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DIY Cruise Missile Designer Turns Freelance
js7a writes "Bruce Simpson of New Zealand, the designer of a homebrew cruise missile as reported here, has been left destitute by hastily-imposed restrictions of his national authorities, and is now offering his services to any non-terrorist willing to provide room, board, travel, expenses, and a negotiated rate. There is no question that cruise missile, UAV, bio-warfare, chemical weapons technology, and probably nuclear technologies will all continue to fall in cost significantly for the foreseeable future."
Awesome, so I'll see this guy on this list real soon now, right?
[o]_O
ehhh....., both india and pakistan already have long-range missiles capable of delivering nukes. /T
Warning: This sig contains a small bug. ==> *
Latest diary entry seems to indicate its not shut down at all:
e /d iary.shtml
http://www.interestingprojects.com/cruisemissil
Though it has the exact same date as the "goverment moves aggressively" article. Anyone following it closer know?
Mossad, and Mr. Gerald Bull. Plenty of googlefodder if you're interested.
"Eve of Destruction", it's not just for old hippies anymore...
Good idea mentioning Bull, but a really, really bad description of his life.
;) The cost of the project was tiny compared to most rocket programs, and they almost succeeded. Fascinating program, really.
Gerald Bull was a revolutionary ballistics designer; he was insturmental in pioneering such fields as sabot-launched projectiles (including the use of such projectiles for to replace hypersonic wind tunnel testing of objects). He also developed the concept of "base bleed" - in general,using a small rocket motor on the back of a projectile, not to provide thrust, but to fill the vaccum created as the projectile moves.
His first job after graduation was with CARDE, a Canadian research institution funded mostly by government projects. He worked on a few projects there, and due to his somewhat tactless nature (such as publicly questioning the intelligence of his funders at times), created his first enemies (in what was to become a long string of them).
While working at McGill University after CARDE, he got Pentagon and Canadian funding for the infamous HARP (High Altitude Research Project) (read Astronautix.com's summary of it - it's a very interesting read). HARP developed guns both in Barbados and Canada, with the Canadian guns used for testing, and the Barbados guns used for launches to take advantage of the Earth's rotation. The net goal of HARP was to get a projectile into orbit. Their main gun was a huge smoothbore made from two welded 16' naval guns, burning ungodly amounts of cordite; its fireball when it went off was huge
A lot of stuff happened. Partly because of political differences over the Vietnam war, and partly because Bull had made several influential people in the Canadian government mad, funding got pulled. Their last dash to get a projectile into orbit failed, and the gun has been sitting idle ever since.
Bull took all of the tech that he could and founded his own company. While he wanted to keep pursuing what HARP was working on, he basically had little choice but to make artillery pieces if he wanted to stay afloat. Using base bleed, he created some of the world's longest range and most accurate artillery pieces of the time. The US allowed (some say encouraged) him to sell weapons to South Africa, which were funnelled into Angola. However, an (overzealous?) customs agent brought charges against him; he served a short term in prison, and was released, bitter.
He moved to Brussels and agreed to sell weapons to the highest bidder, anyone except the USSR. He sold several systems to countries such as China, before finding a sponsor in Saddam Hussein. However, to be allowed to implement the ballistic-launch concept, he agreed to work on several other projects, most notably the al-Hussein missiles (enhanced SCUDs).
The gun he worked on - often called the Babylon Supergun - wasn't much of a threat to anyone. It used the concept of slow combustion - basically, having your explosives move along the barrel with the projectile, limiting the force on the barrel at any given point. A smaller version was completed, and the larger version was under construction.
What got him into trouble, however, was the al-Hussein project. While some try and cast it into doubt, there is generally little doubt that his assasination was carried out by the Mossad. His family reported that several times, he had his apartment broken into, and furniture randomly rearranged as a warning. In the end, he was found dead outside his room, five bullets in the back of his neck.
Bull wasn't a well organized person, and both of his projects fell apart without him there. Sanctions against Iraq further led to the confiscation of parts to build the gun (which he had tried to disguise as pipe components). The supergun was finally destroyed after the Gulf War.
The real moral of the story is, if you're a ballistics expert, A) don't tick off your funders, B) don't tick off Israel, and C) learn to take a hint.
"If there was an antonym to 'Elon Musk', it would be 'Richard Branson'."
He claims that they called the tax bill due suddenly because of his 'cruise missile' activities .... and there may well be some truth to this (who knows?) .... but he got himself into this situation himself by not paying his taxes initially
His previous income was from aerospace projects in general, and he built a cruise missile to prove to his government that it could be done by a private party, when they would not listen to him. Now he's completely locked out of the aerospace industry in NZ, so he's given up on helping the gov. and looking to move out.
So you're saying he was an idiot for being patriotic and attempting to help secure his own country against terrorism? I'd say they are the idiots for not listeneing to him.
If he had a public e-mail address up, I would PayPal him a few bucks just because I think he got royally shafted. I'm going to try anyway, actually.
Israel to kill in U.S., allied nations Source: UPI / interviews with former Israeli intelligence agents and CIA agents.
