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Rocket Hobbyists Prevail Over Feds In Court Case
Ellis D. Tripp writes "DC District Court judge Reggie Walton has finally ruled in the 9-year old court case pitting the model rocketry community against the US Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. The ruling is a 'slam dunk' for the rocketry community, stating that the BATFE ignored scientific evidence and overstepped its bounds by classifying ammonium perchlorate composite propellant (APCP) as an 'explosive.' Effective immediately, the BATFE has no legal jurisdiction over hobby rocket motors, and a federal Low Explosives User's Permit will no longer be needed in order to purchase APCP motors. The full text of the Judge's decision is reproduced at the link."
This next season of Mythbusters is gonna be AWESOME!!
Now that I think about it, I'm pretty sure everything I just said is completely wrong.
For most of my adult life it felt like we were constantly taking steps backward. It's nice to see freedom win over "safety," for a change. May this be the first of many rulings that empower people and encourage the academic spirit.
A government is a body of people notably ungoverned - AC
The ATF announced that they are going to refocus on conducting raids on wacky religious leader's compounds... Because they are much better at doing that.
Let the toy soldiers wear their camouflage underwear and play with their guns. Those of us in the know see the key in chemistry, physics, and the willingness to build a gadget that will solve the problem. For better or worse.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
The BATFE is the most redundant element of the US government. The FBI covers the B, the F and the E. The FDA covers the A and the T. What's left?
The large 5 five foot long 6" in diameter rocket motors that you are talking about are only done by professionalsm, are extremely rare, and are generally not for sale to the public. Before launching something of that size, there are other agencies that have to be coordinated with such as the FAA who require distances, maps, trajectories and all sorts of information. I am not up to that level yet, but I'm close to that level. The biggest concern for the rocketry community with this lawsuit is that people were not able to aquire a rocket motor because of the paperwork involved in getting the license. Many people simply couldn't because they lived within 75 feet of a neighbor.
My biggest thrill was watching us give a demonstration to the ATF when they visited us, we lit the rocket motor (or explosive as they refer to it) and then watched all these agents lean forward to look at this thing on the ground that was burning like a road flare.
Mentos and Pepsi.
-Sean
In the figurative sense certainly, by hiring an 'expert' to do their testing who knew nothing about the field, produced results that were nonsensical and pretty much conducted scientific fraud at the behest of ATFE. Proper expert testimony was provided by rocket motor manufacturers who had worked in the field for the government and/or contractors, still consulted to the government, and worked on other projects like SpaceShip 1. Why ATFE didn't see this coming is a mystery.
They also nearly blew themselves up literally. They 'required' one of the motor manufacturers to sell them motors at market price (he had initially declined). They rented a van, loaded up their rockets and headed to the desert to do some testing. They intended to prove that high powered rockets could be used to bring down an aircraft. They ignored the rules that virtually all rocketers follow regarding distance between launcher and people, rockets and motors. They launched one out of the back of the van. The back blast lit their other motors in the van. Their rented van proceeded to burn merrily to the ground. They denied it, but it was proven otherwise. They started to try to get a gag order but apparently used their one and only Blinding Glimpse of the Obvious on this rather than one the case as a whole.
As for other regulation, high powered rocketry has been well regulated all along, just as its little cousin, model rocketry, is. The rules originated with G. Harry Stine, one time range safety officer at White Sands and pioneer of model rocketry. The high powered rules evolved over time, and have been considered acceptable in development and content by the FAA, the National Fire Protection Association, and similar relevant agencies. We have been trusted for 50 years to develop and follow our own regulations suitable to these agencies. Now we can ignore the arbitrary, stifling, baseless rules concocted by ATFE (put into force without due process) and carry on another 50 years. The regulations we have in place cover all airframes and power systems up through 200,000 newtons, where the FAA's office of space transportation takes over.
The standing regulations for high powered rocketry are available the National Association of Rocketry at http://nar.org/hpcert/NARhprintro.html Only high powered motors were involved in the ruling. Model rockets (including "large model rockets", up to 3.3 pounds loaded and 4 ounces of propellant) were not involved.
As for APCP, although it produces a large amount of exhaust gas which can be channeled through a nozzle to produce thrust (see the space shuttle's boosters for an example), it burns at about the rate of a piece of paper. Thus while it might "conflagerate" it is hardly worth bothering with as an explosive. It is actually more profitable to use small model rocket motors for explosives as they are black powder.
NAR #28965, High Power Certification level 1
Rocketeer since June 1964
"I may be synthetic, but I'm not stupid." -- Bishop 341-B
This is simply not true.
First, the FAA (Office of Commercial Spaceflight, or AST) regulates rocketry unless it's intended to be a weapon. I.e., don't load it with explosives or flash powder, or fire it horizontally from a tube, and it's fine.
Second, guided rockets are fairly ok now.
The old FAA regulations for rockets treated guided rockets as needing permits or waivers for flights. Now, if you're under certain altitude thresholds and far enough from an airport, it's fine - hovering flight under guidance out on a ranch for example just requires calling the nearest airport and notifying them.
A flight out of one of the (few) unregulated airspace locations in the US (Black Rock desert, for example) to any altitude, with a rocket with less than 200,000 pound thrust-seconds of impulse (up to about a thousand pounds of propellant, give or take some performance normalizing) also requires no permitting or waiver, other than notifying the nearest airport a day ahead of time.
Larger rockets, or rockets flown near airports, or not far from innocent bystanders, are subject to increasing scrutiny for safety (of the general public and overflying aircraft).
Even if you do reach the size or performance that requires a waiver or permit, doing the paperwork is being found by experience to be less burdensome than doing a decent job of designing the rocket and testing it. It just isn't the hardest part of it. If you're spending six months to a year building it, what's a month or two's part time effort on the paperwork?
If you're in that performance regime and flying near where you could conceivably kill someone, the FAA will quite reasonably give you plenty of free advice on how not to do that, as will plenty of other amateur and semi-professional and professional rocketry people... John Carmack's Armadillo Aerospace has helped other companies and groups out a lot with advice and moral support, and he's far from the only one.