251–260 of 561 posts
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Unbombed people are cute.
That's why it's so important for people who can hold a moral line, to do so. Violence breeds violence. A good engineer in America can afford avoiding weapons work.
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> price floor is not dictated by the electronics (which did get cheaper), it's dictated by the rest of the system: propulsion, warheads, arming and safety, QA, traceability, climate and shelf life stability. I wonder how much of that Ukraine is bothering with. Or Iran. Certainly Hezbollah are building down to a budget.
I wonder how many Hezbollah rocket operators get blown up by their own rockets? A not insignificant number, I suspect.
The engineering is genuinely impressive for $96, but naming the repo "MANPADS-System-Launcher-and-Rocket" on GitHub is going to attract exactly the kind of attention you don't want. ITAR implications aside, the interesting part is the mid-flight trajectory recalculation on a $5 sensor. That's the same basic problem military guidance systems solve with hardware that costs thousands. The gap between consumer electronic…
> The gap between consumer electronics and mil-spec capability keeps shrinking My friend's brother works in munitions and had, in his spare time, designed and prototyped a missile that could be built for about 10k. He pretty much was ignored by the contractor he works for. Shockingly, as of a couple weeks ago, they are all hot and bothered to talk.
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You don't need to win any wars with it if you can use them to sow confusion, obscure the firing of more serious rockets, and/or trigger a sufficiently more expensive response. It clearly needs more work, but if an amateur can get this far at this low cost, odds are you'll see attempts at overwhelming attackers or defense systems by sheer volume with cheap decoys like this long before they become an actual threat in a…
With a 3D printer and some 'ordinary household chemicals' to quote a certain movie you can do pretty scary stuff.
We don't try to regulate those things out of existence like we do with new technology (drones and now 3D printers)
Kind of ridiculous that a country with more guns than people and 45k firearms deaths per year wants to regulate 3D printed plastic. Yet collecting and shooting actual guns is still an acceptable hobby in many states.
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Regardless, he made a prototype rocket enclosure and he seems to have the software down… I think the propulsion system will be the easy part. Hardest part will be tuning the PID so that the rocket goes where he wants it to. Then incorporating his tracking system will be another challenge of itself but that’s because of the form factor. As long as his calculus and linear algebra is good I see than being successful. Ei…
> I think the propulsion system will be the easy part. Really? I think rocket science is still not easy. Just look at how much nation states are spending on maintaining their liquid and/or solid fuel rocket programs. If they even have one, let alone both. This book might give some insights into the why https://library.sciencemadness.org/library/books/ignition.pd... Quote: "All this sounds fairly academic and innocuou…
The engineering is genuinely impressive for $96, but naming the repo "MANPADS-System-Launcher-and-Rocket" on GitHub is going to attract exactly the kind of attention you don't want. ITAR implications aside, the interesting part is the mid-flight trajectory recalculation on a $5 sensor. That's the same basic problem military guidance systems solve with hardware that costs thousands. The gap between consumer electronic…
Owning a system designed for surface to air weapon carries life imprisonment any USA, without any intent for violence, just simple possession or conspiracy to possess[]. Doesn't even matter if you have an NFA stamp, there is no exception except if it's done with authorization and behalf of the government. Merely having a device intended to guide the rocket is also the same penalty. [] https://www.law.cornell.edu/usco…
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> I think the propulsion system will be the easy part. Really? I think rocket science is still not easy. Just look at how much nation states are spending on maintaining their liquid and/or solid fuel rocket programs. If they even have one, let alone both. This book might give some insights into the why https://library.sciencemadness.org/library/books/ignition.pd... Quote: "All this sounds fairly academic and innocuou…
With all do respect I think your over complicating the problem. It’s not rocket science (no pun intended). It’s essentially a hobby rocket that can be weaponized and it’s all DIY. That’s the point simple and off the shelf. Not meant to travel towards the stratosphere or even long range. Quick and dirty way to cause havoc in a localized area.
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I am completely against the US-Israeli war on Iran. That said, they are not carpet-bombing Iran. That is, they appear to be selecting individual targets rather than engaging in carpet bombing entire areas: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carpet_bombing The choice of targets is not legally legitimate (and the entire campaign is illegal AFAICT), and sometimes they used old/invalid intel, like what happened with that girl…
I understand your compulsion to rationalize things, make excuses for your abusers, but I ask you to contemplate for a moment what you are defending. One, hopefully we have all seen the genocidal bombing of Gaza turning whole regions of large apartment blocks into an hell-scape of rubble with tens of thousands of people buried underneath them; people, not animals, not “just brown people”, not “terrorists”… people like…
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That's why it's so important for people who can hold a moral line, to do so. Violence breeds violence. A good engineer in America can afford avoiding weapons work.
it's good work if it helps the right people
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"and you are not going to win any war with this toy, even if all your enemy has are rocks thrown at you" I don't want to use it for war. I think it would be a pretty cool technical project (if it works).
This design is pretty clearly optimized for weaponry. Eg the foldable fins - necessary if you want to keep a magazine of these things stored compactly before firing. Totally unnecessary for funsies. What nonviolent application are you imagining for a gps-guided rocket that is launched by pulling a gun trigger on a hand held mount?
A launcher for a climbing rope or grappling hook. Have you ever tried getting a rope up over a branch on a very tall tree?
Not joking - I considered it as a hobby project years ago until I discovered how hard it would be to do legally.