Cite: " Gerald Bull, an Ontario-born U.S. citizen and designer of the Iraqi supergun -- a massive artillery system capable of launching satellites into orbit, and of delivering nuclear chemical or biological payloads from Baghdad to Israel -- was killed in Belgium in March 1990. The killing is still unsolved, but former CIA officials said a Mossad hit team is the most likely suspect."
New evidence of Mossad involvement in Belgium murder case Source: Haaretz Daily (an Israeli newspaper) / the Belgian government
Cite: "The Belgian State Prosecutor is considering reopening a probe into the murder of Canadian scientist Dr. Gerald Bull in Brussels 12 years ago, amid new suspicions that the Mossad was responsible. Belgian police say they have new information that the Mossad was directly involved in killing Bull."
"If there was an antonym to 'Elon Musk', it would be 'Richard Branson'."
And yet, don't you find it frusterating that blunt honesty is so harshly repaid?
May we never see th
This will probably kill my server (perhaps someone can throw it on bit-torrent or mirror it) but there's a video clip on my website from a news and current affairs program here in New Zealand that documented my case.
He wasn't royally screwed by the government. If you read the orignal article (http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=03/12/09/20525 2&mode=thread&tid=137) you'll notice that the reason he lost all his money was due to having not paid his taxes on time and getting nailed for back taxes. Now, some might argue that the reason the government took an intrest in his back taxes was this project, but that's isn't relivant. He wasn't screwed over, he failed to pay taxes he owed, and the government came for them, plus penalties.
Happened to a firend of mine. He ran a bussiness that made sales, but overall lost money. Thing is, he didn't keep track of and write off expenses. So the IRS noticed the extra income, and nailed him with $2000 in back taxes. Kinda sucks, but ulitmately his fault. You are responsible for your taxes and if you can't figure them out, you need to pay someone to do it for you.
Also, trying to make a point like this to the government is STUPID. While NZ doesn't have much of an intelligence service, other nations who this threat would worry, like Israel, Russia and the US, DO. If they think he seriously will sell missles to terrorists, they'll deal with it, and that may involve a massive cerberal hemmorage induced by a bullet to the back of the head.
Really, I think he's being rather petulant. I understand he's pissed that his dream fell through but ultimately, it's his own fault. Even if you are on the best terms with the govenrment, you need to have your taxes in order. If you are doing something they aren't happy with, you REALLY need to have your taxes in order. Al Capone ultimately went down for tax evasion, not murder or anything like that.
If you shortchange the government, even unwittingly, don't be supprised when they come for their due. Pulling a stunt like this ISN'T the way to change that, it's just a way to get in further shit.
If he was smart, he'd try to find a company to go work for just generally in the areonautics industry. He obviously has skills, and someone would likely hire him. Maybe then he can get the money and facilities to restart his research.
One NZ'ers investigation of the GCSB,
New Zealand: "The New Zealand intelligence service has admitted to bludgeoning Mr. Bruce Simpson to death with sticks. New Zealanders have expressed shock that their country actually posseses an intelligence service."
New Zealand does in fact have an intelligence service, three infact, the CIB (Criminal Intelligence Bureau), the SIS (Security Intelligence Service), and the GCSB (Government Communications Security Bureau).
The GCSB (http://www.gcsb.govt.nz/) are the guys who do the satellite communications monitoring for the US government in New Zealand out at the Waihopi satellite monitoring station and up in the North Island somewhere (can't remember where). They also (under the umbrella of MFAT (Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade)) govern the export of encryption stuff. These guys are very secretive and probably do a lot more and have a lot more power than we (the NZ public) are allowed to know. The GCSB was kept totally secret from it's inception in 1977 until 1984 when it was publically acknowledged as existing. [aside: I applied to work for GCSB at one time in my life, they wouldn't tell me what I would be working on except that I'd need very high security clearance which would take very close investigation by the SIS, and it involved programming work for signal analysis - they wanted to know if I objected to reading personal emails & letters/listening to personal communications etc. I can take a good guess that it would be working on improved analysis systems for Echelon's work in NZ. I wasn't successful (but was short listed).]
The SIS (http://www.nzsis.govt.nz/) are the people who do security clearance checks for other government depts (including GCSB, Police and Military), spy operations and counter intelligence work. These guys are a civilian organisation and not quite so secret as the GCSB, they probably also have less power than the GCSB.
The CIB is part of the NZ Police and as such is more like the FBI. They are not very secretive at all.
Huh-- I always thought Ronald Raegan was shot with a .38-- but you seem to be right.
.22s, but the victims were *filled* with bullets. I'm talking about the retaliation for the 1972 Olympics killings.
.22s were chosen because they don't make as much noise, additionally, they halved (?) the charge to further minimize the noise. Of course, that required that you shoot your target multiple times to make sure they were good and dead.
The most famous of the Mossad assinations did indeed use
Unfortunately, on their last mission, they killed the wrong guy-- and his pregnant girlfriend. Oops. Fortunately, they caught Mossad assassins. Unfortunately, I think they were all sent back to Israel.
The book I read about it said
Actually, as you'll see if you watch the video, I *did* turn over suspicious communications to the SIS (the NZ Secret Service) and cooperated with them at their request.
