Within the pages of this excellent book I found this.....and immediately cracked up!
You readers might be wondering why I should find anything even remotely humorous about this rocket.
Here's why....
In my work-a-day world GIRD stands for
"Gastro-Intestinal Reflux Disease".
You, see, boys and girls, I happen to make my living working for a medical equipment company that researches, designs, and manufactures devices that allow Gastroenterologists to detect and diagnose GIRD in their patients.
Of course, the GIRD-09 in Alway's book depicts an early Russian experimental rocket, and has nothing at all to do with chronic heartburn, but I believe it is my destiny to build my very own scale model version - perhaps for no other reason than for the novelty of having a bird in my fleet named 'GIRD' !!
Cheers!
