Feds have banned Model Rockets!? (My Title)

MSNBC ^ | 2/25/03 | By Jim Banke

[ItsTheMediaStupid]

“It is the heart of the problem we face. Because if manufacturers like Estes can’t get rocket motors delivered to stores, the hobby is completely dead,” Van Milligan said. © 2003 Space.com. All rights reserved

[ItsTheMediaStupid]

I don't do this but I had a brother in law who launched some really large ones. I do radio controlled models and the EPA has made the fuel more expensive due to higher shipping charges. I guess they will ban that too.

[martin_fierro]

Estes OMLOID bump!

[Monty22]

That really sucks.. I enjoyed building and firing model rockets during my youth. This is a government nightmare run amok.

[doc30]

“Congress defined an explosive as any chemical mixture or device whose primary or common purpose is to function by explosion,” Enzi wrote to Bradley Buckles, director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (ATF).

Based upon this definition, even gasoline would fit this description since its purpose is to explode inside the cylinder of an internal combustion engine. Does this mean the ATF can "ban" gasoline?

[John H K]

Yep, I lost about 20 rockets in a cornfield myself..

Of course, once I became a teen, there was the inevitable deviation from the "Estes Safety Pledge" and I began with firing rockets at lower than the approved launch rail angle, and ended with pouring model airplane fuel down the tubes, so it was on top of the engine, and then glueing and taping the nose cones on (Kids, don't try this at home!).

The ejection charge would blow out the center of the tube and atomize the airplane fuel, and then detonate it, giving you a mini Fuel-Air Explosion Fireball at the apex of the trajectory.

[blackdog]

Remember those Bangsite toy cannons? You bought a toothpaste sized tube of thermite and when the spring loaded pin hit the little amount you squeezed into the cannon port, it went off with bravado. I played with it for years.

Now you can't even get thermite into a college science lab without a standoff.

The best explosions I ever created, and I had some doosies, was with dust. Just plain old ordinary dust emptied from the vacum cleaner bag. What's next, needing ATF forms for running a vacum? Enriched dust and all......

[Washi]

Hey, I was gonna post this story!

You beat me to it.

Gotta love that Patriot Act. I'm expecting a ban on Pop-Rocks and square table corners next.

washi

[MassExodus]

Somehow, we need to get the NRA to take notice of this.

This has got to be turned around.

[Cachelot]

Based upon this definition, even gasoline would fit this description since its purpose is to explode inside the cylinder of an internal combustion engine

Nope, it isn't. Its purpose is to combust inside the cylinder, hence "combustion engine". An exploding fuel would render your engine useless in short order :).

Actually, the same would hold true for rocketry. You don't want your fuel to explode at any time.

[Just another Joe]

Don't you know that these model rocket engines could, if strategically placed, burn this country to a crisp in a nanosecond? /sarcasm

[ItsTheMediaStupid]

Actually it does explode, and an explosion is also a form of combustion.

[dark_lord]

“I am told that the ATF claims that the primary or common purpose of a rocket propellant is to explode. A rocket propellant is not designed or intended to explode.”

Well, that's the ATF.

[GSWarrior]

I will surrender my Big Bertha when they pry it from my cold dead hands.

[from occupied ga]

of thermite

No you didn't - not thermite - that stuff was calcium carbide which makes acetylene gas when in contact with water. Thermite is something else entirely.

[Dbdaily]

My Son and I Tried out Model Rockets for awhile. Since I was a Missile Tech in the Navy I figured i'd be pretty good at it. After Blowin a few up and losing them in the trees, we gave up. Well anyway. GO NAVY!!

[Blood of Tyrants]

Damned stupid @$$ed ATF again!

I saw those @$$holes poking around in the R.I. nightclub debris!

[jae471]

I bought some just last month -- laucher, models, motors, the whole works -- at Kennedy Space Center.

[Orangedog]

Sounds like both of us would be labeled as domestic terrorists had we grown up in the present. I caused my share of havoc in 8th grade with iodine crystals and ammonia. If you smear it onto the back of a desk drawer just right, it will nearly blow the drawer clean out of the desk!

I made my first REAL fire-cracker with a one of the spent big boy Estes rocket engines. I learned enough to make gun powder and what type of ground up metal works best to "enhance" gun powder out of an old 1960's set of encyclopedias. This was back in the 80's, before the Internet when you actually had to crack open books to learn improvised demolision.

[Blood of Tyrants]

I wouldn't dare them, if I were you.

[astounded]

I guess they had better ban the World Book Encyclopedia - circa 1965. From there, I learned how to make black powder. It was a simple task to obtain elemental sulfur, ammonium chloride (saltpeter for you Navy men), and Kingsford from the garage. Some simple mortaring/pesteling work, mixed in the proper proportion, and wham - bomb-making material. They also had a chapter on fission bombs, featuring Liittle Boy and Fat Man - with schematics and descriptions. Now, to a 10 year old boy, that was a big bang in the making. LOL.