Slashdot Mirror
Build Your Own Cruise Missile
WegianWarrior writes "Bruce Simpson, the man behind one of the more interesting site about pulsejets on the web, has launched a project to build a US$5000
DIY cruisemissile - just to prove that it can be done, since some said his earlier
article about it was off the peg. Bruce has also designed and placed on his site a non-weld
pulsejet you can build with simple tools, a 2D airflow modeling rig and a new valve/injector design for conventional pulsejets (according to the first page on his
site, this new design is placed in the public domain)." We linked to his pulsejet pages about two years ago.
I'm told you can buy Chinese Silkworm cruise missiles for $25K or so at your friendly arms bazaar. The Silkworm is basically a Mig-17 airframe with the pilot replaced by a guidance system. Man, this stuff is scary.
Lucky he doesn't live in America, or he'll be branded as a terrorist and thrown in prison without any formal charges.
The real question is not 'how do we prevent terrorist from using this king of stuff' , since if joe-nobody can build a cruise missile in his backyard, you can be sure that terrorist organisations could have built it years ago. However, they do not need to buy their own missile. They have enough money to buy *quality* missiles from kind multinational corporations when they want to.
The question this article raises is why would somebody who is not totally out of his mind would want to build a cruise missile. I don't think the *geek* factor alone would be a correct answer. A cruise missile... as if the world needed more of those. I cannot believe the man could not find anything more useful to build.
if you are an American, especially an unemployed one (which thankfully I am not), it's not funny at all.
.iq during the "war".
Nothing like launching tons of these into
Why not spend that money on getting the 8.8 million people that are currently unemployed some jobs?
And the cost of putting a limit on informatin in areas such as electronics or rocket science would be *way* over what anyone would accept.
The best way to prevent a terrorist attack with LCCM's is to keep an eye on who's who in rocket scienc, jet propulsion and turbo jets.
The powerplant on the rocket is the one single component that i difficault to get(buy) or construct.
Or better (like thats gonna happen); try to eliminate the reason behind the fact that there actually are (probably) somone who wants to fire a LCCM on New York.
Melius mori in libertate quam vivere in servitute.
Just go ahead and put out the plans for a rudementary cruise missle. Your country is in no danger of getting attacked. Oh wait, al Qaeda hates Australia and New Zealand now, too! Damn, that's going to be ironic indeed when you get smoked by your own design.
By the way, it doesn't matter if the missle has a guidance system or not. Just as long as any civilians are killed, Osama and his minions are happy. Very much like the Nazis with the V-1/V-2. Didn't matter if it hit anything important, just as long as it killed a few people in London.
Yes. Please do.
Right to bear arms (poor bear...) is to protect yourself from a tyrannical government... when the government has smart bombs, nuclear weapons, and the brand-new F-22 Raptor at it's disposal, a 30-06 rifle is about as useful as a shiv made from an old spoon.
God forbid anyone have a hobby and share with people how to do it! It's just immoral.
Especialy when it's obvious that terrorists are way to stupid to figure any of this stuff out themselves.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
Ever notice how we are all worried about terrorists building bombs, missles, etc and they just crash a plane into a building?
----
All of whose base are belong to the what-now?
Based on the stuff he's buying, he doesn't have to even *try* to do it surreptitiously. It's all stuff that's used for many mundane purposes. Until it's all put together, it's as harmless and commonplace as dirt.
Just when does this become illegal or a threat to the public?
Never. You know that thing... freedom of speech?
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
Looking at the picture and diagram, its shaped like a missile, but it is basically a big engine; it isn't designed to carry payload apparently.
Unfortunately they've been dumbing down the high school chemistry books to make sure students can't figure out how to from those books. They've ruined chemistry classes in the pathetic attempt to prevent students from learning "bad things".
As the $5K budget shows, this is within the range of an individual or small organization.
I've been expecting something like this for the last several years, but I expected to find out about it on the news, i.e. somebody used it on somebody, not on the Web.
Tech Public Policy stuff
You see, the URL ending in .nz denotes New Zealand. Ashcroft has no jurisdiction there. Of course, if I were this fellow I wouldn't plan on any vacations to the states for a while, but frankly if I lived in a fair country such as New Zealand I'd be loath to waste my hard earned (and undervalued) dollars coming to this place. Seems to me that those in the know are considering escape.
ehintz
That is indeed insightful. You're right. Instead of using our chemistry courses to teach the scientific method, we should be teaching how to create explosives. Let's go back to the 1900s, when any child could walk into a pharmacy and purchase nitro and opium, cheerfully dispensed by the neighborhood chemist.
