G. Harry Stine

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For the 19th-century baseball player, see Harry Stine (baseball). For the businessman, see Harry Stine (businessman).

G. Harry Stine
G. Harry Stine with model rocket
G. Harry Stine preparing a model rocket for launch at NARAM-12, Houston, TX, 1970
Born(1928-03-26)March 26, 1928
DiedNovember 2, 1997(1997-11-02) (aged 69)
Other namesLee Correy
Known formodel rocketry, science fiction

George Harry Stine (March 26, 1928 – November 2, 1997) was one of the founding figures of model rocketry, a science and technology writer, and (under the name Lee Correy) a science fiction author.

Education and early career

Stine grew up in Colorado Springs and attended

White Sands Proving Grounds, first as a civilian scientist and then, from 1955 to 1957, at the U.S. Naval Ordnance Missile Test Facility as head of the Range Operations Division.[1]

Stine and his wife Barbara were friends of author

Have Space Suit - Will Travel.[2] Stine wrote science fiction under the pen name "Lee Correy" in the mid-1950s and under his own name in the 1980s and 1990s, as well as writing science articles for Popular Mechanics
.

Model rocketry

After White Sands, Stine was employed at several other aerospace companies, finally ending up at

United Press that the Soviets had used their ICBM as a launch vehicle (which they had), that Sputnik meant that the entire United States was open to nuclear ICBM attack (which it still is), and that the United States was not first in space because we did not have a serious space program (which we did not under the Eisenhower administration)."[4]

Back in his days at White Sands he had handled inquiries from young people concerning rockets, and early in 1957 he wrote an article for

Mechanics Illustrated about rocket safety. Shortly thereafter he received a letter from Orville Carlisle, who had begun making small models and, more importantly, replaceable solid fuel engines to power them. Stine was impressed with the samples that Carlisle had sent him, and wrote a cover article for the October MI issue about them. After the Martin firing, he contacted Carlisle and the two of them formed Model Missiles Inc., the first manufacturer of model rockets and their engines. Stine also founded the National Association of Rocketry
(initially called the Model Missile Association) and wrote the safety code which became its centerpiece; he served as its president until the late 1960s.

MMI was short-lived, as they were unprepared to handle the level of business they attracted and because of some poor business decisions. Issues with the production of early engines caused them to seek out Vernon Estes, who came to them in the summer of 1958. Estes's design and construction of "Mabel", the first engine-manufacturing machine, was the foundation of his success and put Estes Industries in a dominant position in the hobby which it was never to relinquish.

Stine continued to work to popularize the hobby, writing the Handbook of Model Rocketry in 1965, which went on through seven editions over the years. He returned to the aerospace industry, continuing to write under his pen name, including a

Mike Okuda in their work for Star Trek: The Next Generation as technical artists and advisors, and was credited in Star Trek: The Next Generation Technical Manual for that assistance. The character named "Harry Stein" in the novel Stardance (by Spider Robinson and Jeanne Robinson
) is a homage to Stine.

Other work

Stine was very interested in the interaction of volunteer/free market Libertarian ideas with space colonization and as a tool of citizen diplomacy and world peace, and so was called to serve as Chair of the Advisory Board of the Libertarian International Organization where he mentored various citizen initiatives until his death. In the wake of his book, The Third Industrial Revolution, he was asked to co-organize the American Astronautical Society 1977 conference on private space colonization to re-channel focus away from space exploration alone, and where he received an award as a founder of the international space effort. He was interested in the concept of non-immediate profit-driven free markets, and was seen as a developer and defender[5] of the "pay it forward" approach with Robert A. Heinlein, a term also popularized in a movie of that name, starring Kevin Spacey and other stars. In addition to The Third Industrial Revolution, he wrote several other books encouraging public awareness of the possibilities of a lucrative and socially beneficial active space industry.[6][1]

Stine was a founding member of the Citizens' Advisory Council on National Space Policy and attended several meetings including the 1980 meeting that prepared the space defense policy papers for the Reagan Transition Team.

Stine was active in the development of fire safety standards dealing with model rocketry and pyrotechnics. He served on the National Fire Protection Association's (NFPA) Technical Committee on Pyrotechnics, representing the National Association of Rocketry, being first appointed in 1967 and then appointed as committee chair in February 1974. This technical committee was responsible for drafting the Association's Code for Model Rocketry, NFPA 41L, which is now known as NFPA 1122, Code for Unmanned Rockets. He chaired the committee until January 1994 and received the Association's Committee Service Award in 1993.

He died on November 2, 1997, in Phoenix, Arizona, of an apparent stroke.[7]

Bibliography

Science fiction

Hardback, as Lee Correy
Paperback, as Lee Correy
  • Contraband Rocket, Ace Double, 1955,
    ISBN 978-0-441-04146-6
  • Star Driver, Del Rey, July 1980
  • Shuttle Down, Del Rey, April 1981
  • Space Doctor, Del Rey, June 1981
  • The Abode of Life, Pocket Science Fiction, May 1982
  • Manna, DAW Science Fiction, January 1984
  • A Matter of Metalaw, DAW Science Fiction, October 1986
Paperback, as G. Harry Stine

Non-fiction

Model rocketry

References

  1. ^ a b "Biographical Note: G. Harry Stine". The Museum Of Flight. Retrieved January 9, 2021.
  2. ^ "Heinlein's Dedications". Retrieved March 9, 2010.
  3. ISBN 1-55199-099-7
    .
  4. OCLC 849912282
    . 76-241 – via Google Books. An excerpt of the full paper, per the last paragraph ("In his full paper...").
  5. ^ "Paying Forward - G. Harry Stine". www.rocket.aero. Archived from the original on February 8, 2009. Retrieved January 12, 2022.
  6. ^ "The Third Industrial Revolution". Goodreads. Retrieved January 9, 2021.
  7. ^ "SFWA Obituaries: G. Harry Stine". Archived from the original on September 24, 2006. Retrieved September 22, 2006. SFWA Obituaries, G. Harry Stine

External links

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