However, since my support of them wasn't reciprocated I formally withdrew that support following the bankruptcy.
I'm buggered if I'm going to be an unpaid employee of a government that would do what they've done to my family.
My attitude now is that I'll simply ignore any communications that I discover to be associated with any potentially undesirable group.
If the SIS want my help, they can pay me for it.
Doesn't matter how close of an ally New Zealand is.
NZ isn't that close of an ally to the US actually, we (New Zealand) won't let the US bring nuclear powered or armed vessels into our waters, and the US doesn't much like us for that.
Every now and then they try and "convince" us otherwise, like waving FTA's (free trade agreements) under our nose or making thinly veiled threats to take something away or not play ball on something.
And every time we give them the finger and tell them to go take thier toys and play somewhere else.
NZ Electronics Enthusiasts: Check out my Trade Me Listings
Made a point that according to NZ gov't you could sell away to the Iranians -- making them look stupid
So making the government look stupid is a crime punishable by impoverishment?
Took the proceeds from the $200K and didn't pay your tax debt, didn't set aside savings or investments for your family and spent the money building something you don't need and lots of people don't want
Not correct. Most of the $200K was spent repaying loans and other costs I'd incurred while building up 7am.com. Work it out -- $200K for 3-years of 18-hour days, 7 days a week with little income. You can build up a lot of debt during that time and $200K doesn't go far repaying it.
It's also worth noting that in the two years following the one in which I received payment for 7am.com, I paid $135K in tax on taxable income of $200K.
That sounds like an awful lot doesn't it?
That's because only a small percentage of that was actual *tax*, the rest was a mountain of interest and penalties that the tax department piled on with glee.
It's worth noting that (because there's no capital gains tax in New Zealand) there was little tax actually owing on the sale of the company. The penalty bill was many, many times the actual tax -- and at the time they bankrupted me, I'd paid the vast majority of that off.
Refused to go on the dole
Yes, like most people I'd rather work for a living than sponge off others. The only problem is that the government has effectively forbidden me from earning a living because there aren't really a whole lot of jobs going for missile designers here in NZ. That's why I'm looking further afield.
Hardly something to criticise is it?
I apologize for going AC on this, but I need a clearance for my job, and am naturally concerned about retaliation for my views.
Israel is undoubtedly the lead cause of terrorism out there (they create terrorists far faster then they kill them). They are an nation kept in existance by the US in pursuit of fundamentalist Christian goals. They actually segment their populace based on what religion you are in, and it sure isn't seperate but equal. Is that your view of a modern, democratic state?
Sorry to reply to my own post but exactly how long were you behind in taxes
In my case the IRD appear to have thrown their own rule book out the door so they felt happy to pile on enormous penalties and refuse to waive them even though they were in breach of the law.
When an Ernst Young tax accountant challenged them on this and requested a meeting as my appointed representitive, they refused to talk with him.
What's more, although I was punished for my own tardy record-keeping, the IRD directly ignored the order of the courts on a number of separate occasions when directed to fix errors in their records.
How bad were their errors?
Well they even got my name wrong and, despite being advised of this and ordered to correct it on THREE separate occasions, by two district court judges and one high-court judge, they still hadn't done so when they applied to bankrupt me.
In fact, the bankruptcy was issued in the wrong name! Yet, in an unprecedented move, the judgement of the High Court was apparently ammended by a clerk who simply changed the name after the event.
On an earlier occasion, the IRD were also harshly berated by the court for not properly accounting for a very large (over)payment I had been made but which not credited to my account.
In fact, their whole approach to this case was unprofessional and, even when I'd gotten all my filing up to date (a year before they filed the bankruptcy move) and paid all but a small amount of the money I was supposed to have owed, their records were still in a shambles.
It seems that nobody, not even the deputy PM or the Minister for Revenue cared about this minor fact -- which again leaves me believing that this was nothing to do with debt recovery and all about scuttling an embarrassing crusise missile project.
erm israel is terrorist state that assasinates so called militant leaders via rocket attacks in the street killing innocent bystanders and bulldozing the homes of civillians for land usurpers. you get a grip!
It's not something new, invented one September 11 a couple of years back, to scare Americans. In one form or another, it's been going on for hundreds if not thousands of years. Most recently, well before 11/09/2001, it's been used in Great Britain, Ireland, Spain, Israel, Jordan, Indonesia, Russia, Egypt, Germany
Sit down, clear your mind, have a cuppa, and think about the word "terrorism", and how terrorism works. To get you started, I'll tell you this : it works by creating fear, aka "terror", out of all proportion to its actions.
Like killing just 3000 people, and getting a country of 220+ million so shit-scared that they're almost prepared to destroy everything they claim to stand for in order to protect themselves from what, so far, has proved to be a one-off event...
What part of "a well regulated militia" do you not understand?
The Americans backed the mujahideen, not the Taliban. It was the mujahideen who were the "freedom fighters" in Afgahanistan. Seems that your bias is coming through.
You may want to read up on the taliban in Afganistan.
To Copy from One is Plagiarism; To Copy from Many is Research.