on a frozen Greenwood Lake: an attempted launch of a rocket that, to the dismay of the onlookers, replicated what had actually happened to the 15-foot wing span rocket that was prepared to be hurled into the sky from the New York side of the lake to the New Jersey side, resulting in a launch failure.
Hall had expected his rocket, propelled by a chemical mixture of vinegar (acetic acid) and baking soda (sodium hydrogencarbonate), to climb well above the height reached by the 1936 rocket (nicknamed “Gloria” after the daughter of the village treasurer, John Schleich). Unfortunately, Hall’s rocket launch matched the result of the original Gloria launch too closely, ending in a dud. Hall’s chemical mixture should have produced a salt (sodium acetate) and carbon dioxide gas, which would have accumulated inside the miniature rocket’s closed system. But apparently there was a leak in the system, producing an audible sputter, a couple of wiggles, and a collective sigh from the crowd.
After the group of disappointed rocket fans reassembled inside the Elks Lodge to hear a presentation from Centennial Committee member Steve Gross regale attendees about the historic day on Feb. 23, 1936, when the rocket actually succeeded in a subsequent launch, Warwick Town Supervisor (and former mayor of Greenwood Lake) Jesse Dwyer read a proclamation prepared by current Greenwood Lake Mayor Matt Buckley that announced that from this day forward, Feb. 23 would be celebrated as Gloria Rocket Mail Day in Greenwood Lake.
