CHASING SPUTNIK

 

From the time we were very young my brother could build just about anything. Before I could tie my shoes without help, he was already building bicycles out of random spare parts. When he was a teenager he took up the challenge to build solid fuel rockets and one day while mixing up some formula in the basement a batch of fuel exploded. There was no damage and no injury, just a loud boom. The model rocketry program soon gave way to cars, cars and more cars. He’s still in love with cars and trucks to this day and is still building things. He conveniently does not recall the aforementioned incident complete with explosion, but he’s older than I am so we’ll forgive him for that. Anyway, while the Chasing Sputnik story is a total fabrication, my memory of my brother mixing up the rocket fuel and the resulting outcome was the inspiration for this piece of fiction.