Photos: The Rocketeers of the Mojave Desert

The gathering, called ROCstock (tagline: “peace, love and rockets”), is part science fair, part party, part celebration of ingenuity and engineering know-how. It’s also an event that harkens back to the earlier days of the aerospace industry, where people tinkering in garages, barns and workshops built machines that helped humanity capture the sky.

Like aerospace engineer Daivd Reese, there are also many real world rocket experts in the world of amateur rocketry. Reese became interested in rocketry as a child working on launchers with his father. Why launch small rockets when he works on big ones launched into space? “You know, you are working on rockets all day, says Reese, “and you get stressed out, and, you know ,worried about the little minutiae of things going wrong on a professional flight. And this, you get to enjoy the flight without all the stress.” (Photo: Saul Gonzalez)