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To: no-s
Are you intentionally being obtuse or is it beyond your ability to control?

No, eight year olds can not manufacture black powder or fireworks. I did not suggest the manufacture of the black powder or of fireworks. I suggested a reasonable method to allow the supervising adult (You do expect for your child to be supervised using something as inherently dangerous as a model rocket, right?) to manufacture a serviceable engine using readily available materials to allow the hobby to continue.

Any adult who has passed high school chemistry classes or at the very least can read and follow directions can safely and reliably manufacture black powder motors. (Not a task for children regardless of how much smarter they might be than certain individuals who may be supervising them.) If the hobby means that much to you, then be willing to follow it to its reasonable conclusion.

Understanding the physics and chemistry behind the whoosh and pop is just as important as the wow factor of a paper tube jumping off the ground. Unless you just want to toss things into the air. If that's the reason you got into model rockets, can I suggest a potato cannon or if that's too much for you, a compressed air and water type toy? Somehow I feel that would be safer if the above are beyond your ability.

As to the legality of the matter, we put the fools behind the new law into office. Take some responsibility and put them out if they are a threat to your entertainment. Of course you should not do anything that your masters tell you is against their will, that's for free people.

I have little patience for a lack of reasoning ability, a public education is no excuse. Many people overcome that handicap every day.

/rant off
5 posted on 03/31/2003 10:13:06 AM PST by Rasputin_TheMadMonk (Yes I am a bastard, but I'm a free, white, gun owning bastard. Just ask my exwife.)
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To: Rasputin_TheMadMonk
Calm down and look again bud, I'm not obtuse, and not sarcastic. You wrote:
Just learn how to manufacture your own black powder rocket motors.

The article you link to is about sugar/KNO3 motors, btw.

I was perfectly able to make good quality powder and compressed powder in 3rd grade, courtesy of Encyclopeadia Britannica. And other singed-eyebrow stuff. Most of those activities are illegal now, regardless of intent. Commercial rocket motors are a good way to get kids started without completely re-capitulating rocket science, and without freaking out the law.

It's a mistake to effectively ban them, and legislative relief is needed. We're not science wussies for giving our kids a leg up. Would you ban textbooks too? Although the kids encyclopedias are curiously lacking the good stuff I remember from my day...

6 posted on 03/31/2003 11:38:09 AM PST by no-s (humming "Black Powder and Alcohol, when the states and cities fall"...my kids know the tune too...)
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