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.

Comments

Chinese Silkworm cruise missile

[phr2]

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.

Re:this raises some interesting questions indeed .

[taxelxii]

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.

Re:this raises some interesting questions indeed .

[EinarH]

how do we prevent terrorist from using this kind of stuff ?

You can't protect yourself 100% from the fact that terrorist could construct and use a LCCM. The illusion of security is something that you just have top deal with. The illusion that a nation can protect itself 100% from a terrorist attack is quite naive.

limiting acces to knowledge (with DMCA style laws)?

Won't work. The information someone needs to do this is already public. Everything one needs about electronics, mechanics, jet engines, physics, math, rochet science etc.; it's all avalible as for someone to "piece togheter".

creating a orwellian policial state where all are suspect ans subject to vigilance (and who controls the vigilantes) ?

With PATRIOT ACT and the enchanced PATRIOT II you will probably get there faster than you know of..

limitating the publication of (now) public-domain stuff ('cause it can be used to devilish ends) ?

Well I doubt that would work since someone who wants the information could get it from Europe, Russia or/and Asia.
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.

Re:it's really not funny.

[atam]

While this money spent on weapons does translate to some employment, it should be noted that a lot of the defence budget are actually spent towards R&D. You could waste billions of dollars to test run dozens of the experimental weapon in order to get it work correctly. This money does not necessarily create that many employment. It is much better off spending the money on infrastructure projects, such as repairing broken highways, bridges, schools, etc. It will not only get more people to be employed, but also improve the general living standard.

Yeah, whatever

[autopr0n]

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.

Re:this raises some interesting questions indeed .

[timeOday]

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.

I doubt you could appease Kim Chong-il, Timothy McVeigh, Bin Laden, and the Unibomber all at the same time, even if you tried.

Re:Wow

[qazxsw]

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".

Re:it's really not funny.

[Wyatt Earp]

When you put money in R&D, you are paying for saleries.

CAT, PET, MRI are all spin-offs of Nuclear Weapon design tools.

Roads, Bridges and Schools, while are somewhat funded by the Federal Government are for the most part the resonsability of the State and Local Governments.

There is a flier up at PSU of a cartoon in which the teacher is ranting that the US is going to start a war while Portland OR schools are having a funding problem with the implication that it's Washington's problem.

It isn't.

The problems with state budgets at this point are amplified by bad tax and monetary policies at the District, City, County, and State governments.

Here in Oregon the state legislature spent $212,000 for new chairs while selling the old ones for .$77 each.

Additionally, Oregon's legislators reportedly spent more than $500,000 of taxpayer money on newsletters and travel to resorts in Hawaii and Florida.

When they found out they couldn't get $400,000 of new Thinkpads there was a near revolt.

When a state gets money, they do stupid shit. I say spending it on DoD and NASA is alot better than pissing it away with things like the Big Dig. 5 years and 11 billion dollars late?

Lets fund the Mob! Lets repair something.

Throwing money at a problem caused by bad fiscal policy doesn't fix the problem.

If you have someone with a credit card problem do you hand them another card?

Re:this raises some interesting questions indeed .

[GlassHeart]

I doubt you could appease Kim Chong-il, Timothy McVeigh, Bin Laden, and the Unibomber all at the same time

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.

So why aren't these attacks happening?

[Goonie]

It seems we have a bit of a paradox here:

1. Terrorists want to kill as many Americans/Israelis/whomever as possible.
2. Anybody with access to the internet, basic levels of clue, and moderate amounts of cash, can screw together cruise missiles, dirty bombs, chemical weapons, etc etc, in complete secrecy.
3. Chemical weapons, cruise missiles etc. are an effective way of killing people.
4. Intelligence/police agencies are incapable of preventing such attacks before they occur.
5. Therefore, given the above, lots of people should be dead through cruise missile/chemical weapon/insert diabolical nasty weapon here attacks by terrorists.

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?

Re:it's really not funny.

[Chris Tucker]

So atam sez:

(stupid shit about $600 toilet seats)

OK, listen up.

It wasn't a toilet seat of the type you sit your fat ass on.

It was a fiberglass unit that incorporated a toilet seat, while covering the entire toilet mechanism that was installed on an aircraft.

The DoD bought ~50 of them (possibly fewer) and each and every one of them HAD to be essentially hand made.

Why? Because automating the procedure would have increased the unit cost by an order of magnitude.

You want to know where all those $500 hammers come from? The PAPERWORK, that's where.

Your head would explode if you knew of the obscene amounts of paperwork required for a government entity to buy anything.

And you have to pay the people who fill out the forms and someone has to supply that money to pay the bureaucrats who fill out those forms.

Overreaction by Americans

[ikekrull]

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.