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
Funny, if they can just steal them, why did Iraq, a nation which presumably has its own scientists, have to purchase so much stuff from France, Germany, Russia and China?
Why do terrorists require state sponsorship?
The reason is logistics. You can't be sure what you're going to get when you steal it. Military hardware, like any hardware, has to be compatible with certain systems. It breaks down and needs repairs. So terrorists go to states which have militaries and thus have the infrastructure for maintaining systems in working order.
That's why Bush the Baathist regime: to send a clear message to dictators that aiding and abetting terrorists would cost them dearly.
Note that we *didn't* target civilians, the power in Iraq stayed on (for the most part) and Iraqis went about their business during a war.
The only people wetting their pants were thugs like Assad, saying, "will I be next?"
First of all, they're not all terrorists, so there are different ways to engage each threat. Let's assume you're talking about terrorists.
They need a friendly environment in which to hide and train. This is easy today, with many people hating the US. The hatred can be tempered by deeds: perceived sensitivity and fairness in dealing with Palestine; transparent and fair rebuilding of Iraq. Basically, improve the chances that a righteous Arab would call the cops on the terrorists living next door.
They need money. People angry at the US give money to terrorists. Decrease this anger, and they are left with a few independently wealthy fundamentalists, whose assets are much easier to track down and seize.
They need weapons. You might be aware that the US is one of the biggest exporters of weapons. You don't have to cut it out, but you do want to be more careful who you sell them to.
It seems we have a bit of a paradox here:
But the above hasn't happened. With the spectacular exception of September 11 (which wasn't achieved through high-tech means), the best terrorists have been able to do is conventional bombing, and they haven't been able to kill that many people, even Israelis.
So, what's the problem with the above argument?
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
--Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
Depends what they are being launched from. And how far up they are when launched.
A 'cruise missile' without an explosive payload is just a model jet with a sophisticated guidance system.
Perhaps the term 'missile' is a term that carries a negative connotation, but semantics should really not affect the fundamental issue that it is OK to experiment with aeronautics and electronics in your back yard because its your back yard and we (well, Bruce does) live in a moe-or-less free society.
Personally, i would think a more interesting goal would be to build something akin to a Predator UAV than a cruise missile, but that is just me.
John Carmack is trying to build a fucking InterContinental Ballistic Missile in his backyard, but everyone seems to love that project.
I gots ta ding a ding dang my dang a long ling long
painfully obvious that anyone with half a mind and a bit of ingenuity can create a decent weapon. What's left? Perhaps we all stop being gready sods and start treating others in the world with respect...i.e. give them a fair shake.
The security issue is a classic excuse to eat ones own tail. Secrecy solves nothing as basic information and some intelligence is all that's required to come up with some new and nasty way to off your fellow human.
So, how do we manage to do group therapy on the national scale? It's obviously required. The fear, the paranoia, the willingness to become more ignorant and let others deal with your "freedom" is a sure sign that the island is sinking. Get help...now before you do something that you regret. Oh wait, that's already happened....drats!
It's impossible to know jack shit about chemistry withouut knowing how to make some sorts of incendiary or explosive mixtures. Unless all you know is what you've memorized by rote and you dont understand any of the underlying principles, in which case you dont know jack.
Repeal the DMCA!
Are you actually trying to compare accident statistics between commercial fixed-wing aircraft and military helecopters? Don't you think that the operating parameters are a little different? The very nature of the operations military helecopters undertake makes them more risky-- not necessarily the fact that they are helecopters. I won't argue that helecopters aren't more dangerous, but I'd say the bigger danger is that they're flying in close formation at low altitudes.
BTW, unmanned aircraft are not permitted to fly over populated areas.
Keep in mind the tridents are our third iteration of total world anhiliation. our first was long range bombers flying with nukes, our second were remote ICBM silos, there were many of them scattered throught the midwest. The third, and current method are trident equiped subs. Remember -- the point of a tactical nuke was to keep the president from ever pressing the button that would cause the coded messages to be sent to the planes/silos/subs.
It's possibe that with trident subs that they could retaliate up to month after the end of the united states of america. Our prior methods had about a an hour within which they could launch the retalitory strike. Tactical nukes could have caused the russians to 'win' a nuclear war against america prior to the inroduction of nuclear retaliation subs. But there are some valid points that a tactical nuke wouuld need to be powerful enough to instantly destroy the early warning system, while missles were being launched, and simultaniously there would have to be something like a close re-election night bid to destract the president long enough that he might not push the button on hearing that our early warning center was destroyed, and we have no idea if the russians are launching at us or not...
https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html