Rocket PoweR, InteRstellaR tRavel and eteRnal lIfe

Figure 16. Photograph of the rocket car in operation, July 29, 1934, at the Colussy Brothers Airport, Coudersport, Pennsylvania.
ing the rocket car exhibition was part of a larger “air circus”
including stunts, parachute jumps and Cyclone
Bill riding a motorcycle through a flaming board wall.
The Enterprise itself more somberly had noted,
. . . Dan Hungerford, scientist and inventor, will be
present and demonstrate his rocket car. He will
explain his purpose in building the car and how it
may be used. He has spent a large part of his life in
the study of the planets and his machine will be
particularly interesting. 120
A July 2, 1935 article in the Elmira Star-Gazette
announced a program of ten rockets “in simultaneous
flight, rocket-propelled miniature cars, speeding model
rocket plans, scientific estimation of rocket velocity and
a test of the Hungerford rocket car” at the Caton Avenue
airport on the Fourth of July. The affair was to be directed
by Daniel Hungerford and it was “expected that a
rocket club will be organized . . . .”
An illustrated lecture on powder and liquid fuel
rockets will be given by Mr. Hungerford. He will
outline the objectives of the club to be formed and
preside at the enrollment of members and election
of officers.
Prizes to be awarded winners of several contests
will include airplane rides.
Youthful enthusiasts will be required to have
parental consent to become club members. The age
minimum is 12. 121
Among the items Marvin received from Hungerford
in 1964 was a July 10, 1935 letter to Hungerford from
Hayes Schmick (1917–1987), who had “read in the ‘Grit’
about the new club for rocket enthusiasts which you are
starting . . . ” Schmick wrote he was interested in rockets
“ever since I can remember.” With his grandfather,
“an inventor with about 250 patents”, he had worked
on rocket projects but “lacked equipment to complete
rocket motor.” Hungerford noted on the envelope in
pencil, “I answered this letter – and – have among my
papers designs of several rocket craft – look for them in
the brief [?] cases & et. [sic]” In ink on the letter itself,
Hungerford wrote, “June – 8 – 1964 This lad was disinherited
by his father for his interest in rocketry. He has
a laboratory with several others and they have developed
several things not rockets. Our club did not materialize.
Not enough interest. Daniel D. Hungerford.”
As noted above, Hungerford contemplated the construction
of a second rocket car, a project perhaps started
but certainly never finished; a newspaper story from
1936 reported that Hungerford was “developing a rocket-propelled
automobile.” 122 Whether this reference
was to the extant car or a second vehicle is not made
clear. Other individuals, of course, built rocket-powered
automobiles. In 1939 Popular Science published photographs
of a rocket-shaped automobile which, as the
Hungerford car, was started on a reciprocating piston
engine before a “booster rocket” was fired. The builder
of the aluminum-bodied “Mars Express” reportedly
was Peter Vacca of Buffalo. 123
Chapter Four: The Hungerford Rocket Car 27