The Demise of Model Rocketry?

Mark Lytle writes "Due to restrictions imposed by the rather broad Homeland Security Act, the hobby I suspect many Slashdotters, being technology buffs, grew up with, the Estes Model Rocket is now firmly on the endangered species list. The little cardboard rockets I learned science with in high school are evidently suspected of being potential weapons of mass destruction. Go figure. Perhaps by getting involved, we can stop this sillyness... Anyway, i hope so...."

Comments

Very Sad

[Spencerian]

I've been launching rockets since I was six. I taught rocketry at a summer camp. Had to explain the facts of the Challenger incident to kids. Launching rockets perked them up and showed that, at least for them, life can go on.

Basic model rockets (not including the larger amateur rockets) can move fast, but I can't see their immediate danger to the public, as the Estes-type rockets stick to the =1 lb. rule, with very little medal, a plastic or balsa wood nose cone, and limited motor impulse, meaning that it can't lift anything huge. Any kid can tell you that a model rocket self-destructs easily when it strikes anything but air.

Now, I can see some yahoo loading up a Big Bertha payload rocket with a few grams of anthrax and trying to spread it over a neighborhood--that's a sad possibility. Much less likely to use these things as missiles as they just can't hold a lot of explosive charge and would only be dangerous enough in a salvo.

Also, model rockets of the store-bought type have basic aerodynamic stability with fins--no electronic guidance. So, even if the motor could burn long enough (which they can't--about 2-10 sec max), you couldn't guide the thing anywhere. The motors are solid, so there's no way to rig the basic rocket as a liquid-fuel missile, either.

I'd be more worried about R/C planes, which can carry more because they generate lift and can be guided over long distances.

How does this affect fireworks?

[wadetemp]

Aren't those considered class 1 explosives as well? I've definitely seen fireworks with more propellant potential than an Estes rocket (just not the aerodynamics.)

Or are all these wussy shipping corporations who would rather piss customers off then deal with a regulation even touching fireworks in the first place? (It's not like they're made in the US, so I assume they get shipped to the netherregions of the US somehow...)

you're supposed to notify the FAA also

[avi33]

At a local hobby shop, they now have a sign instructing you to inform the FAA of the approximate day and time of your launches.

For years, people have been launching them on the beach north of Chicago, and some of them can pop up on radar in curious ways. Rather than scrambling a few jets to investigate, they ask that you report launches in advance.

Re:How does this affect X-Prize class rocketry ?

[pngwen]

There are lots of hoops. A great deal depends on how high you will go, proximity to airports and military bases, the size of the missile, a whole lot of stuff.

I used to launch small amateur rockets and I remember having to organize things with the FAA for the window of time I would be in the comercial air space. Basically it's like filing a flight plan with a flight controller. They verify that is a safe window when you are not as likely to shoot down a plane.

Once you go above a certain altitude, however, you enter military air space and you have a whole other animal to deal with. They ask the tough questions like "why do you want to launch this missile?"

All in all, I only built about 3 rockets that went higher than commercial airspace. These flew to about 100-200 thousand feet above sea level. (100,000; 120,000; 180,000 to be exact) It took me more time getting all the permissions I needed to launch the darn things than it did to engineer them.

Other hurdles are the handling of the propellants, the little tasty bit of info about solid rocket propellants is that it is difficult to design a solid fuel motor that doesn't explode on the launch pad. Also, there is the fact that in a lot of counties you have to have a fire marshall present when you are handling the explosives.

It's a tough hobby from a legal sense, and probably rightly so. Even from behind a bunker of sand bags, I have been knocked flat on my back from the concussion of a solid rocket explosion that was 300 yards away from me. In my earliest attempt at making a high performance rocket I actually had one explode and later found pieces of shrapnel ebedded in asphalt farther DOWNRANGE of my position. So it is rought with danger, failures are catastrophic, and if you aren't very very careful you will die if you try to build one of these.

Also, I had built rockets with a useful payload of up to 3 kg, more than enough to load up enough explosives to blow up a building, not that I would of course.