In early March of 2020, we received an email from a member of the crew producing the CBS TV show “Young Sheldon.” The email requested a quote for two out-of-production kits, the Estes “Young Astronaut Club” Cadet, that we were selling and asked if we had any other products that were from the time period represented in the show.

A spin-off of the popular TV show “The Big Bang Theory,” “Young Sheldon” is set in the late 1980s and early 1990s. The show follows Sheldon Cooper, a naive child prodigy with extreme intelligence, strict routines, and zero social filters, starting at age nine as he skips grade school to attend high school and college in East Texas.

The email didn’t give us any clue as to how the products were to be used in the show, so Bracha and I assembled and painted two of the Cadets. We sent the two built rockets along with a few other older rockets we found and two of the Cadet kits unassembled in their bags to the show’s address in California.

I replied to the email and described what we were sending. I received a “thank you” email in response which said that even if none of the rockets we sent would work as the prop they needed, they might show up as set dressing or find their way home with one of the show’s young actors.

We received that email on Friday, March 13. A few days later, we saw a news article saying that Warner Brothers was shutting down production of several TV shows including “Young Sheldon” due to the COVID-19 crisis.

Months later, at the beginning of November, we saw a commercial for the upcoming episode of “Young Sheldon,” the first air after the shutdown and the first of the new TV season.

For a brief second, you can see Sheldon opening a wrapped package to reveal that his High School graduation gift is a boxed Estes Explorer Aquarius model rocket kit.

That was not one of the things we had sent to the show. The scene of Sheldon opening the gift is not in the final episode and neither are the rockets that we sent.

The kit was not one of the things we had mailed to the show. And the scene of Sheldon opening his gift did not appear in the episode.

We did not spot the rockets that we provided in that episode..So, we started looking in the background while watching the show just hoping to spot a familiar rocket or two. While some rockets were seen on a shelf in the garage where Sheldon would retreat to play with his train set, they were there in earlier episodes.

We had to wait a few years until the final episode of Young Sheldon aired in May of 2024. As Sheldon prepares to move to California, he is scene packing up things from a shelf in his bedroom. And there they are ….

In Sheldon’s left hand, he grabs one of the Estes Cadets that Bracha and I built. Also on the shelf are a few other rockets including an Alpha III, which may be the one we sent, and an Astrocam 110 that we did provide.

Moving is exciting.  Moving is challenging. Moving is a lot of work And, as we are demonstrating, moving is time-consuming!

We are still working hard to get JonRocket.com back on line. We have all of our inventory in our new office. Most of it is unpacked and sorted. We still have some things to unpack.  

We are also continuing to move furniture and fixtures into the office. Almost all of the furniture and fixtures are new (or, at least, new to us). Some arrived in big cartons with assembly instructions spelled out in hieroglyphics. 

The office now has internet service and we are starting to set up the computers and printers that we use to process orders.

We started to “flip the switch” to enable the online store this weekend (March 4-5).  But, realized that we weren’t quite ready and trying to process orders while still setting up the office was not really a good idea. Bracha and I apologize for how long it is taking, but we have decided to continue to take our time and do things right.

We are currently in the process of moving JonRocket.com to a new location.

We will have more room to stock a larger selection of rocketry kits, supplies, accessories, and motors.

During the move, we are closing our online store.  Once the move is completed, we’ll be back!

We understand that this is not the best time, but a combination of circumstances has forced us to close our store temporarily during the move. We had hoped to be back in business in time to support your holiday shopping, but the move is taking longer than expected.

We are now estimating that our store will be back online around the end of February.

Thanks to every one of our customers and friends for your support since we started running JonRocket.com over seven years ago.  We look forward to serving the rocketry community for many years to come!