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Wanna Buy a Reusable Rocket for 19k USD?

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the cheap-thrill dept.

Anonymous Coward writes with story from the Mainchi Daily News: "'Earlier this month, Hokkaido University started putting its Camui rockets on the open market. Camui rockets are true rockets, being 1.6 meters long, flying at 300 meters per second and parachuting slowly to the ground after reaching heights of up to 1 kilometer.' The Camui use a mixture of fixed fuel acrylic and liquid oxygen."

15 of 153 comments (clear)

  1. regulations by rguiu · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Can anybody buy his/her own rocket and launch it from the backyard?

    With so much airtraffic is not a danger?

    Can be this technology used for making weapons? I remember the article of someone building cruise missiles: http://slashdot.org/articles/03/12/09/205252.shtml ?tid=137

    Seems very nice, but I would not like a plane shot down because a rich kid was playing with one of this toys.

    1. Re:regulations by DrXym · · Score: 2, Interesting
      I was landing at San Jose airport once and there were fireworks were exploding all around the plane. I have no idea why, and I doubt a tiny cracker would harm a jet, but it didn't seem like a good thing to me.

      Still, if I were a terrorist I wouldn't be looking to buy some proper rocket system. Over the counter fireworks seem like a great way to dump anthrax spores over a wide area. Do it at an event like bonfire night, July 4, New Years Eve etc. and you'd probably have a nice crowd of people standing underneath to infect too.

    2. Re:regulations by The_REAL_DZA · · Score: 3, Interesting

      "Can this technology used for making weapons?"

      For some strange reason, there's something | There
      called a "lameness filter" that repeatedly | are
      rejected all attempts to post this message | lots
      the way I wanted it to appear and saying I | of
      had too few characters per line and that I | technologies
      needed to reduce the count of "junk" chars | that
      per line in my post. Perhaps it's just me, | can
      but I think that making me do something so | be
      TOTALLY HOKEY as THIS, JUST so the post'll | used
      appear the way I intended for it to appear | to
      somehow seems MUCH more hokey, in the long | make
      run... But maybe I'm just being too ornery | weapons...

      You just have to learn to think like this guy
      and turn yourself into a human one of these.

      --


      This space intentionally left (almost) blank.
  2. why is this here? by poptones · · Score: 5, Interesting

    a km? I made a solid fuel estes when I was in Jr. High that would go to 3000ft (more or less a km) and it required none of that other crap. It was about a meter tall, had three stages, and used three solid fuel engines that, all combined, cost about ten bucks.

    Why is this a story? Someone deisgned and constructed an overpriced, hard to use, liquid fuel rocket that can be outperformed by a twenty year old Estes and is offering copies of it for sale, but no one has been stupid enough to buy one yet. This is news?

  3. Re:Second Amendment by rguiu · · Score: 3, Interesting

    can a libian/sirian/north korean citizen protect his own backyard from US airliners too? How far can travel this "second amendment"?

  4. Re:Second Amendment by Stone+Rhino · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Countries have sovereignty over their airspace, just as they do over their seas. They're free to withdraw overflight privileges and shoot down any plane that tries to enter, but to do so is likely to cause a diplomatic incident.

    --


    Remember, there were no nuclear weapons before women were allowed to vote.
  5. Wanna build a reuseable rocket for 20 bucks USD? by mikeophile · · Score: 3, Interesting

    http://www.h2orocket.com/

  6. Within Three Seconds? by Rie+Beam · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I Googled for "Camui rockets", to see if the whole "1 km" deal was true. From what I read, this article was taken from an AP article, which originally read:

    "The Camui-50P rocket was developed by a team from Hokkaido University and can fly as high as one kilometer (0.6 mile) within three seconds after take off"

    Dunno if that means "that's as high as it gets" or "that's how high it can get within that short amount of time"; for $19,000, though, let's hope it's the second one.
  7. Re:pictures ... by Rie+Beam · · Score: 1, Interesting

    "CAMUI means "God"."

    I can buy God for only $19,000?

  8. Re:Be sure to read the fine print: by Skye16 · · Score: 2, Interesting

    This may not even be legal in the United States - at least for long.

    I mean, come on, if they're going to ban model rockets like Estes (and their engines), how long until they do the same with these?

  9. Real Rockets! by Natchswing · · Score: 4, Interesting
    > Camui rockets are true rockets (...) reaching heights of up to 1 kilometer.

    One kilometer?? DEBI was a real rocket. [pictures] About 30 feet long, two stage solid fuel. With 40 G's acceleration it reached mach 10 in a little under 30 seconds (below 40km altitude) and sailed to a apogee of about 800km. Since the rocket had a ballistic trajectory we needed clearance through the pentagon to circumvent the anti-ballistic missle treaty.

    Even little baby Loki Dart's will reach 50km on a good day.

  10. Re:Be sure to read the fine print: by eam · · Score: 2, Interesting

    They're going to ban Estes rockets?

  11. Re:Be sure to read the fine print: by Skye16 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I guess not the rockets themselves, just the engines.

    1
    2

    And I'm sure Google has even more info on it. I haven't seen anything new on it, so I have no idea what has happened since then. I haven't seen any new complaints, but I also haven't seen anything to indicate people being happy it didn't pass, so...

  12. Re:Second Amendment by foobsr · · Score: 2, Interesting

    One of those U2s was also shot above the SU a little earlier.

    CC.

    --
    TaijiQuan (Huang, 5 loosenings)
  13. Re:WMD? by Guppy06 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Why? Japan is the largest aircraft carrier in the US Navy!