When I was a kid, I used to build those Estes rocket kits that you could shoot into the air a few hundred feet. I always seemed to get the tail fins crooked and the things would fly all sideways and stuff.

A couple geeks have taken rocketry to the next level and put a SmallSat made up of an Nexus One smartphone and Arduino onto the back of a big rocket dubbed intimidator-5 and blasted the thing into the sky. The project was followed by Make for its DIY Space issue.

This huge Ford F650 pickup truck has something that the typical model does not. A 7,000HP GE J85 jet engine. Which makes it less of a pick-up truck and more of a rocket on wheels.

The truck is capable of reaching speeds of up to 200MPH and is apparently street legal, as long as the engine isn’t firing. Though that won’t be good for anyone if it misfires. Not that anyone could catch you.

Ah memories. Remember the Battlestar and Star Trek replica rockets from Estes? That was about 20 years ago. Estes discontinued them a long time ago, but you can still build one today.

Verna Rockets has the full skinny on its own builds, with links to several sites for parts and instructions. So what are you waiting for? Go build a flying model rocket that looks like a Viper, the U.S.S. Enterprise, and even The Black Hole Space Probe from “The Black Hole” movie. This is really awesome news. Anytime you combine rockets with Battlestar Galactica, it’s all win.

Hamsters are like people. Most are lazy and just sit around eating. Some enjoy the simple pleasures of a wheel, so they can stay trim. Then there are those select few who dare to dream and have “the right stuff”.

To paraphrase Kennedy, “We choose to put a hamster in a rocket before this decade is out, not because it is easy, but because it is hard.” So, make your hamster a national hero by buying him this Hamster Rocket Ship Funhouse so it thinks that it’s part of NASA. Just leave him in there for a while and change the scenery in front of the widow. He’ll never know. Then when he comes back to Earth, you can give him a parade in one of these.

Pump this Rocket Iron Man until it reaches maximum power, then hit the launch button, it will soar up to 40 feet. At 40 feet, the glide ejects and flies back to Earth, while Rocket Iron Man falls back to Earth like, well like an Iron Man. That makes this toy kinda pointless, but hey you can shoot Iron Man up in the air and that alone makes it worth $35. Just pretend Tony Stark had a few too many drinks as he plummets head first into the dirt.

Ky Michaelson, better known as the Rocketman, has been messing around with rockets most of his life and has even managed to create a few nice rocket inspired contraptions. This is the Rocket Chair. It’s what a dental chair would look like if Flash Gordon were a dentist. It will actually take off and keep you in the air for 45 seconds.

The chair is all metal and even features three wheels that have independent suspensions. A 500 Pound Thrust Hydrogen-Peroxide rocket motor sits behind the chair, which will drink up seven gallons of fuel during it’s forty five second flight. If you want to see it, it will be on display at the Bloomington Art Centre in Minnesota.